JONSON, BEN or BENJAMIN (1573-1637).—­Poet and dramatist, was probably b. in Westminster.  His f., who d. before Ben was four, seems to have come from Carlisle, and the family to have originally belonged to Annandale.  He was sent to Westminster School, for which he seems to have been indebted to the kindness of W. Camden (q.v.), who was one of the masters.  His mother, meanwhile, had m. a bricklayer, and he was for a time put to that trade, but disliking it, he ran away and joined the army, fighting against the Spaniards in the Low Countries.  Returning to England about 1592 he took to the stage, both as an actor and as a playwright.  In the former capacity he was unsuccessful.  In 1598, having killed a fellow-actor in a duel, he was tried for murder, but escaped by benefit of clergy.  About the same time he joined the Roman Catholic Church, in which he remained for 12 years.  It was in 1598 also that his first successful play, Every Man in his Humour, was produced, with Shakespeare as one of the players. Every Man out of his Humour (1599), Cynthia’s Revels (1600), and The Poetaster (1601), satirising the citizens, the courtiers, and the poets respectively, followed.  The last called forth several replies, the most notable of which was the Satiromastix (Whip for the Satirist) of Dekker (q.v.), a severe, though not altogether unfriendly, retort, which J. took in good part, announcing his intention of leaving off satire and trying tragedy.  His first work in this kind was Sejanus (1603), which was not very favourably received.  It was followed by Eastward Ho, in which he collaborated with Marston and Chapman.  Certain reflections on Scotland gave offence to James I., and the authors were imprisoned, but soon released.  From the beginning of the new reign J. devoted himself largely to the writing of Court masques, in which he excelled all his contemporaries, and about the same time entered upon the production of the three great plays in which his full strength is shown.  The first of these, Volpone, or the Fox, appeared in 1605; Epicaene, or the Silent Woman in 1609, and The Alchemist in 1610.  His second and last tragedy, Catiline, was produced in 1611.  Two years later he was in France as companion to the son of Sir W. Raleigh, and on his return he held up hypocritical Puritanism to scorn in Bartholomew Fair, which was followed in 1616 by a comedy, The Devil is an Ass.  In the same year he coll. his writings—­plays, poems, and epigrams—­in a folio entitled his Works.  In 1618 he journeyed on foot to Scotland, where he was received with much honour, and paid his famous visit to Drummond (q.v.) at Hawthornden.  His last successful play, The Staple of Newes, was produced in 1625, and in the same year he had his first stroke of palsy, from which he never entirely recovered.  His next play,