“Whoever was the aggressor,” says Horace Walpole, “the turbulence and brutality of Jonson was sure to place him most in the wrong.” This is a hard judgment. Let it be remembered that the circumstances of the two men were different. Jonson was poor, diseased, and in that miserable plight when a generous temper is continually checked by pecuniary difficulties. Inigo Jones had realized a handsome fortune, and was then in the full enjoyment of wealth and reputation. Unfortunately he was a poet; some of the masques printed had their joint names as the composers. Jealousies arose, which ought to have soon subsided, had either of these celebrated men known how to curb his wrath. In Jonson’s case, his temper was his worst enemy; but for this defect he had an excuse which might have pleaded for him even with Inigo. In 1625, Jonson composed for King James “Pan’s Anniversary,” the last piece that he presented to that monarch; towards the end of that year he was attacked with palsy, and a threatening of dropsy added to his accumulated trials. Poverty and ill-health are pleas for indulgence. For the first evil, Jonson’s improvidence, his hospitality, his utter want of prudence in his affairs, may justly be blamed. The last was also partially his own fault, for his habits were intemperate--and partly ascribable to an hereditarily diseased constitution. Nature, which had endowed him with that wonderful intellect, that indomitable energy, had modified her gift by the infliction of a cruel malady, which, being in the blood, was aggravated by the weakness of approaching age. The suppers at the Mermaid were now finally abandoned; and the club at the Devil Tavern, near Temple Bar, was no longer enlivened by his wit. His intellect was affected to some extent, but he recovered sufficiently to write the anti-masque of “Jophiel” for the Court; after which, none of his productions were commanded by the King during the space of three years. In his necessities, unable to leave his room, or to move without assistance, the poor invalid turned to the theatre as a source of revenue, and produced “The New Inn.” It was hissed from the stage; and, notwithstanding the dramatist’s plea in his epilogue that he was “sick and sad,” he was persecuted with contemptuous verses, and pursued with remorseless cruelty by the many enemies that his rough manners had excited--among them, Inigo was the most inveterate. There was, however, one kind heart that pitied him--that of Charles I. The monarch was touched by the lines which the hard critics in the theatre could hear without compassion:--