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thus writes: "His grandfather came from Carlisle, and, he thought, from Annandale to it: he served King Henry VIII., and was a gentleman. His father lost all his estate under Queen Mary, having been cast in prison and forfeited; at last turned minister: so he was a minister's son. He himself was posthumous born, a month after his father's decease; brought up poorly, put to school by a friend (his master Camden); after, taken from it, and put to another craft (I think was to be a wright or bricklayer), which he could not endure; then went he to the Low Countries; but returning soon, he betook himself to his wonted studies. In his service in the Low Countries, he had, in the face of both the camps, killed an enemy and taken opima spolia from him; and since his coming to England, being appealed to the fields, he had killed his adversary which had hurt him in the arm, and whose sword was ten inches longer than his; for the which he was imprisoned, and almost at the gallows. Then took he his religion by trust, of a priest who visited him in prison. Thereafter he was twelve years a Papist." Aubrey says in his random way, "He killed Mr. Marlowe the poet on Bunhill, coming from the Green Curtain Playhouse." We know where Marlowe was killed, and when he was killed. He was slain at Deptford in 1593. Gifford supposes that this tragical event in Jonson's life took place in 1595; but the conjecture is set aside by an indisputable account of the fact. Philip Henslowe, writing to his son-in-law Alleyn on the 26th of September, 1598, says, "Since you were with me I have lost one of my company, which hurteth me greatly, that is Gabrell [Gabriel], for he is slain in Hogsden Fields by the hands of Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer; therefore I would fain have a little of your counsel, if I could."* This event took place then, we see, exactly at the period when Jonson was in constant intercourse with Henslowe's company; and it probably arose out of some quarrel at the theatre that he was "appealed to the fields." The expression of Henslowe, Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer," is a remarkable one. It is inconsistent with Jonson's own declaration that after his return from the Low Countries he "betook himself to his wonted studies." We believe that Henslowe, under the excitement of that loss for which he required the counsel of Alleyn, used it as a term of opprobrium, that was familiar to his company. Dekker, who was a writer for Henslowe's theatre, and who in 1599 was associated with Jonson in the composition of two plays, ridicules his former friend and colleague, in 1602, as a "poor lime and hair rascal,”—as one who ambled “in a leather pilch by a play-waggon in the highway"-" a foul-fisted mortar-treader "-" one famous for killing a player"-one whose face "looks for all the world like a rotten russet-apple when it is bruised "—-whose "goodly and glorious nose was blunt, blunt, blunt "who is asked, "how chance it passeth that you bid good bye to an honest trade of building chimnies and laying down bricks for a worse handicraftness?"-who is twitted with "dost stamp, mad Tamburlaine, dost stamp; thou think'st thou'st mortar under thy feet, dost?"-one whose face was punched full of eyelet-holes like the cover of a warming-pan"-" a hollowcheeked scrag." It is evident from all this abuse, which we transcribe as the * Letter in Dulwich College, quoted in Collier's 'Memoirs of Alleyn.'

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passages occur in Dekker's Satiro-Mastix,' that the poverty, the personal appearance, and, above all, the original occupation of Jonson, exposed him to the vulgar ridicule of some of those with whom he was brought into contact at the theatre. They did not feel as honest old Fuller felt, when, describing Jonson, being in want of maintenance, as "fain to return to the trade of his father-in-law," the old chronicler of the Worthies says-" Let not them blush that have, but those who have not, a lawful calling." We can thus understand what Henslowe means when he says "Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer." In the autumn of 1598 the bricklayer-poet was lying in prison. At the Christmas of that year Every Man in his Humour,' greatly altered from the original sketch produced by Henslowe's company, was brought out by the Lord Chamberlain's company at the Blackfriars. The doors of Henslowe's theatre on the Bankside were probably shut against the man who had killed Gabriel, "whose sword was ten inches longer than his." There seems to have been an effort on the part of some one to console the unhappy prisoner under his calamity. He was a writer for a rival theatre, receiving its advances up to the 13th of August, 1598. His improved play was brought out by the company of a theatre which stood much higher in the popular and the critical estimation a few months afterwards. There was an act of friendship somewhere. May we not believe that this proud man, who seems to have been keenly alive to neglect and injury— who says that "Daniel was at jealousies with him,"-that "Drayton feared him" that "he beat Marston, and took his pistol from him"-that "Sir William Alexander was not half kind unto him"-that "Markham was but a base fellow "that" such were Day and Middleton," that "Sharpham, Day, Dekker, were all rogues, and that Minshew was one," that "Abraham Francis was a fool "* -may we not believe that some deep remembrance of unusual kindness induced him to write of Shakspere, "I loved the man, and do honour his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was indeed honest, and of an open and free nature?" We have no hesitation in abiding by the common sense of Gifford, who treated with ineffable scorn all that has been written about Jonson's envy, and malignity, and coldness towards Shakspere. We believe with him "that no feud, no jealousy ever disturbed their connection; that Shakspere was pleased with Jonson, and that Jonson loved and admired Shakspere." They worked upon essentially different principles of art; they had each their admirers and disciples; but the field in which they laboured was large enough for both of them, and they each cultivated it after his own fashion. With the exception of such occasional quarrels as those between Jonson and Dekker, the poets of that time lived as a generous brotherhood, whose cordial intercourse might soften many of the rigours of their worldly lot. Jonson was by nature proud, perhaps arrogant. His struggles with penury had made him. proud. He had the inestimable possession of a well-educated boyhood; he had the consciousness of great abilities and great acquirements. He was thrown amongst a band of clever men, some of whom perhaps laughed, as Dekker unworthily did, at his honest efforts to set himself above the real disgrace of earn* All these passages are extracted from his conversations with Drummond.

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ing his bread by corrupt arts; who ridiculed his pimpled face, his "one eye lower than t'other," and his "coat like a coachman's coat, with slips under the arm-pits." So Aubrey describes him who laid down laws of criticism, and married music and painting to the most graceful verse. But when the bricklayer had the gratification of seeing his first comedy performed by the Lord Chamberlain's company, to

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there was one amongst that company strong enough to receive with kindliness even the original prologue, in which the romantic drama, perhaps some of his own plays, were declaimed against by one who belonged to another school of art. Shakspere could not doubt that a man of vigorous understanding had arisen up to devote himself to the exhibition of " popular errors,"-humourspassing accidents of life and character. He himself worked upon more enduring materials; but he would nevertheless see that there was one fitted to deal with the comedy of manners in a higher spirit than had yet been displayed. Not only was the amended Every Man in his Humour' acted by Shakspere's

company, Shakspere himself taking one of the characters; but the second comedy from the same satirist was first produced by that company in 1599. When the author, in his Induction, exclaims

"If any here chance to behold himself,

Let him not dare to challenge me of wrong;
For, if he shame to have his follies known,

First he should shame to act 'em: my strict hand
Was made to seize on vice, and with a gripe

Squeeze out the humour of such spongy souls

As lick up every idle vanity,”

the poet who "was not for an age, but for all time,"-he, especially, who never once comes before the audience in his individual character,-might gently smile at these high pretensions. But he would stretch out the hand of cordial friendship to the man; for he was in earnest-his indignation against vice was an honest one. Though a little personal vanity might peep out-though the satirist might "venture on the stage when the play is ended to exchange courtesies and compliments with gallants in the lord's rooms, to make all the house rise up in arms and to cry,―That's Horace, that's he, that's he, that's he, that pens and purges humours and diseases," Shakspere's congratulations on the success of Asper-for so Jonson delighted to call himself—would come from the heart. An evening at the Falcon might fitly conclude such a first play.

The things "done at the Mermaid" were not as yet. Francis Beaumont, who has made them immortal by his description, was at this period scarcely sixteen years of age. His 'Letter to Jonson' may, however, give us the best notion of the earlier convivial intercourse of some of the illustrious band to whom the young dramatist refers :

"Methinks the little wit I had is lost
Since I saw you; for wit is like a rest
Held up at tennis, which men do the best

With the best gamesters: what things have we seen

Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been

So nimble, and so full of subtile flame,

As if that every one from whence they came

Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,

And had resolv'd to live a fool the rest

Of his dull life; then when there hath been thrown

Wit able enough to justify the town

For three days past-wit that might warrant be

For the whole city to talk foolishly

Till that were cancell'd: and when that was gone,

We left an air behind us, which alone

Was able to make the two next companies

Right witty: though but downright fools, mere wise."

The play at the Blackfriars would be over at five o'clock. The gallants who came from the ordinary to the playhouse would have dined; and so would the players. At three the play commenced; and an audience more rational than

*Satiro-Mastix.

those of our own times as to the quantity of amusement which they demanded would be quite satisfied with the two hours' exhibition :

"Those that come to see

Only a show or two, and so agree

The play may pass, if they be still and willing,
I'll undertake may see away their shilling

Richly in two short hours." *

Out of the smoke and glare of the torches (for in the private theatres the windows were closed so as to exclude the day) would the successful author and his friends come forth into the grey light of a January evening.† The Blackfriars Stairs are close at hand. John Taylor the water-poet was then a very young man; but the apprentice of the Thames might be there, with the ambition already developed to be the ferryman to the wits and actors from the Blackfriars to the Bankside. The "gentlemanlike sculler," as he was subsequently called, might listen even then with a chuckling delight to the sallies of "Master Benjamin Jonson," whom some eighteen years afterwards he wrote of as "my long-approved and assured good friend"-generous withal beyond his means, for "at my taking leave of him he gave me a piece of gold and two-and-twenty shillings to drink his health." The merry party are soon landed at Paris Garden, and walking up the lane, which was a very little to the east of the present Blackfriars Bridge, they turn eastward before they reach the old stone cross, and in a minute or two are on the Bankside, close to the Falcon Inn, in

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