Sue Asscher asschers@dingoblue.net.au
Amy E Zelmer





Every Man in his Humour

by Ben Jonson




INTRODUCTION

THE greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first literary
dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose, satire, and criticism
who most potently of all the men of his time affected the subsequent course
of English letters: such was Ben Jonson, and as such his strong
personality assumes an interest to us almost unparalleled, at least in his
age.

Ben Jonson came of the stock that was centuries after to give to the world
Thomas Carlyle; for Jonson's grandfather was of Annandale, over the Solway,
whence he migrated to England. Jonson's father lost his estate under Queen
Mary, "having been cast into prison and forfeited." He entered the church,
but died a month before his illustrious son was born, leaving his widow and
child in poverty. Jonson's birthplace was Westminster, and the time of his
birth early in 1573. He was thus nearly ten years Shakespeare's junior,