Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/159

BEN JONSON 143 accurate, and learned poet of our age, especially in the English tongue, having left behind him many rare pieces, which have sufficiently demonstrated to the world his worth. He was buried the next day follow- ing, being accompanied to his grave with all or the greatest part of the nobilitye and gentry then in the towne." The different dates for the death tnay arise from the one being Old Style and the other New (although the New was not legally established in Eng- land until more than a century later, 1752), but those of the funeral cannot be thus reconciled. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, " in the north aisle, in the path of square stone opposite to the scutcheon of Robertus de Ros." His friends and admirers pro- jected a noble monument to his memory, to be raised by subscription, and in the meantime his remains were covered with the pavement stone which had been removed for the interment. Aubrey relates that Sir John Young, chancing to pass through the abbey, and not enduring that the remains of so great a man should lie at all without a memorial, gave one of the workmen eighteenpence to cut the famous inscription, "O rare Ben Jonson!" An ample sum was raised for the monument, but its erection was hindered by the political and religious agitations resulting in the great Civil War, and the money was returned to the subscribers. He left no family. His wife appears to have died some time before his journey into Scotland. If he married again, nothing is known, I believe, of the second wife and marriage save what is recorded in the following entry, which probably, but not quite certainly, relates to him, extracted by Mr. Collier from the register of St. Giles, Cripplegate : " Married