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.[1] If religion was the cause, as is
- ↑ 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
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. J640, both the lines stand as here given.
