'Of Ben Jonson's Alchemist he writes: "It is very happily managed indeed to make Subtle use so many terms of alchemy, and talk with such fanatical warmth about his 'great art,' even to his accomplice. As Hume says, roguery and enthusiasm run into each other. I admire this play very much. The plot would have been more agreeable, and more rational, if Surly had married the widow whose honor he has preserved. Lovewit is as contemptible as Subtle himself. The whole of the trick about the Queen of Fairy is improbable in the highest degree. But, after all, the play is as good as any in our language out of Shakespeare."'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
'I am a reader in ordinary, and I cannot defend the introduction of the First Catilinarian oration, at full length, into a play. Catiline is a very middling play. The characters are certainly discriminated, but with no delicacy. Jonson makes Cethegus a mere vulgar ruffian. He quite fogets that all the conspirators were gentlemen, noblemen, politicians, probably scholars. He has seized only the coarsest peculiarities of character. As to the conduct of the piece, nothing can be worse than the long debates and narratives which make up half of it.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Ben Jonson's Catiline, by the lines 'Lentulus: The augurs all are constant I am meant / Catiline: They had lost their science else.']: "The dialogue here is good and natural. but it is strange that so excellent a scholar as Ben Jonson should represent the Augurs as giving any encouragement to Lentulus's dreams. The Augurs were the first nobles of Rome. In this generation Pompey, Hortensius, Cicero, and other men of the same class, belonged to the College."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Thursday 11 February, 1802: 'We made up a good fire after dinner, and William brought his Mattress out, and lay down on the floor. I read to him the life of Ben Jonson, and some short poems of his, which were too interesting for him, and would not let him go to sleep. I had begun with Fletcher, but he was too dull for me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Thursday 11 February, 1802: 'It is now 7 o'clock ... Wm. is still on his bed ... I continued to read to him. We were much delighted with the poem of Penshurst.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Sunday 14 February, 1802: 'It was a pleasant afternoon. I ate a little bit of cold mutton ... and then sate over the fire, reading Ben Jonson's Penshurst, and other things.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Wordsworth Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Tuesday 9 March 1802: 'William was reading in Ben Jonson -- he read me a beautiful poem on Love.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Wednesday 10 March 1802: 'Wm. read in Ben Jonson in the morning. I read a little German ...'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, Tuesday 23 March 1802: 'He [William Wordsworth] is now reading Ben Jonson ... It is about 10 o'clock, a quiet night. The fire flutters, and the watch ticks. I hear nothing else save the breathing of my Beloved, and he now and then pushes his book forward, and turns over a leaf.'
Century: Reader/Listener/Group: William Wordsworth Print: Book
" But, when I was nearly sixteen, I made a purchase which brought me into sad trouble, and was the cause of a permanent wound to my self- respect. I had long coveted in the book-shop window a volume in which the poetical works of Ben Jonson and Christopher Marlowe were said to be combined. This I bought at length, and I carried it with me to devour as I trod the desolate road that brought me along the edge of the cliff on Saturday afternoons. Ben Jonson I could make nothing of..."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edmund Gosse Print: Book
'Lancashire journalist Allen Clarke (b.1863), the son of a Bolton textile worker, avidly read his father's paperback editions of Shakespeare and ploughed through the literature section (Chaucer, Marlowe, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Milton, Pope, Chatterton, Goldsmith, Byron, Shelley, Burns, Wordsworth, Leigh Hunt) of the public library. With that preparation, he was winning prizes for poems in London papers by age thirteen...[he] went on to found and edit several Lancashire journals'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Allen Clarke Print: Book
'have been reading a little on philology, have finished the 24th book of the Iliad, the first book of the Faery Queene, Clough's poems, and a little about Etruscan things in Mrs Grey and Dennis. Aloud to G. I have been reading some Italian, Ben Jonson's Alchemist and Volpone, and Bright's speeches, which I am still reading - besides the first four cantos of Don Juan'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
'have been reading a little on philology, have finished the 24th book of the Iliad, the first book of the Faery Queene, Clough's poems, and a little about Etruscan things in Mrs Grey and Dennis. Aloud to G. I have been reading some Italian, Ben Jonson's Alchemist and Volpone, and Bright's speeches, which I am still reading - besides the first four cantos of Don Juan'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.] Print: Book
[Marginalia]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
'I devoured poetry and nothing but poetry until I became insensible to poetry. Take an example; I happened upon some fat volumes of Campbell's "British Poets", the complete works of from four to eight poets in each volume which cost me 6d. apiece. They had shabby worn leather bindings, and the type was on the small side and closely set. But I ploughed through them, doggedly, as if reading for a bet, or an imposed task. One volume I remember contained the poetical works of Samuel Daniel, Browne, Giles and Phineas Fletcher, Ben Jonson, Drummond (of Harthornden), John Donne, and some more minor ones. Another contained along with "also rans" Cowley, Milton and "Hudibras" Butler. And, I repeat, I ploughed through them with a stout heart, but little sense, and a dwindling understanding.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas A. Jackson Print: Book
'So home to dinner and then to my chamber to read Ben Johnson's "Cateline", a very excellent piece.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'and then went home and read a piece of a play (Every Man in his Humour, wherein is the greatest propriety of speech that ever I read in my life); and so to bed.'
Century: 1600-1699 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Pepys Print: Book
'[Shelley] begins reading aloud Cynthia's revels - writes - and read the Oedipus of Sophocles'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read a little of Tacitus - Several of Beaumont and Fletchers Plays - S. reads Volpone and the Alchymist aloud and begins Lalla Rookh'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read a little of Tacitus - Several of Beaumont and Fletchers Plays - S. reads Volpone and the Alchymist aloud and begins Lalla Rookh'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Read the fall of Sejanus'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Catiline's Conspiracy - Strath allan'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read 30th Canto of Ariosto - Livy - Horace - & Every Man in his humour. S. reads Aristophanes and Anacharsis'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read 31 Canto of Ariosto - Livy - Horace & Epicoene or the silent woman'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read 32 Canto of Ariosto - Livy - Horace - & Volpone - S reads Arist[o]phanes & Anarcharsis'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read 33rd Canto of Ariosto - Livy - Horace & The Magnetick lady - S reads Aristophanes & Anarcharsis - & Hume's England aloud in the evening after our walk.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Livy - The Bartholomew Fair of Ben Johnson [sic]'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Sunday April 16th. [...] Read the fall of Sejanus --
[...]
'Tuesday April 18th. [...] Read Locke & fall of Sejanus.
[...]
'Wednesday April [...] 19 [...] Finish the fall of Sejanus by Ben Jonson begin the Woman's
prize or the Tamer tam'd by Beaumont & Fletcher.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont Print: Book
'Read Livy - and the Tale of the Tub of B. Jon[s]on - Transcribe the Symposium - S. reads Herodotus - and Hume in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Livy - The case is altered of B. Jonson'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read the Quarterly review & Remorse - an unhappy day - S. reads one act of the alchemist to the G[isborne]'s in the evening - read 2 Canto of the Purgatorio'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Write - Read the New Inn of Ben Jonson & 2 canto's of Dante with S. - he reads the Alchemist aloud in the evening'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Write - Read the Poetaster'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'Read Lucan - S. reads Calderon - & Ben Jonson's Sad Shepherd aloud in the evening - read 24th Canto of Dante with him'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'read Lucan - S. reads Calderon - Dante with me - & finishes the Sad Shepherd aloud in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'Finish Fable of the Bees - Read Catiline's Conspiracy'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
'S. reads the Fall of Sejanus aloud. reads Hobbes. On Man.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S reads Hobbes - Catalines plot aloud.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'S. reads the Case is Altered of B.[en] Jonson aloud in the evening'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'copy for S. - he reads to me the tale of a Tub'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'walk with S. - he reads Every Man in his humour aloud in the evening'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
'W. dines with us - walk with him - his play - S finishes Every Man in his Humour'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley Print: Book
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 27-28 March 1842:
'Do you know how Mr Macready has been attacked for trying [...] to suppress [italics]the
saloons[end italics] [...] and how it has been declared that no theatre can exist at the present
day without a saloon -- & how, if it could, the effect wd be to force vicious persons & their
indecencies into full view in the boxes --!! Now this appears to me enough to constitute a
repulsive objection! & I who have read hard at the old dramatists since I last spoke to you
about them, -- Beaumont & Fletcher Massinger Ben Jonson all Dodsley's collection, -- can yet
see that objection in all its repulsiveness! .. & read on!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Friday 18 January: 'Toynbees & Kot. to dinner on Tuesday [15 January]; & that afternoon Lady
Strachey read to us -- to me for the most part, as L[eonard]. was late. She read Ben Jonson's
masques. They are short, & in between she broke off to talk a little [...] I enjoyed it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Jane Maria, Lady Strachey Print: Book
Saturday 17 March 1923: 'Written, for a wonder, at 10 o'clock at night [...] my brain saturated with the Silent Woman. I am reading her because we now read plays at 46 [Gordon Square].'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'She comments, with discrimination, on Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, Rousseau and Cervantes, "Tom Jones", "Emma", "A Man of Feeling", Coleridge, Mrs Shelley, and Crabbe'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Louisa, Lady Stuart Print: Book
'Cob was once the general name the general English Word I mean for a Spider, Cobweb is still left from this Root, & I believe when Ben Jonson wrote Every Man in his Humour the Word was not quite gone because of all the company meeting at [italics] Cob's [end italics] House which is described to be very dirty & full of Spiders'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
'[Mrs Thrale gives some verses of hers about bathing] these Lines are imitated from some Verses in Ben Jonson's Volpone, which are too obscene to be borne, otherwise very fine I think. What a prodigious Effort of human Genius is that Volpone! when one reads it one is tempted to say - this is Perfection, let us look no further.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
"Which reminds me I noticed an extract from Ben Jonson the other day which said 'the third requisite in our poet, or maker, is imitation... to follow him (Auden, in my case) till he grow very He; or so like him that the copy may be mistaken for the principal...'"
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Larkin
'The Secy. (who was absent) has received the folowiing summary from R.B. Graham.
a) C.I. Evans read a paper on Ben Jonson, by the request of the committee, 'Short & suggestive'. It fulfilled both these requisites & was also interesting.
b) Short poems were illustrated by H. Marriage Wallis & R.B.Graham
c) Miss Bowman Smith sang 'Drink to me only'
d) Mrs Smith dealt with the proverbial sayings
e) Miss R. Wallis gave a lively & lucid description of the play 'A Tale of a Tub'. This deals with the affairs of a fetching but impartial damsel yclept Audrey Turfe whose matrimonial adventures form a complicated & amusing plot
f) Miss Bowman Smith sang 'Have you seen but the white lily grow?' (The Devil's an Ass)
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis Print: Book
'The Secy. (who was absent) has received the folowiing summary from R.B. Graham.
a) C.I. Evans read a paper on Ben Jonson, by the request of the committee, 'Short & suggestive'. It fulfilled both these requisites & was also interesting.
b) Short poems were illustrated by H. Marriage Wallis & R.B.Graham
c) Miss Bowman Smith sang 'Drink to me only'
d) Mrs Smith dealt with the proverbial sayings
e) Miss R. Wallis gave a lively & lucid description of the play 'A Tale of a Tub'. This deals with the affairs of a fetching but impartial damsel yclept Audrey Turfe whose matrimonial adventures form a complicated & amusing plot
f) Miss Bowman Smith sang 'Have you seen but the white lily grow?' (The Devil's an Ass)
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: R.B. Graham Print: Book
'The Secy. (who was absent) has received the folowiing summary from R.B. Graham.
a) C.I. Evans read a paper on Ben Jonson, by the request of the committee, 'Short & suggestive'. It fulfilled both these requisites & was also interesting.
b) Short poems were illustrated by H. Marriage Wallis & R.B.Graham
c) Miss Bowman Smith sang 'Drink to me only'
d) Mrs Smith dealt with the proverbial sayings
e) Miss R. Wallis gave a lively & lucid description of the play 'A Tale of a Tub'. This deals with the affairs of a fetching but impartial damsel yclept Audrey Turfe whose matrimonial adventures form a complicated & amusing plot
f) Miss Bowman Smith sang 'Have you seen but the white lily grow?' (The Devil's an Ass)
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Evans Print: Book
'The Secy. (who was absent) has received the folowiing summary from R.B. Graham.
a) C.I. Evans read a paper on Ben Jonson, by the request of the committee, 'Short & suggestive'. It fulfilled both these requisites & was also interesting.
b) Short poems were illustrated by H. Marriage Wallis & R.B.Graham
c) Miss Bowman Smith sang 'Drink to me only'
d) Mrs Smith dealt with the proverbial sayings
e) Miss R. Wallis gave a lively & lucid description of the play 'A Tale of a Tub'. This deals with the affairs of a fetching but impartial damsel yclept Audrey Turfe whose matrimonial adventures form a complicated & amusing plot
f) Miss Bowman Smith sang 'Have you seen but the white lily grow?' (The Devil's an Ass)
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamund Wallis Print: Book
'His last works were Spiritual hymns and which he wrote very well. In his own line of Society he was said to exhibit infinite humour but all his works are grave and pensive a stile, perhaps like Master Stephen's melancholy affected for the nonce (Footnote: an allusion to Ben Jonson's Everyman in his Humour).'
Unknown
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 15 August 1758, following Talbot's stepfather's appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury, and his household's change of residence:]
'I have not had any spare time, not but that I have lounged away many a half hour over Ben Jonson, Marivaux's Spectateur Francois, and any such idle books as chance presented me'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
There followed an amusing passage from Ben Jonsons Silent Woman with C I Evans as Morose Geo Burrow as Mute & R H Robson as Truewit.
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles I. Evans
There followed an amusing passage from Ben Jonsons Silent Woman with C I Evans as Morose Geo Burrow as Mute & R H Robson as Truewit.
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Burrow
There followed an amusing passage from Ben Jonsons Silent Woman with C I Evans as Morose Geo Burrow as Mute & R H Robson as Truewit.
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald H. Robson
