ABSTRACT
Ben Jonson is rarely to be found in slippers, and the nearest thing to catching him in the confessional mood is to read the common place book quaintly published among his collected works as the Discoveries. There are, however, some precious lines upon memory in which the secret of Jonson's great learning is revealed. There is another passage in which, writing generally of good and bad men, Jonson looks suddenly at himself. Next to the passages in which Jonson takes himself for a theme or reveals a temperament are those in which he discusses questions directly concerning his own vocation. He writes in many places of style, of his debt to the ancients, of the poet's small reward, of his training and special qualities. All that the author has been told or might suspect of Jonson's habit of composition is abundantly confirmed in the Discoveries.
