Mr. BENJAMIN JOHNSON.
Reading edition
This renowned Poet, whose Fame surmounts all the Elogies which the most learned Pen can bestow upon him, was born in the City of Westminster, his Mother living there in Harts-horn-lane, near Charing-cross, where she married a Bricklayer for her second Husband. He was first bred in a private School in St. Martin's-Church, then in Westminster-School, under the learned Mr. Cambden, as he himself intimates in one of his Epigrams.
Cambden, most reverend head, to whom I owe All that I am in Arts, all that I know. How nothings that, to whom my Country owes, The great renown and name wherewith she goes.
Under this learned Schoolmaster he attained to a good degree of learning, and was statutably admitted in St. John's-Colledge in Cambridge, (as many years after incorporated a honorary Member of Christ-Church in Oxford) here he staid but some small time, for want of maintainance; for if there be no Oyl in the Lamp, it will soon be extinguish'd: And now, as if he had quite laid aside all thoughts of the University, he betook himself to the Trade of his Father-in-law; And let not any be offended herewith, since it is more commendable to work in a lawful Calling, then having one not to use it. He was one who helped in the building of the new Structure of Lincolns-Inn, where, having a Trowel in his hand, he had a Book in his pocket, that as his work went forward, so his study went not backward.
But such rare Parts as he had could be no more hid, than the Sun in a serene day, some Gentlemen pitying such rare Endowments should be buried under the rubbish of so mean a Calling, did by their bounty manumise him freely to follow his own ingenious inclinations. Indeed his Parts were not so ready to run of themselves, as able to answer the spur; so that it may be truly said of him, that he had an elaborate wit wrought out by his own industry; yet were his Repartees for the most part very quick and smart, and which favour'd much of ingenuity, of which I shall give you two instances.
He having been drinking in an upper room, at the Feathers-Tavern in Cheap side, as he was coming down stairs, his foot slipping, he caught a fall, and tumbling against a door, beat it open into a room where some Gentlemen were drinking Canary; recovering his feet, he said, Gentlemen, since I am so luckily fallen into your company, I will drink with you before I go.
He used very much to frequent the Half-Moon-Tavern in Aldersgate-street, through which was a common Thorough fare; he coming late that way, one night, was denied passage, whereupon going through the Sun-Tavern a little after, he said,
Since that the Moon was so unkind to make me go about, The Sun hence forth shall take my Coin, the Moon shall go without.
His constant humour was to sit silent in learned Company, and suck in (besides Wine) their several Humours into his observation; what was Ore in others, he was able to refine unto himself.
He was one, and the chief of them, in ushering forth the Book of Coriats Crudities, writing not only a Character of the Author, an explanation of his Frontispiece, but also an Acrostick upon his Name, which for the sutableness of it, (tho' we have written something of others mock Verses) we shall here insert it.
Try and trust Roger, was the word, but now Honest Tom Tell-troth puts down Roger, How? Of travel he discourseth so at large, Marry he sets it out at his own charge; And therein (which is worth his valour, too) Shews he dare more than Paul's Church-yard durst do. Come forth thou bonny bouncing Book then, daughter Of Tom of Odcombe, that odd jovial Author, Rather his son I should have call'd thee, why? Yes thou wert born out of his travelling thigh As well as from his brains, and claim'st thereby To be his Bacchus as his Pallas: he Ever his Thighs Male then and his Brains She.
He was paramount in the Dramatick part of Poetry, and taught the Stage an exact conformity to the Laws of Comedians, being accounted the most learned, judicious, and correct of them all, and the more to be admired for being so, for that neither the height of natural parts, for he was no Shakespear, nor the cost of extraordinary education, but his own proper industry, and addiction to Books, advanced him to this perfection. He wrote fifty Plays in all, whereof fifteen Comedies, three Tragedies, the rest Masques and Entertainments. His Comedies were, The Alchimist, Bartholomew Fair, Cynthia's Revels, Caseis alter'd, The Devil is an Ass, Every Man in his humour, every Man out of his humour, The Fox, Magnetick Lady, New Inn, Poetaster, Staple of News, Sad Shepherd, Silent Woman, and A Tale of a Tub. His Tragedies were, Cateline's Conspiracy, Mortimer's Fall, and Seianus. His Masques and Entertainments, too long here to write, were thirty and two, besides a Comedy of East-ward, hoe? in which he was partner with Chapman.
These his Plays were above the vulgar capacity, (which are onely tickled with down-right obscenity) and took not so well at the first stroke, as at the rebound, when beheld the second time, yea, they will endure reading, and that with due commendation, so long as either ingenuity or learning are fashionable in our Nation. And although all his Plays may endure the test, yet in three of his Comedies, namely, The Fox, Alchymist, and Silent Woman, he may be compared in the judgment of the learned men, for decorum, language and well-humouring parts, as well with the chief of the ancient Greek and Latine Comedians, as the prime of modern Italians, who have been judged the best of Europe for a happy vein in Comedies; nor is his Bartholomew Fair much short of them. As for his other Comedies, Staple of News, Devil's an Ass, and the rest, if they be not so sprightful and vigorous as his first pieces, all that are old will, and all that desire to be old, should excuse him therein; and therefore let the Name of Ben Johnson sheild them against whoever shall think fit to be severe in censure against them. Truth is, his Tragedies, Seianus and Cateline seem to have in them more of an artificial and inflate, than of a pathetical and naturally Tragick height; yet do they every one of them far excel any of the English ones that were writ before him; so that he may be truly said to be the first reformer of the English Stage, as he himself more truly than modestly writes in his commendatory Verses of his Servants Richard Broom's Comedy of the Northern Lass.
Which you have justly gained from the Stage, By observation of those Comick Laws, Which I, your Master, first did teach the Age.
In the rest of his Poetry, (for he is not wholly Dramatick) as his Underwoods, Epigrams, &c. he is sometimes bold and strenuous, sometimes Magisterial, sometimes lepid and full enough of conceit, and sometimes a man as other men are.
It seems the issue of his brain was more lively and lasting than the issue of his body, having several Children, yet none living to survive him; This he bestowed as part of an Epitaph on his eldest Son, dying an Infant.
Rest in soft peace, and ask'd, say, Here doth lye Ben Johnson his best piece of Poetry.
But tho' the immortal Memory still lives of him in his learned Works, yet his Body, subject to mortality, left this life, Anno 1638. and was buried about the Belfrey in the Abbey-Church at Westminster, having only upon a Pavement over his Grave, this written:
O Rare Ben Johnson.
Yet were not the Poets then so dull and dry, but that many expressed their affection to his Memory in Elegies and Epitaphs; amongst which this following may not be esteemed the worst.
The Muses fairest Light in no dark time, The Wonder of a learned Age; the line That none can pass: the most proportion'd Wit To Nature; the best Judge of what was fit: The deepest, plainest, highest, clearest Pen: The Voyce most eccho'd by consenting men; The Soul which answer'd best to all well said By others; and which most requital made: Tun'd to the highest Key of ancient Rome; Returning all her Musick with her own; In whom with Nature, Study claim'd a part, And yet who to himself ow'd all his Art; Here lies Ben Johnson, every Age will look With sorrow here, with Wonder on his Book.