The Alchemist (Annotated)

This is an annotated version of the book1.contains an updated biography of the author at the end of the book for a better understanding of the text.2.This book has been checked and corrected for spelling errorsThe greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the firstliterary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose, satire, and criticism who most potently of all the men of his timeaffected the subsequent course of English letters: such was BenJonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest tous almost unparalleled, at least in his age.Ben Jonson came of the stock that was centuries after to give tothe world Thomas Carlyle; for Jonson's grandfather was ofAnnandale, over the Solway, whence he migrated to England.Jonson's father lost his estate under Queen Mary, "having been castinto prison and forfeited." He entered the church, but died amonth before his illustrious son was born, leaving his widow andchild in poverty. Jonson's birthplace was Westminster, and thetime of his birth early in 1573. He was thus nearly ten yearsShakespeare's junior, and less well off, if a trifle better born.But Jonson did not profit even by this slight advantage. Hismother married beneath her, a wright or bricklayer, and Jonson wasfor a time apprenticed to the trade. As a youth he attracted theattention of the famous antiquary, William Camden, then usher atWestminster School, and there the poet laid the solid foundationsof his classical learning. Jonson always held Camden inveneration, acknowledging that to him he owed,"All that I am in arts, all that I know;"and dedicating his first dramatic success, "Every Man in HisHumour," to him. It is doubtful whether Jonson ever went to eitheruniversity, though Fuller says that he was "statutably admittedinto St. John's College, Cambridge." He tells us that he took nodegree, but was later "Master of Arts in both the universities, bytheir favour, not his study." When a mere youth Jonson enlisted asa soldier, trailing his pike in Flanders in the protracted wars ofWilliam the Silent against the Spanish. Jonson was a large andraw-boned lad; he became by his own account in time exceedinglybulky. In chat with his friend William Drummond of Hawthornden, Jonson told how "in his service in the Low Countries he had, in theface of both the camps, killed an enemy, and taken opima spoliafrom him;" and how "since his coming to England, being appealed tothe fields, he had killed his adversary which had hurt him in thearm and whose sword was ten inches longer than his." Jonson'sreach may have made up for the lack of his sword; certainly hisprowess lost nothing in the telling. Obviously Jonson was brave, combative, and not averse to talking of himself and his doings.In 1592, Jonson returned from abroad penniless. Soon after hemarried, almost as early and quite as imprudently as Shakespeare.He told Drummond curtly that "his wife was a shrew, yet honest";for some years he lived apart from her in the household of LordAlbany. Yet two touching epitaphs among Jonson's "Epigrams," "Onmy first daughter," and "On my first son," attest the warmth of thepoet's family affections. The daughter died in infancy, the son ofthe plague; another son grew up to manhood little credit to hisfather whom he survived. We know nothing beyond this of Jonson'sdomestic life.