Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/105

 BEN JONSON 89 Plots against the life of the Queen abounded, as did spies to counteract them ; several Romish priests educated abroad were convicted of attempting to poison her, and executed; and new converts, such as Jonson then was, were among the most zealous and daring tools of the Jesuits. It is not known how long he was kept in prison on this occasion, nor how he procured his release. The facts that he was the challenged and not the challenging party, and that his adversary acted unfairly in using a sword so much the longer, must have weighed in his favour. In 1599 his Comical Satire, "Every Man out of his Humour," was first acted at the Globe on the Bank Side, by the Lord Chamberlain's servants, who, being licensed by King James soon after his accession, took the title of His Majesty's Servants. All the principal members of the company, except Shake- speare, had parts in this piece. When published, in the following year, Jonson dedicated it to "The noblest Nurseries of Humanity and Liberty in the Kingdom, the Inns of Court," stating : " When I wrote this poem I had friendship with divers in your societies ; who, as they were great names in learning, so they were no less examples of living." In the introductory dialogue, which is substituted for the ordinary prologue, Jonson, under the name of Asper, is fiercely passionate in his denunciation of prevalent vices. Thus he exclaims — " my soul Was never ground into such oily colours, To flatter vice, and daub iniquity : But, with an armed and resolved hand, I'll strip the ragged follies of the time Naked as at their birth."