t notable of which was the
_Satiromastix_ (Whip for the Satirist) of Dekker (_q.v._), a severe,
though not altogether unfriendly, retort, which J. took in good part,
announcing his intention of leaving off satire and trying tragedy. His
first work in this kind was _Sejanus_ (1603), which was not very
favourably received. It was followed by _Eastward Ho_, in which he
collaborated with Marston and Chapman. Certain reflections on Scotland
gave offence to James I., and the authors were imprisoned, but soon
released. From the beginning of the new reign J. devoted himself largely
to the writing of Court masques, in which he excelled all his
contemporaries, and about the same time entered upon the production of
the three great plays in which his full strength is shown. The first of
these, _Volpone, or the Fox_, appeared in 1605; _Epicaene, or the Silent
Woman_ in 1609, and _The Alchemist_ in 1610. His second and last tragedy,
_Catiline_, was produced in 1611. Two years later he was in France as
companion to the son of Sir W. Raleigh, and on his return he held up
hypocritical Puritanism to scorn in _Bartholomew Fair_, which was
followed in 1616 by a comedy, _The Devil is an Ass_. In the same year he
_coll._ his writings--plays, poems, and epigrams--in a folio entitled his
_Works_. In 1618 he journeyed on foot to Scotland, where he was received
with much honour, and paid his famous visit to Drummond (_q.v._) at
Hawthornden. His last successful play, _The Staple of Newes_, was
produced in 1625, and in the same year he had his first stroke of palsy,
from which he never entirely recovered. His next play, _The New Inn_, was
driven from the stage, for which in its rapid degeneracy he had become
too learned and too moral. A quarrel with Inigo Jones, the architect, who
furnished the machinery for the Court masques, lost him Court favour, and
he was obliged, with failing powers, to turn again to the stage, for
which his last plays, _The Magnetic Lady_ and _The Tale of a Tub_, were
written in 1632 and 1633. Town and Court favour, however, turned again,
and he received a pension of L100; that of the best poets and lovers of
literature he had always kept. The older poets were his friends, the
younger were proud to call themselves, and be called by him, his sons. In
1637, after some years of gradually failing health, he _d._, and was
buried in Westminster Abbey. An admirer caused a mason to cut on the slab
over his grave the well-known inscri