lons to plead, as it was called, the benefit of clergy,
Jonson might have been hanged for this deed. The circumstance that the
poet could read and write saved him; and he received only a brand of the
letter "T," for Tyburn, on his left thumb. While in jail Jonson became a
Roman Catholic; but he returned to the faith of the Church of England a
dozen years later.

On his release, in disgrace with Henslowe and his former associates,
Jonson offered his services as a playwright to Henslowe's rivals,
the Lord Chamberlain's company, in which Shakespeare was a prominent
shareholder. A tradition of long standing, though not susceptible
of proof in a court of law, narrates that Jonson had submitted the
manuscript of "Every Man in His Humour" to the Chamberlain's men and had
received from the company a refusal; that Shakespeare called him back,
read the play himself, and at once accepted it. Whether this story is
true or not, certain it is that "Every Man in His Humour" was accepted
by Shakespeare's company and acted for the first time in 1598, with
Shakespeare taking a part. The evidence of this is contained in the list
of actors prefixed to the comedy in the folio of Jonson's works, 1616.
But it is a mistake to infer, because Shakespeare's name stands first
in the list of actors and the elder Kno'well first in the 'dramatis
personae', that Shakespeare took that particular part. The order of a
list of Elizabethan players was generally that of their importance or
priority as shareholders in the company and seldom if ever corresponded
to the list of characters.

"Every Man in His Humour" was an immediate success, and with it Jonson's
reputation as one of the leading dramatists of his time was established
once and for all. This could have been by no means Jonson's earliest
comedy, and we have just learned that he was already reputed one of "our
best in tragedy." Indeed, one of Jonson's extant comedies, "The Case
is Altered," but one never claimed by him or published as his, must
certainly have preceded "Every Man in His Humour" on the stage. The
former play may be described as a comedy modelled on the Latin plays of
Plautus. (It combines, in fact, situations derived from the "Captivi"
and the "Aulularia" of that dramatist). But the pretty story of the
beggar-maiden, Rachel, and her suitors, Jonson found, not among the
classics, but in the ideals of romantic love which Shakespeare had
already popularised on the stage. Jonson never a