ueen Mary, in whose reign he suffered
imprisonment, and at last entered into holy orders, and died about a
month before our poet's birth[1], who was born at Westminster, says
Wood, in the year 1574. He was first educated at a private school
in the church of St. Martin's in the Fields, afterwards removed to
Westminster school, where the famous Camden was master. His mother,
who married a bricklayer to her second husband, took him from school,
and obliged him to work at his father-in-law's trade, but being
extremely averse to that employment, he went into the low countries,
where he distinguished himself by his bravery, having in the view of
the army killed an enemy, and taken the opima spolia from him.

Upon his return to England, he applied himself again to his former
studies, and Wood says he was admitted into St. John's College in the
university of Cambridge, though his continuance there seems to have
been but short. He had some time after this the misfortune to fight
a duel, and kill his adversary, who only slightly wounded him in the
arm; for this he was imprisoned, and being cast for his life, was near
execution; his antagonist, he said, had a sword ten inches longer than
his own.

While he lay in prison, a popish priest visited him, who found his
inclination quite disengaged as to religion, and therefore took the
opportunity to impress him with a belief of the popish tenets. His
mind then naturally melancholy, clouded with apprehensions, and the
dread of execution, was the more easily imposed upon. However, such
was the force of that impression, that for twelve years after he had
gained his liberty, he continued in the catholic faith, and at last
turned Protestant, whether from conviction or fashion cannot be
determined; but when the character of Ben is considered, probability
will be upon the side of the latter, for he took every occasion to
ridicule religion in his plays, and make it his sport in conversation.
On his leaving the university he entered himself into an obscure
playhouse, called the Green Curtain, somewhere about Shoreditch or
Clerkenwell. He was first an actor, and probably only a strolling one;
for Decker in his Satyromastix, a play published in 1602, and designed
as a reply to Johnson's Poetaster, 'reproaches him with having left
the occupation of a mortar trader to turn actor, and with having put
up a supplication to be a poor journeyman player, in which he would
have continued, but that he co