Note 20 — A. H. BULLEN, B.A.

Among the Hatfield MSS. is a letter (communicated to Gifford by the elder Disraeli), dated “1605,” of Ben Jonson to Lord Salisbury, in which Jonson writes that he had been committed to prison unexamined and unheard, “and with me a gentleman (whose name may perhaps have come to your lordship), one Mr. George Chapman, a learned and honest man,” for introducing into a play some matter which had given offence. With much warmth he declares that, since his “first error,” he had been scrupulously careful not to write anything against which objection could be taken. Gifford assumed that “first error” referred to Eastward Ho, and that Jonson was suffering for another offence when the letter was written. What the “first error” was cannot be determined with certainty, for it is not improbable that Jonson was frequently in trouble. It is quite possible that the letter was written when Jonson and Chapman were in prison on the Eastward Ho charge. Jonson may have written on Chapman’s behalf and his own, leaving Marston to shift for himself. But such conduct would have been ungenerous; and I prefer to adopt Gifford’s view that the imprisonment of which the letter complains was not connected with Eastward Ho. Besides, the satirical reflections on the Scots, and any particular allusions to Sir James Graham, would have been more pertinent in 1603 than in 1605.