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Taylor's Penniless Pilgrimage.

Now the day before I came from Edinburgh, I went to Leith, where I found my long approved and assured good friend Master Benjamin Jonson, at one Master John Stuarts house; I thank him for his great kindness towards me: for at my taking leave of him, he gave me a piece of gold of two and twenty shillings^[1] to drink his health in England.

↑ A Piece of Gold of Two-and-Twenty Shillings.—"This was a considerable present; but Jonson's hand and heart were ever open to his acquaintance. All his pleasures were social; and while health and fortune smiled upon him, he was no niggard either of his time or talents to those who needed them. There is something striking in Taylor's concluding sentence, when the result of his (Jonson's) visit to Drummond is considered:—but there is one evil that walks, which keener eyes than John's have often failed to discover.—I have only to add, in justice to this honest man (Taylor) that his gratitude outlived the subject of it. He paid the tribute of a verse to his benefactor's memory:—the verse indeed, was mean: but poor Taylor had nothing better to give."—Lt. Col. Francis Cunningham's edition of Gifford's Ben Jonson's Works, p. xli.
"In the summer of 1618 Scotland received a visit from the famous Ben Jonson. The burly Laureate walked all the way, among the motives for a journey then undertaken by few Englishmen, might be curiosity regarding a country from which he knew that his family was derived, his grandfather having been one of the Johnsons of Annandale. He had many friends too, particularly among the connections of the Lennox family, whom he might be glad to see at their own houses. Among those with whom he had amicable intercourse, was William Drummond, the poet, then in the prime of life, and living as a bachelor in his romantic mansion of Hawthornden, on the Esk, seven miles from Edinburgh. It is probable that Drummond and Jonson had met before in London, and indulged together in the "wit-combats" at the Mermaid and similar scenes. Indeed, there is a prevalent belief in Scotland that it was mainly to see Drummond at Hawthornden that Jonson came so far from home, and certain it is, from Drummond 's report of his 'Conversations,' that he designed 'to write a Fisher or Pastoral (Piscatory?) Play—and make the stage of it on the Lomond Lake—he also contemplated writing in prose his 'Foot Pilgrimage to Scotland,' which, with a feeling very natural in one who found so much to admire where so little had been known, he spoke

[p58-1] A Piece of Gold of Two-and-Twenty Shillings.—"This was a considerable present; but Jonson's hand and heart were ever open to his acquaintance. All his pleasures were social; and while health and fortune smiled upon him, he was no niggard either of his time or talents to those who needed them. There is something striking in Taylor's concluding sentence, when the result of his (Jonson's) visit to Drummond is considered:—but there is one evil that walks, which keener eyes than John's have often failed to discover.—I have only to add, in justice to this honest man (Taylor) that his gratitude outlived the subject of it. He paid the tribute of a verse to his benefactor's memory:—the verse indeed, was mean: but poor Taylor had nothing better to give."—Lt. Col. Francis Cunningham's edition of Gifford's Ben Jonson's Works, p. xli.
"In the summer of 1618 Scotland received a visit from the famous Ben Jonson. The burly Laureate walked all the way, among the motives for a journey then undertaken by few Englishmen, might be curiosity regarding a country from which he knew that his family was derived, his grandfather having been one of the Johnsons of Annandale. He had many friends too, particularly among the connections of the Lennox family, whom he might be glad to see at their own houses. Among those with whom he had amicable intercourse, was William Drummond, the poet, then in the prime of life, and living as a bachelor in his romantic mansion of Hawthornden, on the Esk, seven miles from Edinburgh. It is probable that Drummond and Jonson had met before in London, and indulged together in the "wit-combats" at the Mermaid and similar scenes. Indeed, there is a prevalent belief in Scotland that it was mainly to see Drummond at Hawthornden that Jonson came so far from home, and certain it is, from Drummond 's report of his 'Conversations,' that he designed 'to write a Fisher or Pastoral (Piscatory?) Play—and make the stage of it on the Lomond Lake—he also contemplated writing in prose his 'Foot Pilgrimage to Scotland,' which, with a feeling very natural in one who found so much to admire where so little had been known, he spoke

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