Ben Jonson and the legacies of the past

Huntington Library Quarterly

Volumn 67, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 371-400

  Bland, Mark ^a  

^a DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 65849291574     PISSN: 00187895     EISSN: 1544399X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/hlq.2004.67.3.371     Document Type: Review

References (131)

1. B. Duppa, ed., Jonsonus Virbius (STC 14784; 1638), sig. D3v.
2. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (henceforth Oxford DNB), 60 vols. (Oxford, 2004), 16: 168-69.
3. For his father, see Oxford DNB, 16:166-68; old DNB, 5:973-74, 975 (both versions cited in subsequent notes). Jonson's copy of L. Digges, A Geometricall Practical Treatize Named Pantometria (STC 6859; 1591) is Worcester College, Oxford, shelfmark II.π.2. The volume is "ex dono amicissimi Dud. Digges, Authoro filij." It was subsequently owned by John Aubrey.
4. W. Shakespeare, Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (STC 22773; 1623), sig. A1v;
5. Works of Ben Jonson, ed. C. H. Herford and Percy and Evelyn Simpson (subsequently H&S), 11 vols. (1925-52), 8:390.
6. Most recently, J. Lowenstein, Ben Jonson and Possessive Authorship (Cambridge, 2002).
7. M. B. Bland, "William Stansby and the Production of The Workes of Beniamin Jonson, 1615-16," The Library, 6th ser., 20 (1998): 1-33;
8. K. J. Donovan, "The Final Quires of the Jonson 1616 Workes: Headline Evidence," Studies in Bibliography 40 (1987): 106-20;
9. D. L. Gants, "Patterns of Paper Use in The Workes of Beniamin Jonson (William Stansby, 1616)," Studies in Bibliography 51 (1998): 127-53;
10. J. A. Riddell, "Variant Title-Pages of the 1616 Jonson Folio," The Library, 6th ser., 8 (1986): 152-56, 363;
11. Riddell, "The Concluding Pages of the Jonson Folio of 1616," Studies in Bibliography 47 (1994): 147-54;
12. Riddell, "Jonson and Stansby and the Revisions of Every Man in his Humour," Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England 9 (1997): 81-91;
13. Riddell, "The Printing of the Plays in the Jonson Folio of 1616," Studies in Bibliography 49 (1996): 149-68;
14. Riddell, "Addendum: The Printing of the Plays in the Jonson Folio," Studies in Bibliography 50 (1997): 408-9.
15. Cf. Gants, "Proofing and Press-Correction of Jonson's Folio Workes," in M. Butler, ed., Re-Presenting Ben Jonson: Performance, Text, History (Basingstoke, U.K., 1999), 39-58.
16. M. Corbett and R. W. Lightbown, The Comely Frontispiece: The Emblematic Title-Page in England 1550-1660 (London, 1979), 144-50;
17. S. van den Berg, "Ben Jonson and the Ideology of Authorship," in J. Brady and W. H. Herendeen, eds., Ben Jonson's 1616 Folio (Newark Del., 1991), 114-17.
18. STC 13285-289 and 6236. Cf. R. C. Newton, "Jonson and the (Re-) Invention of the Book," in C. J. Summers and T. L. Pebworth, eds., Classic and Cavalier: Essays on Jonson and the Sons of Ben (Pittsburgh, 1982), 31-55, esp. 37.
19. Similarly, Van den Berg, "Jonson and the Ideology of Authorship," 111.
20. J. Boys, An exposition of the proper psalmes: the second part (STC 3467; 1617), sig. I1v: "the writings of the learned are called their workes, opera Hieronymi, the workes of Hierrom, Augustin, Gregorie: yea the very playes of a moderne Poet, are called in print his workes";
21. J. K. Bracken, William Stansby's Early Career and the Publication of Ben Jonson's Folio in 1616 (Ph.D. diss., University of South Carolina, 1983), viii.
22. de Grazia, Shakespeare Verbatim: The Reproduction of Authenticity and the 1790 Apparatus (Oxford, 1991), 34-36.
23. Bland, "William Stansby," 29.
24. D. A. Brooks, From Playhouse to Printing-House (Cambridge, 2000), 104-39, esp. 111-12.
25. For my review: The Library, 7th ser., 3 (2002): 215-17.
26. R. C. Strong, Tudor and Jacobean Portraits, 2 vols. (London, 1969), 1:182-84; 2, pl. 362.
27. The lost original belonged to the second duke of Buckingham by 1635; R. Davies, "An Inventory of the Duke of Buckingham's Pictures," Burlington Magazine 10 (1907): 380.
28. The painting is discussed by D. Piper, The English Face, rev. ed., ed. M. Rogers (London, 1992), 68;
29. and D. Riggs, Ben Jonson: A Life (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), 262-63. Van Blyenberch also painted Sir Francis Bacon and Sir Ralph Winwood.
30. The volume is Bodleian Library, Arch a.b.3. See J. Kemke, ed., Patricius Junius (Patrick Young), Bibliothekar Der Konige Jacob 1. und Carl 1. von England (Leipzig, 1898): "In Oxford the king's booke was receaved with a great deale of solemnitie; and in a solemne procession was carried from St Marie's (where the convocation was) by the vicechancellor, accumpanied with sume 24 doctors in scarlett, and the rest of the bodie of the Universitie, unto a publick librarie, where the keeper, one Mr. Rows, made a very prettie speech, and placed it in archivis, intuentibus nobis et reliquis academicis, with a great deale of respect" (p.39).
31. Also J. P. R. Lyell," James I and the Bodleian Catalogue," Bodleian Quarterly Record 7 (1933): 270-83.
32. R. C. Strong, The Tudor and Stuart Monarchy: Pageantry, Painting, Iconography, 3 vols. (Woodbridge, U.K., 1995), 2:187-98;
33. J. Peacock, "The Wizard Earl' Portrayed by Hilliard and Van Dyck," Art History 8 (1985): 134-37.
34. The original is in Worcester College, Oxford; see Riggs, A Life, 15.
35. For details of two later portraits of Jonson, see D. Piper, "The Development of the British Literary Portrait up to Samuel Johnson," Proceedings of the British Academy 54 (1968): 51-72, with 34 plates, esp. pp. 57-58 and pls. 8-9.
36. Cf. Van Der Berg, "True Relation: The Life and Career of Ben Jonson," in R. Harp and S. Stewart, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Ben Jonson (Cambridge, 2000), 1.
37. M. B. Bland, "'As far from all Reuolt': Sir John Salusbury, Christ Church MS 184 and Jonson's First Ode," English Manuscript Studies 8 (2000): 42-76.
38. See also C. P. Hampson, The Book of the Radclyffes (Edinburgh, 1940), 160-64.
39. R. P. Sorlien, ed., The Diary of John Manningham of the Middle Temple, 1602-1603 (Hanover, 1976), 187.
40. The incident is recorded by Drummond; H&S, 1:138. For the evidence redating The Wife to ca. 1601-2 and other related material, see M. B. Bland, The Manuscripts of Ben Jonson and His Contemporaries (Oxford, forthcoming 2005), chap. 5.
41. B. Holyday, trans., Decimus Junius Juvenalis and Aulus Persius Flaccus Translated (Wing J1276; 1673), sig. a2v. Holyday was chaplain to Jonson's patron Sir Francis Stewart.
42. See J. P Bednarz, Shakespeare and the Poet's War (New York, 2001).
43. A. Moss, Printed Commonplace Books and the Structuring of Renaissance Thought (Oxford, 1996);
44. K. Sharpe, Reading Revolutions (New Haven, Conn., 2000).
45. For further detail, see M. B. Bland, "Further Information: Drummond's Democritie, A Labyrinth of Delight and his 'Certain Informations and Manners of Ben Jonson,'" TEXT 17 (2004), forthcoming.
46. "Discoveries," Workes (1640), sig. ?N3r-v; H&S, 8:583-84. For "art," see P. M. Gouk, Music, Science, and Natural Magic in Seventeenth-Century England (New Haven, Conn., 1999), 8.
47. and Pietro Aretino, La Prima Parte [La Seconda Parte.] de Ragionamenti (London, 1595; Bodleian Library, Douce A.642). It is also evident that Jonson read a number of Italian texts, including Cesare Ripa's Iconologia (1603, or earlier), cited in Hymenaei, sig. E2v.
48. H&S, 1:136, 137. Also A. Ribiero, "Sir John Roe: Ben Jonson's Friend," Review of English Studies, n.s., 24 (1973): 153-64.
49. Cf. A. R. Dutton, Mastering the Revels (Manchester, 1991), 12.
50. "The Printer to the Reader," Jonsonus Virbius, sig. A2r.
51. The phrase is Henry King's: Jonsonus Virbius, sig. C4v. For the tradition of placing poems about the hearse of the deceased, see A. Petrucci, Writing the Dead: Death and Writing Strategies in the Western Tradition (Stanford, Calif., 1998), 83, 91.
52. For another allusion to the placement of poems on the hearse, see T. Salusbury, "An Elegie meant vpon the Death of Ben: Johnson," National Library of Wales, MS. 5390D, pp. 289-90.
53. For a very different reading of the poem, see A. N. Lynn, "The Impact of Ben Jonson, 1637-1700" (Ph.D. diss., Cambridge University [no. 24456], 2001), 11-54.
54. G. Langbaine, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets (Wing L373; 1691), sig. S8v.
55. Cf. Donaldson, Jonson's Magic House, 1.
56. E. Waller, "Vpon Ben: Iohnson," Jonsonus Virbius, sig. D4r.
57. W. Addison, Worthy Dr Fuller (London, 1951), 4-5, 174-77, 121-24, 288-89. Furthermore, his uncle had been dean of Westminster 1617-20 (p. 13), he had been Chaplain at the Savoy 1642-43 (pp. 99-109), and he had dedicated a book to Sir Thomas Roe's wife (p. 240). Fuller therefore had ample opportunity to check his facts.
58. Thomas Fuller, The History of the Worthies of England (Wing F2440; 1662), sig. 3H4r.
59. J. B. Bamborough, "The Early Life of Ben Jonson," Times Literary Supplement, 8 April i960, 225;
60. W. D. Kay, Ben Jonson: A Literary Life (New York, 1995), 2.
61. P. Whalley, The Works of Ben. Jonson, 7 vols. (London, 1756), 1:xxxv;
62. R. F. Scott, in "Notes from the College Records," The Eagle 16 (1891), reprints the letter written by Robert Lane, president of St. John's (p. 237).
63. It is mentioned again by J. B. Mullinger, "Was Ben Jonson Ever a Member of Our College," The Eagle 25 (1904): 302-5.
64. Aubrey conceived of his lives as "the naked and plaine trueth": see K. S. Bennett, "Materials towards a Critical Edition of John Aubrey's Brief Lives" (D.Phil, diss., Oxford University [c.10734], 1993);
65. and "Editing Aubrey," Marking the Text: The Presentation of Meaning on the Literary Page (Aldershot, U.K., 2000), 271-90.
66. The page of Dryden's life was left blank because Dryden promised to write his own life (Bennett, "Editing Aubrey," 276).
67. Aubrey owned at least two books from Jonson's library: J. Selden, De Dijs Syris (Leiden, 1629), now Rosenbach Museum and Library, EL1. S464I;
68. J. Dryden, Of Dramatick Poesie: An Essay (Wing D2327; 1668), sig. C3v;
69. J. Dryden, The Conquest of Granada (Wing D2256, 1672), sig. X3r.
70. Dryden, Of Dramatick Poesie, sig. G4r.
71. For Dryden as a critic, see M.W. Gelber, The Just and the Lively (Manchester, 1999).
72. Langbaine, Account, sig S6r-v.
73. Dryden, Of Dramatick Poesy, sig. H1r.
74. J. Selden, Titles of Honor (STC 22177; 1614), sig. d1r.
75. Biographia Britannica, vol. 4 (1757), 2774.
76. The Works of Ben Jonson, ed. W. Gifford, 9 vols., (London, 1816), 1:i-cccvii;
77. A Freeman, "The Beginnings of Shakespearean (and Jonsonian) Forgery: Attribution and the Politics of Exposure, Part I," The Library, 7th ser., 5 (2004): 265-93 (pt. 2 is to appear in December);
78. T. E. Lockwood, Studies in Ben Jonson's Reception, 1780-1850 (Ph.D. diss., University of Cambridge [25451], 2002).
79. W. D. Briggs, "The Influence of Jonson's Tragedy in the Seventeenth Century," Anglia 35 (1912): 277-37;
80. "Did Jonson write a third 'Ode to Himself'?" The Athenaeum, 4520 (13 June 1914): 828;
81. "Source-Material for Jonson's Epigrams and Forest," Classical Philology 11 (1916): 169-90;
82. "Recovered Lines of Ben Jonson," Modern Language Notes 29 (1914): 156-57;
83. "Source Material for Jonson's Plays," Modern Language Notes 31 (1916): 193-205
84. "The Birth-Date of Ben Jonson," Modern Language Notes 33 (1918): 137-45
85. "Notes on Underwoods xxx and on the New Inn," Modern Philology 10 (1913): 573-85;
86. "On Certain Incidents in Ben Jonson's Life," Modern Philology 11 (1913): 279-88;
87. "Source-Material for Jonson's Underwoods and Miscellaneous Poems," Modern Philology 15 (1917): 277-312.
88. He reviewed H&S, vols. 1-3, in Modern Language Notes 42 (1927): 403-11; and 44 (1929): 44-47.
89. In a letter to Simpson, dated 1 July 1925, Herford admitted that he had erred in his reliance on Drummond for Jonson's knowledge of languages (Beinecke Library, OSB MSS. 8, Box 9, Correspondence, Folder 3). The escalation of the fire among Jonson's papers to a conflagration of his library can be traced to Gifford; only a 1585 duodecimo Claudian (Bodleian Library, 8° C.90 Art. Seld.) has a few leaves damaged at the edge by a candle. For Jonson's illness, see M. B. Bland, "Jonson, Biathanatos, and the Interpretation of Manuscript Evidence," Studies in Bibliography 51 (1998): 154-82.
90. Such correspondence as has been published includes W. Camden, Epistolæ (Wing C691, 1691);
91. J. Selden, Opera Omnia, 3 vols. in 6 pts. (London, 1726);
92. I. Casaubon, Epistolæ (Rotterdam, 1703);
93. N. F. de Peiresc, Lettres de Peiresc, ed. P. Tamizey de Larroque, 7 vols, (of 9 planned), (Paris, 1888-98).
94. Herford's account has been considerably supplemented by Mark Eccles, "Jonson's Marriage," Review of English Studies 12 (1936): 257-72;
95. "Jonson and the Spies," Review of English Studies 13 (1937): 385-97;
96. and, "Brief Lives: Tudor and Stuart Authors," Studies in Philology 79 (1982), suppl., 1-135. The earlier findings were included in vol. 11 of H&S. Riggs's biography largely follows Herford and Eccles.
97. For the misdated letter and Jonson's role as a scribal copyist of Biathanatos, see Bland, "Jonson, Biathanatos, and Manuscript Evidence," 163-70.
98. His role in the preparation of a draft history of the Punic Wars has been recently discussed by B. S. Canterwall, "A Reconsideration of Ben Jonson's Contribution to Sir Walter Ralegh's The History of the World (1614)," Ben Jonson Journal 7 (2000): 539-54. However, the source of its publication as A Notable and Memorable Story (1647) awaits examination.
99. See D.J. Gordon, The Renaissance Imagination, ed. S. K. Orgel (Berkeley, Calif., 1975).
100. For an outdated catalogue and partial introduction, see D. McPherson, "Ben Jonson's Library and Marginalia," Studies in Philology 71 (1974), suppl., 1-106;
101. also R. C. Evans, Habits of Mind: Evidence and Effects of Ben Jonson's Reading (Lewisburg, Pa., 1995);
102. J. A. Riddell and S. Stewart, Jonson's Spenser: Evidence and Historical Criticism (Pittsburgh, 1995);
103. A. L. Prescott, "Jonson's Rabelais," New Perspectives on Ben Jonson, ed. J. Hirsh (Cranbery, N.J., 1997), 35-54. At least 320 volumes owned by Jonson survive.
104. Cf. R. V. Young, "Ben Jonson and Learning," The Cambridge Companion to Ben Jonson, 43-57;
105. Donaldson, Jonson's Magic Houses, 198-216.
106. H&S, 1:3-4; Van den Berg, "True Relation," Cambridge Companion, 2.
107. For the study of Hebrew at Westminster, see G. Lloyd Jones, The Discovery of Hebrew in Tudor England: A Third Language (Manchester, 1983), 232.
108. Cf. R. C. Evans, Ben Jonson and the Poetics of Literary Patronage (Lewisburg, Pa., 1989), 31;
109. Riggs, A Life, 4, 114-15.
110. Listed in P. Beal, comp., Index of English Literary Manuscripts, 2 vols. (New York and London, 1980), 2:233-95. Another forty manuscript texts have since been located.
111. Reproduced with masque texts in S. K. Orgel and R. C. Strong, Inigo Jones: The Theatre of the Stuart Court, 2 vols. (London and Berkeley, Calif., 1973).
112. J. Lennard, But I Digress: The Exploitation of Parentheses in English Printed Verse (Oxford, 1991), 49.
113. M. B. Bland, "Jonson, Stansby, and English Typography, 1579-1623," 2 vols. (D.Phil. diss., Oxford University [c.11430-31]; 1995), 1:256-58.
114. Charles Batey, printer to the University at the time, typically described the book "as a convenient mechanism for the transference of thought from author to reader"; The Printing and Making of Books: A Brief Guide for the Layman (Oxford, 1956), 30.
115. D. F. McKenzie, "Typography and Meaning: The Case of William Congreve," Making Meaning: "Printers of the Mind" and Other Essays (Amherst, Mass., 2002), 198-236, esp. 212.
116. Cf. A. Barton, Ben Jonson, Dramatist (Cambridge, 1982), 284;
117. Hattaway, ed., The New Inn (Manchester, 1994), 6-7.
118. The literature is considerable and derives from eighteenth-century accounts. First Shiels, and then Malone, in particular made comparisons that still recur as "facts" (e.g., P. Honan, Shakespeare: A Life [Oxford, 1998], 251-57).
119. For an account of some of the secondary narratives that led to these misrepresentations, see C.I.E. Donaldson, Jonson's Magic Houses: Essays in Interpretation (Oxford, 1997), 6-25, 180-97;
120. Donaldson, "Looking Sideways: Jonson, Shakespeare, and the Myths of Envy," Ben Jonson Journal 8 (2001): 1-22.
121. Also R. McDonald, Shakespeare and Jonson, Jonson and Shakespeare (Lincoln, Neb., 1988), 1-5;
122. J. S. Shapiro, Rival Playwrights: Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson (New York, 1991), 133-70.
123. Bevington, "Why Re-Edit Herford and Simpson?" Re-Presenting Ben Jonson, 20-38.
124. McKenzie, "Typography and Meaning," in Making Meaning, 204.
125. and Kay, A Literary Life, 183.
126. Although Riggs does not footnote his source, it is W. H. Phelps, "The Date of Ben Jonson's Death," Notes & Queries 225 (1980): 146-49.
127. G., "Notes from a MS. of Sir Edward Walker, Kt. Garter, in his own hand"; Notes & Queries 6 (1852): 405. Phelps ("Date," 148) states that "Walker seems to be saying that the poet died on 16 August and was buried on 17 August (or possibly that he died on the 17th and was buried on the 18th)." In fact, Walker's entry ("Thursday, 17 August. - Died at Westminster Mr, Benjamin Johnson . He was buried the next day following .") can only mean that Jonson died on 17 August and was buried on 18 August. As Phelps notes of Walker, "a given date is not necessarily the day on which he recorded the event" and in this case it is clearly retrospective.
128. Phelps, "Date," 148-49.
129. For further details, see Bland, "'As far from all Reuolt.'" Thelwall's cousin Sir Thomas Salusbury wrote a funeral elegy in memory of Jonson (see n. 48, above).
130. Despite this spelling, modern dictionary accounts record "Robert Johnson"; C. H. Cooper and T. Cooper, Athenae Cantabrigienses, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1858-1914), 1:185, 551.
131. Christopher Jonson's signature is to be found in Cambridge University Library, MS. Kk.5.14, fol. 4v (autograph manuscript of STC 14656.5-.7, dated 14 December 1564). For a biographical note, see Oxford DNB, 30:241-42 (DNB, s.v., Jonson). His will is PROB11/90, fols. 86r-87v. It is possible that Christopher Jonson is in some way related, but the connection remains obscure.