BEN JONSON (1574-1637) (MS. Aubrey, slightly abridged.) "Mr. Benjamin Jonson Poet laureat; I remember when I was a scholar at Trinity Coll. Oxon 1646, I heard Dr. Ralph Bathurst (now Dean of Wells) say that Ben Jonson was a Warwickshire man.-sed quære. Tis agreed that his father was a minister; and by his epistle dedicat. of Every Man to Mr. Wm. Camden that he was a Westminster scholar and that Mr. W. Camden was his schoolmaster. His mother, after his father's death, married a bricklayer, and 't is generally sayd that he wrought some time with his father-in-lawe particularly on the garden wall of Lincoln's Inne next to Chancery Lane, and that a knight, a bencher, walking thro' and hearing him repeat some Greek verses out of Homer, discoursing with him and finding him to have a witt extraordinary, gave him some exhibition to maintaine him at Trinity College in Cambridge. "Then he went into the lowe countries and spent some time (not very long) in the armie. "Then he came over to England and acted and wrote, but both ill, at the Green curtaine, a kind of nursery, or obscure playhouse, some where in the suburbs, I think towards Shoreditch or Clarkenwell. "Then he undertooke againe to write a playe, and did hitt it admirably well, viz. Every Man . which was his first good one. "He was, or rather had been of a clear faire skin, his habit was very plaine. I have heard Mr. Lacy, the player, say, that he was wont to weare a coate like a coachman's coat, with slitts under the arme pitts. He would many times exceed in drink (Canarie was his beloved liquor): then he would tumble home to bed and when he had perspired, then to studie. I have seen his studying chair, which was of strawe such as old women used, and as Aulus Gellius is drawen in. "When I was in Oxon, Bishop Skinner who lay at our college, was wont to say that he understood an author as well as any man in England. "Long since, in King James's time, I have heard my Uncle Danvers say, who knew him, that he lived without Temple-Barre, at a comb makers shop, about the Elephant and Castle. In his later time he lived in Westminster in the house under which you passe as you goe out of the churchyard into the old palace; where he died. He lies buried in the North aisle opposite to the scutcheon of Robertus de Ros, with this inscription only on him, O RARE BEN JONSON Which was done at the charge of Jack Young (afterwards knighted) who, walking there when his grave was covering, gave the fellow eighteen pence to cutt it. "'T was an ingeniose remark of Lady Hoskins that B. J. never writes of love, or if he does, it does not come naturally. "The King made him write against the Puritans, who began to be very troublesome in his time. "A GRACE BY BEN JONSON, EXTEMPORE, BEFORE KING JAMES "Our King & Queen, the Lord-God blesse, That lives and breathes, and loves the King. And Buckingham, the fortunate, God blesse them all, and keepe them safe, "The King was mighty enquisitive to know who this 'Raph' was. Ben told him 't was the drawer at the Swanne taverne, who drew him good Canarie. For this drollery his Majestie gave him an hundred pounds." Aubrey appends a letter from Isaac Walton written in 1680, when he was eighty-seven years of age, concerning some supplementary information of his own about Ben Jonson, but it is scarcely in harmony with the taste of the present age though we can imagine with what delight Aubrey added it to his collection. ANTHONY À WOOD (1632-1695) This distinguished antiquary was one of the most erudite and painstaking of biographers. Unfortun ately for us, his monumental work, Athena Oxoniensis, deals necessarily only with such distinguished persons as were matriculated, or had at least been "commoners," at Oxford University. Consequently it includes no biography of Shakespeare, but mentions him in the text of his long biographical notice of Sir William D'Avenant. Besides the Athena Oxoniensis, which in spite of its name and the author's original intention, is in English, Wood wrote in Latin a thick folio volume on the antiquities of Oxford. WILLIAM FULMAN (From Athena Oxoniensis, vol. ii., page 823, slightly abridged.) "Wm. Fulman, son of a sufficient carpenter was born in Penshurst, Kent in 1632 and being a youth of pregnant parts, when the learned Dr. Hammond was parson of that place he took him under his protection and carried him to Oxon and caused him to be carefully educated. (This Dr. Hammond was born in 1605, was graduated in Divinity at Oxford, 1622, and became rector of Penshurst.) Hammond made Fulman his amanuensis and when the political troubles of King Charles reign drove both from Oxford, Fulman obtained through his patron the position of tutor in the 'genteel' family of Peto in Chesterton, Warwickshire where he found a comfortable harbour during the Church of England's disconsolate condition. He later returned to Oxford where he obtained his degree and a Fellowship. He was a most zealous son of the Church of England and an enemy to Popery and Fanaticism, admirably versed in Ecclesiastical and profane history. Wrote much, published little, was a famous collector and aided in the writing of many books including a History of Charles I., etc. "At length our learned author, being overtaken with a malignant fever, died in 1688, leaving behind him a heap of collections neatly written in his own hand, but nothing of them perfect, all which, at his desire, were put in the archives of Corpus Christi College; what had it been for those that had the care of them to have permitted the author of this work the perusal of them! when they could not otherwise but know that they would have been serviceable to him in the promotion of this work [Athena Oxoniensis] now almost ready for the press. But such is the humour of Men of this age, that rather than act a part for the Public Good and honour of learning they 'll suffer choice things to be buried in Oblivion." Among these collections (still, by the way, buried in oblivion in the college records) are some notes on the life of Shakespeare agreeing with those set down by Rowe. They are also annotated by another clergyman friend, Dr. Davies, who set down some supplementary information. Apparently no one has tried to discover any explana |