Roman Catholic priest—a prison being the most likely place in which to meet a priest in those days; and the result was his conversion to the Church of Rome, to which he adhered for twelve years. Jonson was afterwards a diligent student of divinity; but, though his mind was religious, it is not probable that its natural bias much inclined it to dwell upon creeds and their controversies. Though in prison spies were set upon him, which was then thought to be an admirable method for expediting justice, yet his judges (he afterwards boasted) could get nothing out of him but "aye" or "no." And thus after a short imprisonment he was released, some time early in 1599, in which year he is found back again at work for Henslowe, receiving, together with Dekker, Chettle, and "another gentleman," earnest-money for a tragedy called Robert II., King of Scots. It is of more importance that in the same year he brought out through the Lord Chamberlain's company (possibly already at the Globe, then newly built or building) the elaborate comedy of Every Man out of his Humour,—a work which subsequently had the honour, for which it was in some respects specially fitted, of being presented before Queen Elizabeth. The sunshine of court favour, rarely diffused during her reign in rays more than metaphorically golden, was not to bring any material comfort to the most learned of her dramatists, before the inevitable hand was laid upon her of which his courtly epilogue had besought death to forget the use. Indeed, of his Cynthia's Revels (1600), no doubt primarily designed as a piece of unctuous flattery to the address of the queen, the most marked result had been to offend two playwrights of note with whom he had formerly worked in company—Dekker, who had a coarse and healthy grip of his own, and Marston, who was perhaps less dangerous by his strength than by his versatility. Learning their intention, or at least that of Dekker, to wreak literary vengeance upon him, he seems to have sought to anticipate its effect by covering them with contemptuous ridicule beforehand. The Poetaster (1601), which he states to have been completed fifteen weeks after the plot of it was first conceived, did not, however, silence his adversaries; it rather gave them the opportunity of the last word, which Dekker took in producing his Satiromastix, or the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet (1602). There was indeed an attempt at some more last words on Jonson's part; but on the whole he appears to have thought (and very wisely) that the time for a season of silence had arrived for him as a court poet. According to a statement by Overbury, early in 1603, "Ben Johnson, the poet, now lives upon one Townesend"—who this generous patron was we do not know—"and scornes the world." That, however, he was not sulking in the friendly tent with which he had been accommodated is shown by the fact that in this year (1603) was produced at the Globe the earlier of his two extant tragedies, Sejanus, Shakespeare once more taking a part in the performance.
Meanwhile, in the year which dates the tragedy concerning the fall of the great favourite, there had begun a reign in England destined to be remembered as that of favourites hardly less hated than he. Adulatory loyalty seemed intent on showing that it had not exhausted itself at the feet of Gloriana, and Jonson's well-stored brain and ready pen had their share in devising and executing ingenious variations on the theme "Welcome—since we cannot do without thee!" It is very remarkable how promptly his genius, which it is sheer prejudice to describe as wanting in flexibility and lightness, suited itself to the sudden demands of the new taste for masks and entertainments—new of course in degree rather than in kind—introduced with the new reign. The pageant which on the 7th of May 1603 bade the king welcome to a capital dissolved in joy was partly of Jonson's partly of Dekker's devising; and, having thus been prominently brought into notice, he was able to deepen and diversify the impression by the composition of masks presented to James I. when entertained at houses of the nobility. He was soon occasionally employed by the court itself,—already in 1606 in conjunction with Inigo Jones as responsible for the "painting and carpentry,"—and thus speedily showed himself master in a species of composition to which he, more than any other of our poets before Milton, secured an enduring place in our national poetic literature. Personally, no doubt, he derived considerable material benefit from the new fashion, very valuable to poets in days when there were no monthly magazines,—more especially if his statement to Drummond was anything like correct, that out of his plays he had never gained a couple of hundred pounds.
Good humour seems to have come back with good fortune. Joint employment had reconciled him with Dekker; and with Marston also he was again on good terms. When therefore, in 1604, the latter and Chapman (who, Jonson told Drummond, was loved of him, and whom he had probably honoured as "Virgil" in The Poetaster) produced the excellent comedy of Eastward Ho, it appears to have contained some contributions by Jonson; at all events, when the authors were arrested on account of one or more passages in the play which were deemed insulting to the Scotch, he voluntarily imprisoned himself with them. They were soon released, and a banquet at his expense, attended by Camden and Selden, terminated the incident. If Jonson is to be believed, there had been a report that the prisoners were to have their ears and noses cut, and, with reference apparently to this peril, "at the midst of the feast his old mother drank to him, and showed him a paper which she had intended (if the sentence had taken execution) to have mixed in the prison among his drink, which was full of lusty strong poison; and that she was no churl, she told him, she minded first to have drunk of it herself." Strange to say, in 1605 Jonson and Chapman, though the former, as he averred, had so "attempered" his style as to have "given no cause to any good man of grief," were again in prison on account of "a play"; but they appear to have been once more speedily set free, in consequence of the (very manly and dignified) letter addressed by Jonson to the earl of Salisbury. In the same year he played a part—which had till recently remained unknown, and is still in some measure obscure—in the mysterious history of the Gunpowder Plot. On November 7th, very soon after the discovery of the conspiracy, whose threads it became the immediate duty of the council to unravel, that body appears to have sent for Ben Jonson, at the advice no doubt of Salisbury, who (as has just been seen) knew of Jonson; indeed, the latter has been supposed to have given his support as a dramatist to the party headed by Robert Cecil before Queen Elizabeth's death. As a loyal Roman Catholic Jonson was asked, and undertook to give, his good offices in inducing the priests to do something required by the council, one hardly likes to conjecture it to have been some tampering with the secrets of confession. In any case, the negotiations fell through, because the priests declined to come forth out of their hiding-places to be negotiated with—greatly to the wrath of Ben Jonson, who declares in a letter to Lord Salisbury that "they are all so enweaved in it that it will make 500 gentlemen less of the religion within this week, if they carry their understanding about them." Jonson himself, however, did not declare his separation from the Church of Rome for five years longer, however much it might have been to his advantage to do so.
His powers as a dramatist were at their height during
