BrokenTune

He died in August 1637, aged 65, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where his memorial stone bears the inscription: ‘O rare Ben Jonson’. His status as the most distinguished and productive literary figure of the previous forty years was recognized by many printed tributes – far more than had marked Shakespeare’s passing – including the publication of a collection of memorial poems; and a second, much enlarged, three-volume edition of his Folio appeared in 1640.

For the remainder of the seventeenth century Jonson’s reputation and influence equalled and possibly exceeded Shakespeare’s, but in the eighteenth century the balance shifted, above all with the virtual deification of Shakespeare from the time of the Garrick Jubilee, in 1769, onwards.

Jonson was an interesting character - tho Marlowe is still the most intriguing to me right now. 

The next chapter is about Middleton, but I will need to leave this to tomorrow evening ... together with the rest of the book (I need to return the book to the library on Friday).