Item V/i/07 - Ben Jonson, volume IV: Cynthia's revels; Poetaster; Sejanus; Eastward Ho

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JONSON, BENJAMIN (better known as JONSON, BEN); b. probably in Westminster 1573; at school under Grant, his school expenses being paid by William Camden, then Second Master; escaped from his trade as a bricklayer to join English army in Flanders; on return to England began to work for the stage, and in 1597 was both “player” and “playwright” in the Admiral’s Company; briefly imprisoned in 1598 for killing a fellow actor in a brawl or duel; his first extant comedy, Every Man in his Humour, was performed in 1598 at the Globe Theatre by the Lord Chamberlain’s Company, with Shakespeare in the cast; his first extant tragedy, Sejanus, was performed in 1603 at the Globe Theatre by Shakespeare’s company; The Masque of Blackness, the first of his long series of Court Masques, was performed at Whitehall on Twelfth Night 1605; MA Oxford 19 Jul 1619, receiving degree when on a visit to his friend Richard Corbet (qv); although he states himself that he was MA of both Universities, no record of a Cambridge degree has been found; Chronologer to the City of London, 1628; his works have been edited by W. Gifford, 1816, and Lieut. -Col. Cunningham, 1875; d. 6 Aug 1637. Buried North Aisle of Nave, Westminster Abbey, memorial in Poets’ Corner. DNB.