ABSTRACT

The closing years of Jonson's life saw a crucial change in his professional pattern. As King James's poet laureate he had been able to take life in a leisurely way, producing at last only the sort of work he deemed compatible with his position and status . With the accession of Charles I in 1625 the old poet had to begin again under a new master, with new customs and fashions at court . A growing insecurity, together with a steadily deteriorating financial situation, drove Jonson to resume working in what should have been his retirement . In the eight years following 1626 he wrote four full-length plays, The StapleofNews, TheNewlnn, TheMagneticLadyandA Taleofa Tub . Although these were the years of Jonson's final defeat as court masque-maker by Inigo Jones, he nevertheless also received commissions for four masques in this time. Even under such pressure, Jonson did not stop writing his occasional verse-now more than ever he needed to make his poems his friends, as Horace said - and he was, additionally, engaged in various prose ventures . After the disastrous fire of 1623 Jonson was provoked to try to re-create for posterity his lost work on English grammar while he also continued to use the commonplace book method of collecting and refining those insights and pronouncements that became his critical handbook, Timber, or Discoveries.