Now, in the first part of the "Contention," repr. p. 37, nearly the same lines occur, with merely an alteration to agree with the context "The wilde Onele, my Lorde, is up in armes, This, it is evident, is far too near an approximation to the other to have been the result of chance, nor could we for a moment adopt such a supposition. It shows clearly enough, that there is some history attached to the authorship of those plays, I mean the first and second parts of the "Contention," that still remains to be unravelled; and it considerably strengthens the argument by which I endeavoured to prove, that the groundwork was not by Shakespeare, however unwilling we may be to believe that our poet was not the writer of a part of them. Taken in connexion with this last found evidence of the hand of Marlowe having been engaged in them, the similarities adduced by Malone are by no means devoid of weight. I may also add another, which occurs only a few lines afterwards The haughty Dane commands the narrow seas. In the "True Tragedie," 1595, repr. p. 124, we have— "Sterne Fawconbridge commands the narrow seas.' This may probably be of still less importance than those adduced by Malone, but I cannot help thinking that any reader who will regard these similarities impartially, more especially in connexion with the one just discovered, which could not by any possibility have been the result of chance, and who, by the bye, has not entirely eschewed verbal criticism, will come to the conclusion that the probabilities are now greatly in favour of Marlowe being the original author, or at least one of the original authors of the two dramas upon which Shakespeare founded the second and third parts of Henry VI. If we take Marlowe's Edward II. in preference to his other plays, and, as Marlowe died in 1593, and the two parts of the ، Contention " were probably not written much earlier, it is clearly right to do so, there will be less difficulty in believing him to be the author of many parts, I will not say all, of the last mentioned dramas. At all events, I believe I have materially assisted my previous theory concerning these plays, even against those who will allow no arguments but those which result from comparison, and no similarities of language that militate from their own opinions. Malone pursued the plan of placing asterisks to all the lines which he considered Shakespeare's own additions in the two parts of Henry VI. When he so distinguished the following one in 2 Henry VI., act i., sc. 3— "She bears a duke's revenues on her back,” he had probably forgotten that Marlowe, in the above mentioned play, has— "He wears a lord's revenue on his back." And other similarities of language may be traced. This last coincidence is not found in the original play, and if we place reliance upon it, it considerably mystifies the argument. J. O. HALLIWELL. ART III.—Letter from Ben Jonson to the Earl of Newcastle, and other matters relating to the Poet's family. The following letter from Ben Jonson to his "noble patron by excellence,” as he calls him, is now printed for the first time. Mr. Gifford refers to it (p. clxii) as 66 a petitionary letter written with some humour as well as spirit." It is the best begging letter I remember to have read. A Letter to the Earl of Newcastle. [Harl. MSS. No. 4955, fol. 204.] "My Noble and most honor'd Lord, "I myself being no substance, am fain to trouble you with shadows, or (what is less) an Apologue or Fable in a dream. I being strucken with the Palsy in the year 1628, had by Sir Thomas Badger some few months since a Fox sent me for a present, which creature by handling I endeavoured to make tame, as well for the abating of my disease as the delight I took in speculation of his nature. It happened this present year, 1631, and this very week, being the week ushering Christmas, and this Tuesday morning in a dream, (and morning dreams are truest) to have one of my servants come up to my bedside, and tell me Master, Master, the Fox speaks!' Whereat (me thought) I started, and troubled went down into the yard, to witness the wonder. There I found my Reynard, in his tenement-the Tub I had hired for him-cynically expressing his own lot to be condemned to the house of a Poet, where nothing was to be seen but the bare walls, and not any thing heard but the noise of a saw, dividing billets all the week long, more to keep the family in exercise than to comfort any person there with fire, save the paralytick master; and went on in this way as the Fox seemed the better Fabler of the two. I, his master, began to give him good words and stroke him, but Reynard, barking, told me those would not do, I must give him meat. I angry called him stinking vermin. He replied, Look into your cellar, which is your larder too, you'll find a worse vermin there.' When presently calling for a light, methought I went down and found all the floor turned up, as if a colony of moles had been there, or an army of Salt-petre men. Whereupon I sent presently into Tuttle Street for the King's most excellent Mole-catcher to relieve me, and hunt them. But he, when he came, and viewed the place, and had well marked the earth turned up, took a handfull, smelt it, and said: Master, it is not in my power to destroy this vermin; the King, or some good man of a Noble Nature, must help you. This kind of Mole is called a WANT, which will destroy you and your family, if you prevent not the working of it in time. And therefore God keep you and send you health.' "The interpretation both of the Fable and dream is, that I waking do find WANT the worst and most working vermin in a house, and therefore my noble Lord, and next the King my best Patron, I am necessitated to tell it you. I am not so impudent to borrow any sum of your lordship, for I have no faculty to pay; but my needs are such, and so urging, as I do beg what your bounty can give me, in the name of Good Letters, and the bond of an ever grateful and acknowledging servant "To your honour, "Westminster, 20mo Decbris. 1631. 66 "BEN JONSON. Yesterday the barbarous Court of Aldermen have withdrawn their Chandlerly Pension for Verjuice and Mustard, 33 6 8." The maiden name of Ben Jonson's wife has not transpired, and we know nothing more about her than the information preserved by Drummond: "He married a wyfe who was a shrew yet honest: 5 yeers he had not bedded with her, but remayned with my Lord Aulbanie." (Conversations, p. 19.) Epigram 22 is entitled "On my first daughter.” "Here lies, to each her parents ruth, Mary, the daughter of their youth.” (Gifford, viii., 163.) She was only six months old when she died: "At six months end she parted hence." Epigram 45 is entitled "On my first son:" "Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy.” He died at the early age of seven : 66 Seven years thou wert lent to me." (Gifford, viii., 175.) The poet's "eldest sone, then a child and at London," (Conv., p. 20) died of the plague in 1603, when the father was in the country, at Sir Robert Cotton's. This, therefore, is the son the father has celebrated in enduring poetry. In the parish register of St. Martin's in the Fields I discovered the baptism of Benjamin Jonson, the son of Ben, and what I believe to be the burial of the poet's daughter Mary. That the poet had a son named Benjamin was the belief of Whalley. I transcribe the entries as I found them: "1593. November 17. Seplta fuit Maria Johnson peste." "1610. Aprilis 6. Bapt fuit Beniamin Johnson fil Ben :" Fuller's researches found the far-famed father "a little child, in Hartshorn Lane, near Charing Cross ;" and Gifford tells us (p. v.) that he was sent, "when of a proper age, to a private school in the church of St. Martin in the Fields." The plague of 1603 committed fearful havoc in the then thinly populated parish of St. Martin's. Eight of the name of Jonson were buried in that year in the church or churchyard of St. Martin's. The christian name of the poet's eldest son |