Then he came over into England, and acted and wrote, but both ill, at the Green Curtaine, a kind of nursery or obscure playhouse, somewhere in the suburbes (I thinke towards Shoreditch or Clarkenwell)--from J. Greenhill. Then he undertooke againe to write a playe, and did hitt it admirably well, viz. 'Every man ...' which was his first good one. Serjeant John Hoskins, of Herefordshire, was his _father_. I remember his sonne (Sir Bennet Hoskins, baronet, who was something poeticall in his youth) told me, that when he desired to be adopted his son: 'No,' sayd he, ''tis honour enough for me to be your brother; I am your father's son, 'twas he that polished me, I doe acknowledge it.' He was (or rather had been) of a clear and faire skin; his habit was very plaine. I have heard Mr. Lacy, the player, say that he was wont to weare a coate like a coach-man's coate, with slitts under the arme-pitts. He would many times exceed in drinke (Canarie was his beloved liquour): then he would tumble home to bed, and, when he had thoroughly perspired, then to studie. I have seen his studyeing chaire, which was of strawe, such as old woemen used, and as Aulus Gellius is drawen in. When I was in Oxon, bishop Skinner (of Oxford), who lay at our College, was wont to say that he understood an author as well as any man in England. He mentions in his Epigrammes a sonne that he had, and his epitaph. Long since, in King James' time, I have heard my uncle Danvers say (who knew him), that he lived without Temple Barre, at a combe-maker's shop, about the Elephant and Castle. In his later time he lived in Westminster, in the house under which you passe as you goe out of the churchyard into the old palace; where he dyed. He lies buryed[V.] in the north aisle in the path of square stone (the rest is lozenge), opposite to the scutcheon[42] of Robertus de Ros, with this inscription only on him, in a pavement square, of blew marble, about 14 inches square, O RARE BENN IOHNSON which was donne at the chardge of Jack Young (afterwards knighted) who, walking there when the grave was covering,[43] gave the fellow eighteen pence to cutt it. [V.] Ben Johnson lyes buryed in the north aisle of Westminster Abbey, just opposite to the scutcheon of Robertus de Ros, under the middle walke or path of square stones, on one of which is wrote O RARE BEN JOHNSON[44] [four yards from the pillar].--MS. Aubr. 8, fol. 55. His motto before his (bought) bookes was, _Tanquam Explorator_. I remember 'tis in Seneca's Epistles. He was a favourite of the Lord Chancellor Egerton, as appeares by severall verses to him. In one he begges his lordship to doe a friend of his a favour. 'Twas an ingeniose remarque of my lady Hoskins, that B. J. never writes of love, or if he does, does it not naturally. He killed Mr. ... Marlow, the poet, on Bunhill, comeing from the Green-Curtain play-house.--From Sir Edward Shirburn.