(safety-matches) was introduced later. There are also textile manufactures, paper-factories (on Munksjö), and mechanical works. There is a large fire-arms factory at Huskvarna, 5 m. E. Water-power is supplied here by a fine series of falls. The hill Taberg, 8 m. S., is a mass of magnetic iron ore, rising 410 ft. above the surrounding country, 2950 ft. long and 1475 ft. broad, but the percentage of iron is low as compared with the rich ores of other parts, and the deposit is little worked. Jönköping is the seat of one of the three courts of appeal in Sweden.
Jönköping received the earliest extant Swedish charter in 1284 from Magnus I. The castle is mentioned in 1263, when Waldemar Birgersson married the Danish princess Sophia. Jönköping was afterwards the scene of many events of moment in Scandinavian history—of parliaments in 1357, 1439, and 1599; of the meeting of the Danish and Swedish plenipotentiaries in 1448; and of the death of Sten Sture, the elder, in 1503. In 1612 Gustavus Adolphus caused the inhabitants to destroy their town lest it should fall into the hands of the Danes; but it was rebuilt soon after, and in 1620 received special privileges from the king. At this period a textile industry was started here, the first of any importance in Sweden. It was from the Dutch and German workmen, introduced at this time, that the quarter Tyska Mad received its name. On the 10th of December 1809 the plenipotentiaries of Sweden and Denmark concluded peace in the town.
JONSON, BEN[1] (1573–1637), English dramatist, was born,
probably in Westminster, in the beginning of the year 1573 (or
possibly, if he reckoned by the unadopted modern calendar,
1572; see Castelain, p. 4, note 1). By the poet’s account his
grandfather had been a gentleman who “came from” Carlisle,
and originally, the grandson thought, from Annandale. His
arms, “three spindles or rhombi,” are the family device of the
Johnstones of Annandale, a fact which confirms his assertion of
Border descent. Ben Jonson further related that he was born
a month after the death of his father, who, after suffering in
estate and person under Queen Mary, had in the end “turned
minister.” Two years after the birth of her son the widow
married again; she may be supposed to have loved him in a
passionate way peculiar to herself, since on one occasion we
find her revealing an almost ferocious determination to save his
honour at the cost of both his life and her own. Jonson’s
stepfather was a master bricklayer, living in Hartshorn Lane,
near Charing Cross, who provided his stepson with the foundations
of a good education. After attending a private school in
St Martin’s Lane, the boy was sent to Westminster School at
the expense, it is said, of William Camden. Jonson’s gratitude
for an education to which in truth he owed an almost inestimable
debt concentrated itself upon the “most reverend head” of
his benefactor, then second and afterwards head master of the
famous school, and the firm friend of his pupil in later life.
After reaching the highest form at Westminster, Jonson is stated, but on unsatisfactory evidence, to have proceeded to Cambridge—according to Fuller, to St John’s College. (For reasons in support of the tradition that he was a member of St John’s College, see J. B. Mullinger, the Eagle, No. xxv.) He says, however, himself that he studied at neither university, but was put to a trade immediately on leaving school. He soon had enough of the trade, which was no doubt his father’s bricklaying, for Henslowe in writing to Edward Alleyne of his affair with Gabriel Spenser calls him “bergemen [sic] Jonson, bricklayer.” Either before or after his marriage—more probably before, as Sir Francis Vere’s three English regiments were not removed from the Low Countries till 1592—he spent some time in that country soldiering, much to his own subsequent satisfaction when the days of self-conscious retrospect arrived, but to no further purpose beyond that of seeing something of the world.
Ben Jonson married not later than 1592. The registers of St Martin’s Church state that his eldest daughter Maria died in November 1593 when she was, Jonson tells us (epigram 22), only six months old. His eldest son Benjamin died of the plague ten years later (epigram 45). (A younger Benjamin died in 1635.) His wife Jonson characterized to Drummond as “a shrew, but honest”; and for a period (undated) of five years he preferred to live without her, enjoying the hospitality of Lord Aubigny (afterwards duke of Lennox). Long burnings of oil among his books, and long spells of recreation at the tavern, such as Jonson loved, are not the most favoured accompaniments of family life. But Jonson was no stranger to the tenderest of affections: two at least of the several children whom his wife bore to him he commemorated in touching little tributes of verse; nor in speaking of his lost eldest daughter did he forget “her mother’s tears.” By the middle of 1597 we come across further documentary evidence of him at home in London in the shape of an entry in Philip Henslowe’s diary (July 28) of 3s. 6d. “received of Bengemenes Johnsones share.” He was therefore by this time—when Shakespeare, his senior by nearly nine years, was already in prosperous circumstances and good esteem—at least a regular member of the acting profession, with a fixed engagement in the lord admiral’s company, then performing under Henslowe’s management at the Rose. Perhaps he had previously acted at the Curtain (a former house of the lord admiral’s men), and “taken mad Jeronimo’s part” on a play-wagon in the highway. This latter appearance, if it ever took place, would, as was pointed out by Gifford, probably have been in Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy, since in The First Part of Jeronimo Jonson would have had, most inappropriately, to dwell on the “smallness” of his “bulk.” He was at a subsequent date (1601) employed by Henslowe to write up The Spanish Tragedy, and this fact may have given rise to Wood’s story of his performance as a stroller (see, however, Fleay, The English Drama, ii. 29, 30). Jonson’s additions, which were not the first changes made in the play, are usually supposed to be those printed with The Spanish Tragedy in the edition of 1602; Charles Lamb’s doubts on the subject, which were shared by Coleridge, seem an instance of that subjective kind of criticism which it is unsafe to follow when the external evidence to the contrary is so strong.
According to Aubrey, whose statement must be taken for what it is worth, “Jonson was never a good actor, but an excellent instructor.” His physique was certainly not well adapted to the histrionic conditions of his—perhaps of any—day; but, in any case, it was not long before he found his place in the organism of his company. In 1597, as we know from Henslowe, Jonson undertook to write a play for the lord admiral’s men; and in the following year he was mentioned by Merès in his Palladis Tamia as one of “the best for tragedy,” without any reference to a connexion on his part with the other branch of the drama. Whether this was a criticism based on material evidence or an unconscious slip, Ben Jonson in the same year 1598 produced one of the most famous of English comedies, Every Man in his Humour, which was first acted—probably in the earlier part of September—by the lord chamberlain’s company at the Curtain. Shakespeare was one of the actors in Jonson’s comedy, and it is in the character of Old Knowell in this very play that, according to a bold but ingenious guess, he is represented in the half-length portrait of him in the folio of 1623, beneath which were printed Jonson’s lines concerning the picture. Every Man in his Humour was published in 1601; the critical prologue first appears in the folio of 1616, and there are other divergences (see Castelain, appendix A). After the Restoration the play was revived in 1751 by Garrick (who acted Kitely) with alterations, and long continued to be known on the stage. It was followed in the same year by The Case is Altered, acted by the children of the queen’s revels, which contains a satirical attack upon the pageant poet, Anthony Munday. This comedy, which was not included in the folio editions, is one of intrigue rather than of character; it contains obvious reminiscences of Shylock and his daughter. The earlier of these two comedies was indisputably successful.
Before the year 1598 was out, however, Jonson found himself in prison and in danger of the gallows. In a duel, fought on the 22nd of September in Hogsden Fields, he had killed an actor of Henslowe’s company named Gabriel Spenser. The quarrel with
- ↑ His Christian name of Benjamin was usually abbreviated by himself and his contemporaries; and thus, in accordance with his famous epitaph, it will always continue to be abbreviated.
