Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/125

BEN JONSON 109 was at this period that James conferred upon him, by letters patent, a yearly pension of one hundred marks, thus constituting him the first regular Poet Laureate, in the modern sense. " Hitherto the laureateship appears to have been a mere title, adopted at pleasure by those who were employed to write for the court, but conveying no privileges, and establishing no claim • to a salary. Occasional gratuities were undoubtedly bestowed on occasional services, but an annual deter- minate sum seems to have been issued for the first time in favour of Jonson." In the summer of 16 18, in response to a warm invitation, he made his celebrated journey to Scotland, where he had many friends, especially among the connections of the Duke of Lenox, whom we have already met with as Lord Aubigny. His journey was made on foot, and he appears to have spent several months with the nobility and gentry in the neighbour- hood of Edinburgh. Taylor, the Water-Poet, in his " Pennyless Pilgrimage," writes : " Now the day before I came from Edenborough I went to Leeth, where I found my long approved and assured good friend. Master Benjamin Johnson, at one Master John Stuart's house. I thanke him for his great kindnesse towards me : for at my taking leave of him, he gave me a piece of gold of two-and-twenty shillings to drink his health in England ; and withall willed me to remember his kind commendations to all his friends. So with a friendly farewell I left him as well as I hope never to see him in a worse estate ; for he is amongst Noblemen and Gentlemen that knowe his true worth, and their own honours, where with much respective [respectful] love he is worthily entertained."