[C] Aubrey gives a drawing of the monument. It is a rectangular stone,
having the inscription on the front; at one end 'the banquetting-howse
at Whitehall in bas relieve,' at the other 'west end of St. Paule's in
bas relieve.' On the top, his bust, in the middle, and at each end a
pinnacle. In MS. Wood F. 39, fol. 163, on Jan. 27, 1671/2, Aubrey notes
that the inscription is 'yet legible, notwithstanding the fire.'
=Thomas Jones= (16-- -1682).
[36]... Jones, B.D., obiit at the house of <Francis> Charlton, esq.;
buried the 8th of October, Sunday, 1682, at East Barnet in Middlesex:
[student[37] sometime of Ch. Ch.; master ...].
=Ben Jonson= (1574-1637).
[38]Mr. Benjamin Johnson[D], Poet Laureat;--I remember when I was
a scholar at Trin. Coll. Oxon. 1646, I heard Dr. Ralph Bathurst[E]
(now deane of Wells) say that Ben Johnson was a Warwyckshire man--sed
quaere. 'Tis agreed that his father was a minister; and by his epistle
dedicat.[IV.] of 'Every Man ...' to Mr. William Camden that he was a
Westminster scholar and that Mr. W. Camden was his school-master.
[IV.] In his dedication of his play called _Every man in his humour_ to
Mr. Camden, Clarenceaux:--'Since I am none of those that can suffer the
benefits confer'd upon my youth to perish with my age. It is a fraile
memorie that remembers but present things.'--MS. Aubr. 8, fol. 55.
[Anthony[39] Wood in his _Hist. <et Antiq. Univ. Oxon.>_, lib. 2, p.
273, sayes he was borne in Westminster: that (at riper yeares) after he
had studied at Cambridge he came of his owne accord to Oxon and there
entred himselfe in Ch. Ch. and tooke his Master's degree in Oxon (or
conferred on him) anno 1619.]
His mother, after his father's death, maried a brick-layer; and 'tis
generally sayd that he wrought sometime with his father-in-lawe[40]
(and particularly on the garden-wall of Lincoln's Inne next to
Chancery-lane--from old parson <Richard> Hill, of Stretton, Hereff.,
1646), and that ... ..., a knight, a bencher, walking thro' and hearing
him repeat some Greeke verses out of Homer, discoursing with him, and
finding him to have a witt extraordinary, gave him some exhibition to
maintaine him at Trinity college in Cambridge, where he was ... ...
(quaere).
Then he went into the Lowe-countreys, and spent some time (not very
long) in the armie[41], not to the disgrace of ..., as you may find in
his Epigrammes.
Then he came over into England, and acted and wrote, but both ill, at
the Green Curtaine, a kind of nursery or obscure playhouse, somewhere
in the suburbes (I thinke towards Shoreditch or Clarkenwell)--from J.
Greenhill.
Then he undertooke againe to write a playe, and did hitt it admirably
well, viz. 'Every man ...' which was his first good one.
Serjeant John Hoskins, of Herefordshire, was his _father_. I remember
his sonne (Sir Bennet Hoskins, baronet, who was something poeticall in
his youth) told me, that when he desired to be adopted his son: 'No,'
sayd he, ''tis honour enough for me to be your brother; I am your
father's son, 'twas he that polished me, I doe acknowledge it.'
He was (or rather had been) of a clear and faire skin; his habit was
very plaine. I have heard Mr. Lacy, the player, say that he was wont
to weare a coate like a coach-man's coate, with slitts under the
arme-pitts. He would many times exceed in drinke (Canarie was his
beloved liquour): then he would tumble home to bed, and, when he had
thoroughly perspired, then to studie. I have seen his studyeing chaire,
which was of strawe, such as old woemen used, and as Aulus Gellius is
drawen in.
When I was in Oxon, bishop Skinner (of Oxford), who lay at our College,
was wont to say that he understood an author as well as any man in
England.
He mentions in his Epigrammes a sonne that he had, and his epitaph.
Long since, in King James' time, I have heard my uncle Danvers say
(who knew him), that he lived without Temple Barre, at a combe-maker's
shop, about the Elephant and Castle. In his later time he lived in
Westminster, in the house under which you passe as you goe out of the
churchyard into the old palace; where he dyed.
He lies buryed[V.] in the north aisle in the path of square stone
(the rest is lozenge), opposite to the scutcheon[42] of Robertus de
Ros, with this inscription only on him, in a pavement square, of blew
marble, about 14 inches square,