with the actors generically known as the Poetomachia or Stage Quarrel (cf. ch. xi). Meanwhile Jonson, perhaps encouraged by his success in introducing a mask into Cynthia's Revels (1601), seems to have conceived the ambition of becoming a Court poet. At first he was not wholly successful, and the selection of Daniel to write the chief Christmas mask of 1603-4 appears to have provoked an antagonism between the two poets, which shows itself in Jonson's qualified acknowledgement to Lady Rutland of the favours done him by Lady Bedford (Forest, xii):
though she have a better verser got,
(Or poet, in the court-account) than I,
And who doth me, though I not him envy,
and long after in the remark to Drummond (Laing, 10) that 'Daniel was at jealousies with him'. But the mask was a form of art singularly suited to Jonson's genius. In the next year he came to his own, and of ten masks at Court during 1605-12 not less than eight are his. This employment secured him a considerable vogue as a writer of entertainments and complimentary verses, and a standing with James himself, with the Earl of Salisbury, and with other persons of honour, which not only brought him pecuniary profit, but also enabled him to withstand the political attacks made upon Sejanus, for which he was haled before the Council, and upon Eastward Ho!, for which he was once more imprisoned. During this period he continued to write plays, with no undue frequency, both for the King's men and for the Queen's Revels and their successors, the Lady Elizabeth's. As a rule, he had published his plays, other than those bought by Henslowe, soon after they were produced, and in 1612 he seems to have formed the design of collecting them, with his masks and occasional verses, into a volume of Works. Probably the design was deferred, owing to his absence in France as tutor to the son of Sir Walter Raleigh, from the autumn of 1612 (M. P. xi. 279) to some date in 1613 earlier than 29 June, when he witnessed the burning of the Globe (M. L. R. iv. 83). For the same reason he took no part in the masks for the Princess Elizabeth's wedding at Shrovetide. But he returned in time for that of the Earl of Somerset at Christmas 1613, and wrote three more masks before his folio Works actually appeared in 1616. In the same year he received a royal pension of 100 marks.
Jonson's later life can only be briefly summarized. During a visit to Scotland he paid a visit to William Drummond of Hawthornden in January 1619, and of his conversation his host took notes which preserve many biographical details and many critical utterances upon the men, books, and manners of his time. In 1621 (cf. ch. iii) he obtained a reversion of the Mastership of the Revels, which he never lived to enjoy. His masks continued until 1631, when an unfortunate quarrel with Inigo Jones brought them to an end. His play-writing, dropped after 1616, was resumed about 1625, and to this period belong his share in The Bloody Brother of the Beaumont and Fletcher series, The Staple of News, The New Inn, The Magnetic Lady, and The Tale of a Tub. In 1637, probably on 6 August, he died. He had told
