‘On Ben Jonson’
‘On Ben Jonson’.According to an anecdote in the papers of Nicholas Burgh (c.1650) in the Bodleian Library, Shakespeare and Jonson, ‘being merry at a tavern, Master Jonson having begun this for his epitaph: “Here lies Ben Jonson, | That was once one”, he gives it to Master Shakespeare to make up, who presently writes: “Who while he lived was a slow thing, | And now, being dead, is nothing.” ’ In another version, found among the papers of Thomas Plume in Maldon, Essex, Jonson wrote, ‘Here lies Ben Jonson, | Who was once one’, whereupon ‘Shakespeare took the pen from him, and made this:
Here lies Benjamin—
With short hair upon his chin—
Who while he lived was a slow thing,
And now he's dead is no thing.’
Stanley Wells
[The entire page is 140 words long]
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