Benjamin Jonson, commonly called Bex, an English dramatist, born in Westminster in 1573 or 1574, died Aug. 6,1637. He was the posthumous son of a clergyman, and during his childhood his mother was married a second time, according to tradition, to a master bricklayer named Fowler. Ben was educated at Westminster school under the tuition of Camden, and subsequently followed the calling of his stepfather, whom he assisted in building part of Lincoln's Inn. Finding this occupation not to his taste, he, enlisted in the army, and served a campaign in Flanders. Returning to England, he is said to have entered himself at St. John's college, Cambridge. About the age of 20 he went upon the stage, but met with little success as an actor, and also engaged in dramatic composition. In 1596 appeared his " Comedy of Humors," which was recast and brought out at the Globe theatre in 1598 under the title of " Every Man in his Humor." Shakespeare, who is said to have aided in the composition of the play, was one of the performers.

About the same time he was imprisoned for killing Gabriel Spenser, an actor, in a duel, and during his confinement was converted to the Roman Catholic faith, although he subsequently became again a Protestant. " Every Man in his Humor" was succeeded in 1599 by " Every Man out of his Humor," a less able performance, in which the " euphuism" so fashionable at that time is ridiculed; " Cynthia's Revels" (1600); the "Poetaster" (1602), which involved the author in a quarrel with Decker, who retaliated upon him in " Satyro-mastix;" and "Sejanus," a tragedy (1603), in which Shakespeare is said to have taken his farewell of the stage as an actor. Shortly after the accession of James L, Jonson, in conjunction with Chapman and Marston, wrote the comedy of "Eastward Hoe," containing some reflections on the Scottish nation, in consequence of which the three dramatists were imprisoned and threatened with the loss of their ears and noses. After a short confinement they were pardoned, and Jonson made his peace with James, who employed him in writing masques and other court entertainments.

Between 1605 and 1611 appeared his comedies of "Volpone," "Epicoene, or the Silent Woman," and "The Alchemist," and the tragedy of " Catiline." In 1613 he visited the continent as travelling tutor to a son of Sir Walter Raleigh. Among his favorite haunts at this time was the Mermaid club, where he was thrown into the society of Shakespeare and the great Elizabethan dramatists, and of Raleigh, Camden, Selden, Donne, and others. The Apollo club, which met at the Devil tavern in Fleet street, was founded by Ben Jonson himself at a later date. In 1619 he received the appointment of poet laureate with a pension of 100 marks, and about the same time made a pedestrian excursion to Scotland, in the course of which he visited Drummond of Hawthorn-den, who has preserved some curious notes of his conversation. In 1628 he was attacked by palsy, and compelled also by poverty to write for the stage. His " New Inn " was unsuccessful, but Charles I., hearing of his necessities, sent him a present of £100, and raised his salary to that sum, adding, a tierce of canary annually. Notwithstanding this assistance, his improvident habits kept him always in difficulties. He wrote two or three more dramas, which Dry-den calls his "dotages," and left "The Sad Shepherd," a fragment of great beauty.

Jon-son's pride of learning, which obtrudes itself into some of his best works, has interfered not a little with their popularity as literary performances. In the opinion of some of his critics his genius was more poetic than dramatic. His delineations of character are striking, original, and artistic, rather than natural. His comedies are esteemed his best performances. His tragedies, founded on classic history, and burdened with long extracts from Sallust, Tacitus, and other Latin authors, are correct in form, but lack vivacity. He published in 1616 a folio edition of most of his works produced previous to that date, carefully revised and corrected. Various collective editions subsequently appeared, the first good one being that of Gilford (9 vols. 8vo, 1816), accompanied with notes critical and explanatory, and a biographical memoir, written with ability, but in a partisan spirit. Moxon's reprint, the latest, prefaced by Gilford's memoir (royal 8vo, 1853), contains 17 plays, 15 of which were performed on the stage; over 30 masques and interludes; epigrams, translations from Horace, an English grammar, and a variety of miscellanies in prose and verse.

He was buried in Westminster abbey, and the pithy inscription upon his tomb, "O rare Ben Jonson," was added at the expense of an eccentric Oxfordshire squire, called Jack Young, who, observing the tomb to be destitute of an epitaph, gave a mason 18 pence to carve the words upon it. The stone has since been removed.