Page:Literary Landmarks of Oxford.djvu/98

70 Fuller sent Benjamin Jonson to Trinity College, Cambridge, upon what authority is not now known, for Jonson himself, the son of a bricklayer in London, told Drummond, of Hawthornden, once, that he was taken from school, and put to a trade; and that the degree he possessed from each University was given by favor, and not by study. According to Anthony Wood, Jonson's M. A. degree from Oxford was conferred in 1619, when, at the invitation of certain of the poetical Dons of the University, he went to Christ Church College, was a member thereof, and continued there some time, in the writing and composing of plays; which is Wood's excuse for numbering him among the Worthies of Oxford, and which will account for his presence in these records of the University.

Robert Burton was already devoting himself to the study of Melancholy, and its Anatomy, when he entered Christ Church from Brazenose in 1599. An original Latin comedy of his was enacted by the students in the Hall of Christ Church on Shrove Tuesday, February, 1617 or 1618. It is one of the rarest of printed works to-day, and it is described as a witty exposure of the practises of the professors of the art of chicanery; in which the manners and habits of a fraternity of vagabonds are portrayed with considerable humor and skill.