Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/123

 BEN JONSON 107 Begin." To the other he says briefly : " You I would understand to be the better man, though places in court go otherwise : to you I submit myself and work. Farewell." In 1612 the death of Prince Henry put a stop for the time to all festivities at court, and Jonson took advantage of this interval, when his services were not required for masques or entertainments, to visit the Continent. Drummond reports : " S. W. Raulighe sent him governour with his Son, anno 16 13, to France. This youth being knavishly inclyned, among other pastimes. . . caused him to be drunken, and dead drunk, so that he knew not wher he was, ther- after laid him on a carr, which he made to be drawen by pioners through the streets, at every corner show- ing his governour stretched out, and telling them that was a more lively image of the Crucifix than any they had : at which sport young Raughlie's mother delyghted much (saying, his father young was so inclyned) though the Father abhorred it." This young scapegrace Walter, as Col. Cunningham notes, accompanied his father on his last fatal expedi- tion, and was killed in an ambush on the banks of the Orinoco, on New Year's Day, 16 18, in his twenty- third year. In 1614 *' Bartholomew Fair" was produced at the Hope Theatre, on the Bank-side, Its subject, its multitude of familiar characters, its broad humour, its ridicule of the Puritans (most delectable to GifTord), combined to make it extremely popular; and it is said to have first called forth the " O rare Ben Jonson ! " afterwards placed for all epitaph upon his tombstone. It was followed, in 1616, by "The