became, as Antony Wood assures us, "a grave minister of the Gospel."[1]
To school in the Church of St. Martin's in the Fields, Master Benjamin was sent, when his years were ripe enough to fit him for instruction in the first rudiments of knowledge. We know little or nothing of his boyhood and school career. If "the boy is father to the man"—we have no doubt that young Jonson learned his lessons with rapidity, entered into his games with zest, provoked occasional chastisement for insubordination, fought his battles with courage, and was a leader among his peers. What promise he gave of his future greatness, we know not; but his aptitude for learning, and a consideration for his good ancestry, raised him up a friend who generously sent him to Westminster School. The great Camden was then second master there, and although Ben Jonson reached the sixth form, over which the head master, Grant, presided, we have no mention of him in Jonson's writings; while Camden, who seems to have befriended the schoolboy, is always spoken of with affection. In an epigram, written many years after, the poet thus speaks of him:
"Than thee the age sees not that thing more grave,
More high, more holy, that she more would crave.
What name, what skill, what faith hast thou in things,
What sight in searching the most antique springs!
What weight and what authority in thy speech!
Men scarce can make that doubt but thou canst teach.
- ↑ Mr. Malone, Mr. Gifford, Barry Cornwall and many others have stated that Jonson's mother married Mr. Thomas Fowler, a master-bricklayer. They have all blundered more or less. Mr. Payne Collier has shown in a note, the materials of which were supplied by Mr. Peter Cunningham, that Mrs. Margaret Fowler was dead in 1595, whereas Jonson's mother was living after the production of "Eastward Hoe,"—and we agree with Mr. Collier, that "if Ben Jonson's mother married a second time we have yet to ascertain who was her second husband."
