returned the following answer: "His Majesty "has sent me ten pounds, because I am old and 66 poor, and live in an alley; go, and tell him "that his soul lives in an alley." The bluntness of Jonson's temper might easily afford occasion for such a story to be made; and there is an expression not unlike it occurring in his works, but the fact is otherwise. It is true, that he was poor and ill; but the King relieved him with a bounty of one hundred pounds, which he has expressly acknowledged by an epigram written in that very year, and on that particular occasion. Jonson continued for some time in this low state; and in 1631 he solicited the lord treasurer for relief in a short poem addressed to him, which he called an "Epistle Mendicant," and in which he complains that he had laboured under sickness and want for five years. The want of success attending the preceding play did not discourage him from taking the field again. There are two comedies subsequent, in point of time, to the "New Inn," but both are without a date. Of these, the "Tale of a Tub" was probably his last performance, and is undoubtedly one of those later compositions which Dryden has called his dotages, but yet they are the dotages of Jonson. The "Magnetic Lady" succeeded the "New Inn," though the time of its being first acted is uncertain. The malevolence of criticism, which had marked him for its prey in his younger years, could not be persuaded to reverence his age, but pursued him with unwearied steps, nor left him as long as he could hold a pen; and if we adopt the maxim of a celebrated wit, Jonson must have been certainly a genius from the confederacy of the dunces against him. Alexander Gill, a Poetaster of the times, attacked him with a brutal fury on account of this last play; but Gill was a bad man, as well as a wretched poet; and Jonson, with both these advantages, revenged himself by a short but cutting reply. There are two other pieces which are left unfinished, the "Sad Shepherd," a pastoral tragedy, and the "Fall of Mortimer." Of this last there is only the plan of the drama, and one or two scenes; but the other is carried on almost to the conclusion of the third act; and it is a doubt whether he left it so by design, or whether he was prevented by death. The masques and entertainments went on in the same successive order as before, and the last of these was represented in July 1634. His smaller poems were most of them occasional. The greatest part are without date, nor is there any thing in the subject that leads us to determine the precise time of their composition. Beside the plays, which are entirely his own, Jonson joined with Fletcher and Middleton in writing a comedy called the "Widow;" and he assisted Dr. Hacket, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, in translating the Essays of lord Bacon into Latin. After the year 1634 we do not find that he wrote any thing, or at least, not any thing designed for the stage. He made indeed a translation of "Horace's Art of Poetry," an "English Grammar," and "Observations of Men and Things," which he has called "Discoveries." But the "Art of Poetry" was translated by him very early, for he mentions it in the preface to "Sejanus" as what he proposed shortly to publish, illustrated with notes; but it does not appear to have been published till after he was dead, and much of what was probably intended for the notes is inserted in the "Discoveries." These are a very excellent piece, the fruits of mature and judicious age, valuable not only for the sentiments and observations, but as a pattern of a nervous and concise style. His grammar was written by him when advanced in years; and, in the judgment of Mr. Wotton, Jonson was the first who did any thing considerable with regard to the grammar of the English Language: but, as that author observes, Lylly's Grammar was his pattern; and for want of reflecting upon the grounds of a language, which he understood as well as any man of his age, he drew it by violence to a dead language, that was of a quite different make, and so left his book imperfect. In the decline of his life, Jonson was seized with the palsy, which we suppose afflicted him till the time of his death. He died on the sixth of August 1637, in the sixty-third of his age, and three days after he was interred in Westminster Abbey, at the north west end, near the belfry, under the escutcheon of Robert de Ros or Roos. Over his grave is a common pavement stone, given, says Anthony Wood, by Jack Young of great Milton in Oxfordshire, afterwards knighted by King Charles : the Second, and on it are engraven these words: O RARE BEN JONSON! In the beginning of the year following a collection of Elegies and Poems, on his death was published under the title of "Jonsonius Virbius," or "the Memory of Ben Jonson, revived by the friends of the Muses," In this collection are poems by most of the men of genius in that age by the lord Falkland, the lord Buckhurst, sir John Beaumont, sir Thomas Hawkins, Mr. Waller, by Waring, Mayne, and Cartwright of Oxford, with many others; and among the rest is Owen, Feltham, who attacked him so severely in, answer to his Ode on the "New Inn. This piece was published by Dr. Duppa, Bishop of Chichester, and tutor to Charles the Second then prince of Wales. What is there so desirable as to be loved in life and lamented after death by wise and good men or what more honourable to a poet than to have his memory embalmed by the tears of the Muses! Soon after, a design was set on foot to erect a monument and a statue to him, and a considerable sum of money was collected for that purpose; but, the rebellion breaking out, the design was never executed, and the money was returned. The monument now erected to him in the abbey was placed there at the expense of that great encourager of learning the second earl of Oxford of the Harley family. : It appears that Jonson was married and had several children; but none survived him and we know nothing of his wife, or her descent. His eldest son was Benjamin, which was probably the name of Jonson's father, and his eldest daughter Mary. His twenty second epigram is on the loss of this daugther, who died when six months old; and the forty-fifth is on the decease of his son at the age of seven years. His person was corpulent and large; and his face, if we may believe his admirers, resembled Menander's, as the head of that poet is represented upon ancient gems and medals: in like manner as Vida is said to have resembled Virgil. His disposition was reserved and saturnine, and sometimes not a little oppressed with the gloom of a splenetic imagination. He told Drummond, as an instance of this, that he had lain a whole night fancying he saw the Carthaginians and Romans, Turks and Tartars, fighting on his great toe. He has been often represented as of an envious, arrogant, over-bearing temper, and insolent and haughty in his converse but these ungracious drawings were the performance of his enemies, who certainly were not solicitous to give a flattering likeness in their portraits of the original. But considering the provocations he received, with the mean and contemptible talents of those who opposed him, what we condemn as vanity or conceit might be only the exertions of conscious and insulted merit. He was laborious and indefatigable in his studies; his reading was copious and extensive; his memory so tenacious and strong that, when turned of forty, he could have repeated all that he had ever written; his judgment accurate and solid; and he was often consulted by those who knew him well in branches |
