Ben Jonson

Topic: Ben Jonson

Source-Control Summary

• Haterius anchor: Jonson's controlled wording is the Latin tag Sufflaminandus erat, not a plain statement that Shakespeare was Haterius.
• Greenwey/Tacitus anchor: the stage-player lane contains Yet Haterius preuailed and stage-plaiers to be free from stripes.
• Epigram anchor: CIX. TO SIR HENRY NEVIL and what posteritie / tombes remain memorial-compatible but not date-proof.
• Guardrail: the sly Neville reading depends on Haterius as senator/orator and Neville as parliamentarian; document it as a hypothesis unless a direct Jonson key is found.
• Quotation-depth correction: the main quotations below now preserve passage context, not only phrase anchors. The short bullets above are finding aids; the evidentiary quotations are in Quoted Source Passages.

Haterius, Lost Epigrammes, and Memorial Language

• Supporting research file: JONSON HATERIUS 1612 EPIGRAMMES SOURCE PASS 2026 06 29.
• Gmail check located the article behind the lost-1612-Epigrammes lead: Gregory Thompson to Ken Feinstein, Jonson epigrammes, 2020-08-17, attachment 710019.pdf. The PDF is now preserved locally as lyons_new_evidence_jonson_epigrammes_1612_pbsa_2020.pdf.
• The article is Tara L. Lyons, "New Evidence for Ben Jonson's Epigrammes (ca. 1612) in Bodleian Library Records," Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 114.3 (2020), 343-364.
• Lyons supports a lost printed Epigrammes before the 1616 Works: the Bodleian daybook records Ben Jhonsons Epigrammes in a binding consignment of 15 September 1614, later associated with shelfmark 87 I 19 Art., and absent from that shelfmark by 1635.
• This evidence changes the Nevil epigram dating problem. If CIX. TO SIR HENRY NEVIL was already in the lost ca. 1612 Epigrammes, it predates Sir Henry Neville's death on 10 July 1615 and cannot have originated as a posthumous memorial. If it was added or materially revised for the 1616 Works, a memorial reading remains possible. No extant copy of the ca. 1612 Epigrammes currently proves either branch.
• Haterius claim control: Jonson does not simply "call Shakespeare Haterius." In the posthumous 1641 Jonson second volume / Timber lane (A72473), Jonson says Shakespeare flowed so freely that he sometimes needed to be stopped, then invokes the Latin tag Sufflaminandus erat as Augustus said of Haterius. The safe formulation is "Jonson compared Shakespeare's uncontrolled fluency to Augustus's Haterius saying."
• Core Haterius/Neville hypothesis: Haterius functions as a classical Roman senator/orator signal, while Neville was known as a parliamentary actor. The proposed slyness is that Jonson can appear to be making a learned comment on Shakespeare's style while also choosing a senatorial analogue that points toward Neville's political identity.
• Local Greenwey/Tacitus A13333 now confirms the stronger stage-player point at text level: in the Annals book 1 stage-player discipline episode, Greenwey says Haterius preuailed because Augustus had declared stage-players free from stripes. This strengthens the tweet route. It still does not prove Jonson used Greenwey's English Tacitus for the later Shakespeare/Haterius reminiscence.
• ODNB source-control position: D. R. Woolf's article on Richard Greenway/Grenewey is locally downloaded at odnb-9780198614128-e-67025.pdf. Use it as modern T2 context for Greenway's 1598 Tacitus and its Savile/Essex/Cuffe setting, not as proof that Jonson depended on Greenway or that the Haterius/Neville inference is a source fact.
• Jonson's 1605 Seianus (B14291) confirms Jonson worked with Tacitus/Dio classical source apparatus. Its Haterius note cites Dio, while the paratext says Jonson used Tacitus in the Lipsius edition and Dio in the Henri Estienne folio. Do not cite this as proof that Jonson used Greenwey's 1598 English Tacitus unless a direct Greenwey dependence is separately demonstrated.
• EEBO/EarlyPrint phrase checks support only a limited conclusion: the Nevil epigram's lent life / Fates / posteritie / new wombes / tombes cluster is memorial-compatible, but it does not prove posthumous composition.

Page-Image Controls

• Added direct page-image controls for Jonson's two First Folio prefatory lanes and the 1616 Henry Nevil epigram: SOURCE NOTES.
• First Folio leaf first_folio_1623_leaf0008.jpg directly verifies the To the Reader poem signed B.I. facing the Droeshout title page.
• First Folio leaves first_folio_1623_leaf0015.jpg and first_folio_1623_leaf0016.jpg directly verify the long To the memory of my beloued... poem and the signature Ben: Ionson.
• Jonson 1616 leaves jonson_workes_1616_leaf0822.jpg and jonson_workes_1616_leaf0823.jpg directly verify printed pages 803-804, CIX. To Sir Henry Nevil; readable crops are preserved for the opening and posterity/tombes close.
• This removes the previous page-image gap for the main Jonson claims. It still does not prove Jonson edited, managed, financed, or encoded the First Folio.

Web and Edition Routes

• Web search surfaced public routes for the Nevil epigram, including a later 1692 Works transcription and modern Taylor & Francis/Oxford-style edition references.
• These are useful orientation and identity-check routes only. The controlling evidence remains the local page-image packet and EarlyPrint/TCP witnesses A04632 and A11954.
• Identity guardrail: any later editorial note identifying "Sir Henry Nevil" should be checked against elder Henry Neville (1563/4-1615) versus younger or collateral Neville lines before being imported into book prose.

Jonson Evidence Lanes

This packet now separates three Jonson lanes that older notes tended to blend: the 1623 First Folio prefatory poems, the 1616 Jonson folio epigram to Sir Henry Nevil, and later/secondary commentary or Ken Feinstein interpretation.

• EarlyPrint/TCP A11954 confirms two Jonson First Folio contributions: the Droeshout-facing poem headed "To the Reader" and signed B.I., and the long encomium headed "To the memory of my beloued, The AVTHOR MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: AND what he hath left vs," signed BEN: IONSON.
• A11954 also controls the major Jonson phrases often cited in the First Folio lane, including "Soule of the Age," "small Latine, and lesse Greeke," and "Sweet Swan of Auon."
• EarlyPrint/TCP A04632 confirms Jonson's 1616 epigram CIX. TO SIR HENRY NEVIL, including the opening "WHo now calls on thee, NEVIL, is a Muse," the lent life passage, "Goe on, and doubt not, what posteritie," and the closing tombes line.
• The older wiki/Wikisource/Archive.org citations remain useful finding aids and image/page leads, but local A04632 and A11954 now control the text layer.
• McPherson remains the control for the narrow Jonson-library lane: Jonson owned Savile's Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores, but the annotation evidence must keep the Oxford-copy / Stratford-copy distinction preserved in the separate Savile packet.
• A scoped BRO sweep for Jonson, Ionson, First Folio, commendatory, prefatory, and posterity terms found no direct BRO manuscript witness. Doc_73 / IMG_8660 is listed only as a removed screenshot of printed Ben Jonson text, not as a transcription source.

Quoted Source Passages

Follow SOURCE QUOTATION STANDARD. These are the decisive short passages for the Jonson/Neville/Haterius lanes.

First Folio Jonson witness

• Source: Mr. VVilliam Shakespeares comedies, histories, & tragedies (London, 1623), STC 22273, TCP A11954; local First Folio page-image packet.
• Quotation:

"To the memory of my beloued, The AVTHOR MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE"

"BEN: IONSON"

• What it proves: Jonson is a direct signed prefatory witness in the 1623 First Folio.
• Limits: This proves prefatory authorship, not that Jonson edited, financed, compiled, or concealed the Folio.

1616 Jonson epigram to Sir Henry Nevil

• Source: Ben Jonson, The Works (London, 1616), TCP A04632; local Jonson 1616 page-image packet.
• Opening quotation:

"CIX . TO SIR HENRY NEVIL . WHo now calls on thee , NEVIL , is a Muse ,

That serues nor fame , nor titles ; but doth chuse

Where vertue makes them both , and that 's in thee :

Where all is faire , beside thy pedigree ."

• Closing quotation:

"To make thy lent life , good against the Fates :

And first to know thine owne state , then the States .

To be the same in roote , thou art in height ;

And that thy soule should giue thy flesh her weight .

Goe on , and doubt not , what posteritie ,

Now I haue sung thee thus , shall iudge of thee .

Thy deedes , vnto thy name , will proue new wombes ,

Whil'st others toyle for titles to their tombes ."

• What it proves: Jonson printed a direct epigram to Sir Henry Nevil in 1616, with posterity/tomb language relevant to the memorial question.
• Limits: Because a lost ca. 1612 Epigrammes may have existed, the 1616 witness alone cannot prove posthumous composition after Neville's death.

Haterius/Shakespeare comparison

• Source: Ben Jonson, The vvorkes of Beniamin Ionson. The second volume (London, 1641), TCP A72473, Timber/Discoveries lane.
• Quotation:

"Hee was ( indeed ) honest , and of an open , and free nature :

had an excellent Phantsie ; brave notions , and gentle expressions :

wherein hee flow'd with that facility , that sometime it was necessary

he should be stop'd : Augustus in Hat . Sufflaminandus erat ;

as Augustus said of Haterius . His wit was in his owne power ;

would the rule of it had beene so too ."

• What it proves: Jonson invokes Augustus's Haterius saying when qualifying Shakespeare's fluent wit.
• Limits: The source does not say "Shakespeare was Neville." The Neville reading depends on the classical-political analogy: Haterius as senator/orator, Neville as parliamentarian.

Haterius in Greenwey/Tacitus

• Source: Richard Greenwey's 1598 English Tacitus, TCP A13333, Annals book 1 stage-player discipline episode; local handcheck dossier CCR PH 0057 lawfull for.
• Quotation:

"many being of opinion that it it was conuenient , that the Pretor

should haue authoritie to whip the stage-plaiers . But Haterius Agrippa

Tribune of the people contradicted him : whom Asinius Gallus rebuked

in an oration : Tiberius holding his peace ; suffering the Senate to vse

that shadow of libertie . Yet Haterius preuailed , bicause Augustus had

once declared the stage-plaiers to be free from stripes"

• What it proves: the stronger tweet claim is now text-supported for Greenwey/Tacitus: Haterius appears inside the stage-player discipline controversy, not merely elsewhere in the same Tacitus witness.
• Limits: this does not prove Jonson read or used Greenwey's translation for the 1641 Shakespeare reminiscence. It proves that the Haterius/stage-player association exists in an English Tacitus available before Jonson's later printed comment.

Haterius as Senator/Orator

• Source: Greenwey/Tacitus A13333, Annals book 4; local handcheck dossier CCR DF 0022 gsenators hsenator.
• Quotation:

"In the ende of this yeere two famous men died , Asinius Agrippa ,

rather of a renowned then auncient stocke , himselfe not degenerating

from them ; and Q. Haterius descended from Senators , whilest he liued

greatly esteemed for eloquence : but monuments of his wit there are none ;

bicause he was esteemed rather for vehemencie and quicke deliuerie ,

then diligence and premeditation ."

• What it proves: the senator/orator side of the Haterius analogy is source-controlled in Greenwey's Tacitus.
• Limits: this supports the political analogy only. It is not a direct Neville identification.

Lost printed Epigrammes route

• Source: Tara L. Lyons, "New Evidence for Ben Jonson's Epigrammes (ca. 1612) in Bodleian Library Records," PBSA 114.3 (2020): 343-364; document witnesses.
• Quotation:

"Ben Jhonsons Epigrammes"

• What it proves: Lyons identifies a Bodleian records route for a now-lost printed Jonson Epigrammes before the 1616 Works.
• Limits: The record does not show whether CIX. TO SIR HENRY NEVIL was present in that lost edition.

3. Checked Source Lanes

A. 1623 First Folio Jonson poems

• EarlyPrint A11954 identifies the 1623 First Folio as Mr. VVilliam Shakespeares comedies, histories, & tragedies, printed by Isaac Jaggard and Ed. Blount, STC 22273, ESTC S111228.
• The first Jonson item appears before the title page:
• heading: "To the Reader"
• opening phrase: "This Figure"
• closing contrast: the reader should look not on the picture, but the book
• signature: B.I.
• The second Jonson item appears after Heminge and Condell's reader address:
• heading: "To the memory of my beloued, The AVTHOR MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: AND what he hath left vs"
• major control phrases: "Soule of the Age," "small Latine, and lesse Greeke," and "Sweet Swan of Auon"
• signature: BEN: IONSON
• Direct 1623 page images now control this lane:
• first_folio_1623_leaf0008.jpg: To the Reader, signed B.I.
• first_folio_1623_leaf0009.jpg: title page and Droeshout portrait.
• first_folio_1623_leaf0015.jpg and first_folio_1623_leaf0016.jpg: long Jonson poem.
• This proves Jonson's First Folio prefatory-poem role. It does not prove he edited, compiled, financed, or managed the Folio.

B. 1616 Jonson folio epigram to Sir Henry Nevil

• EarlyPrint A04632 identifies Jonson's The Works as a 1616 printed witness.
• A04632 confirms epigram CIX. TO SIR HENRY NEVIL.
• The local XML controls the key text anchors used in the Neville argument:
• "WHo now calls on thee, NEVIL, is a Muse"
• "lent life"
• "Goe on, and doubt not, what posteritie"
• "tombes"
• Direct 1616 page images now control this lane:
• jonson_workes_1616_leaf0822_nevil_opening_crop.jpg: CIX. To Sir Henry Nevil opening.
• jonson_workes_1616_leaf0823_nevil_close_crop.jpg: lent life, posteritie, and tombes close.
• This supports the factual claim that Jonson wrote an epigram to Sir Henry Nevil in the 1616 folio. The interpretation that the poem is mourning or concealment language remains an argument, not a settled source fact.

C. Donne / Beaumont / Nevil Muse pattern

• A04632 confirms Jonson's epigram to John Donne begins with a line ending in Muse: "DONNE, the delight of PHOEBVS, and each Muse."
• A04632 confirms the Nevil epigram opening "WHo now calls on thee, NEVIL, is a Muse."
• The preserved Ken Feinstein tweet images show a Beaumont crop with the analogous Muse line, but this pass did not locate that Beaumont line in local A04632; the only local Beaumont/BEAVMONT hits found were Francis Beaumont's prefatory signatures near the front of the volume.
• Treat the three-name Muse pattern as a visual/tweet lead until the Beaumont witness is mapped to an exact Jonson text, page image, or alternate edition.

D. Jonson / Savile library lane

• McPherson confirms the Jonson-owned Savile Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores lane, with important qualification: the Oxford copy is the stronger candidate for Jonson annotation, while the Stratford copy's annotations are not Jonson's.
• This is relevant to Jonson's scholarly-library network and the Henry Savile topic, but it should not be used as proof of a First Folio production role.

E. Jonson / Shakespeare / Haterius lane

• Preserved tweets make the Haterius argument explicit:
• 2019-07-22: Jonson's Shakespeare/Haterius comparison is presented as a subtle reference to Henry Neville, with Tacitus, Greenwey, Seianus, and Haterius-as-senator offered as the route. Local line control: twitter Books Read:375.
• 2021-06-30: the claim is sharpened to Haterius-as-politician and Neville-as-parliamentary leader. Local line control: Ben Jonson 4:192.
• 2021-01-29: the prompt to compare Jonson's Shakespeare comments with Jonson's Henry Neville epigram is preserved. Local line control: Ben Jonson:137.
• Primary-source control:
• A72473, Jonson's 1641 second volume, preserves the Shakespeare comment in Timber/Discoveries: Jonson loved and honored Shakespeare's memory, praises his nature and fancy, then uses the Haterius tag to qualify his fluency.
• A13333, Greenwey's 1598 Tacitus, contains L. Haterius in Senate/commonwealth contexts, places Haterius in the stage-player discipline episode, and later records Haterius as descended from senators and known for eloquent vehemence.
• B14291, Jonson's 1605 Seianus, includes a Haterius character/reference and extensive Tacitus/Dio marginal apparatus.
• Core interpretive logic: Haterius was a senator/orator; Neville was a parliamentarian. The argument is that Jonson's Haterius choice may be a sly classical-political pointer to Neville while remaining deniable as a learned stylistic comparison.
• Current assessment: the Haterius allusion is real and source-controllable. The Neville inference is plausible as an authorship-project interpretation, but not a source fact. It should be written as "Jonson's Haterius comparison gives a classical senator/parliamentarian analogy that can be read alongside Neville's political identity," not as "Jonson identifies Shakespeare as Neville."

F. Lost ca. 1612 Epigrammes edition

• Tara L. Lyons's PBSA article supplies the key bibliography:
• 15 May 1612: John Stepneth entered Ben Johnson his Epigrams in the Stationers' Register.
• 1612: Sir Arthur Throckmorton expected Jhonsons Epigarmmes and set aside sixpence.
• 1612 and 1613: William Drummond recorded reading Jonson's epigrams.
• 15 September 1614: Bodleian librarian Thomas James sent a title recorded as Ben Jhonsons Epigrammes to binder Elias Peerse.
• 30 September 1614: the binding consignment was returned and paid for.
• The Bodleian shelfmark trail places the volume at 87 I 19 Art. for at least a few years and absent by 1635.
• This supports the existence of a printed, now-lost Epigrammes before the 1616 Works. It does not show the contents, order, or textual state of that lost book.
• Consequence for CIX. TO SIR HENRY NEVIL: treat the 1616 posthumous/memorial interpretation as possible but unproved. A lost-1612 inclusion would make the poem a lifetime encomium unless 1616 revision can be demonstrated.

G. Memorial-language audit for the Nevil epigram

• Raw local A04632 controls the poem's potentially memorial language: lent life, Fates, posteritie, new wombes, and tombes.
• The preserved 2019-03-03 tweet thread explicitly reads these as mourning terms and calls the poem a tribute to Neville after his 1615 death. Local line control: twitter First Folio:75.
• EarlyPrint FTS checks, using [local source path removed], produced these controls:
• Sufflaminandus: 1 hit, Jonson A72473.
• Haterius: 9 hits, including Greenwey/Tacitus A13333, Jonson Seianus B14291, Suetonius A13126, and Jonson A72473.
• exact word phrase lent life: 7 index hits, several non-memorial or ambiguous; lemma lend life: 24 hits.
• exact word phrase calls on thee: 6 hits, including Shakespeare Sonnets A12043/A12044; exact now calls on thee: 0 index hits.
• new wombes / new wombs: 0 word-index hits, but raw A04632 confirms Jonson's line; lemma new womb: 4 hits.
• what posteritie: 9 hits; what posterity: 5 hits. The phrase is not inherently funerary.
• lemma tomb: 2861 hits, so tombes is semantically relevant but not diagnostically rare.
• Corpus conclusion: the language supports a memorial reading when combined with the 1616 post-death witness, but it cannot date the poem after Neville's death. The lost-1612 problem must remain explicit in any final book prose.

4. Claims Demoted or Held

• Do not cite wiki, Wikisource, or Ken tweet prose as the controlling text for the Nevil epigram when local A04632 is available.
• Do not say Jonson managed, edited, compiled, financed, or concealed the First Folio unless a direct source is found. Current source control proves prefatory authorship and broader literary precedent only.
• Do not treat B.I. as ambiguous in this packet's direct witness lane without noting that the adjacent long poem is signed BEN: IONSON and that the Droeshout poem is conventionally Jonson's. Final publication should still image-collate the page.
• Do not use Soule of the Age, small Latine, Sweet Swan of Auon, or the Stratford/Auon language as evidence for a Neville authorship route by itself. Those phrases are reception and memorial evidence.
• Do not use BRO Doc_73 as a manuscript or archival witness. It is currently only a removed screenshot entry in the BRO grouping metadata.
• Do not overstate the Donne/Beaumont/Nevil Muse pattern until the Beaumont crop is tied to an exact printed witness.
• Do not say Jonson "called Shakespeare Haterius" without explanation. Use the stricter wording: Jonson compared Shakespeare's unchecked fluency to Augustus's saying about Haterius.
• Do not overstate the Haterius/stage-player point as a Jonson-source fact. Current local evidence now supports the Greenwey/Tacitus direct-involvement claim, but it does not prove Jonson used Greenwey for Timber/Discoveries.
• Do not use Jonson's Seianus as proof of Greenwey dependence. The checked local witness proves Tacitus/Dio source work; the Haterius note there points to Dio.
• Do not state that the Nevil epigram was certainly written after Neville's death. The 1616 witness is posthumous, but the lost ca. 1612 Epigrammes may already have contained the poem.

5. Book-Safe Formulation

A source-controlled version can say:

Ben Jonson is a direct First Folio prefatory witness: EarlyPrint A11954 preserves the title-page-facing poem signed B.I. and the longer Shakespeare encomium signed BEN: IONSON. Jonson is also a direct Neville witness in his own 1616 folio: A04632 prints epigram CIX. TO SIR HENRY NEVIL, opening with Nevil as a Muse and later invoking posterity. These are real textual connections. They do not by themselves prove that Jonson organized the First Folio, concealed authorship, or transmitted Neville manuscripts.

For the Haterius lane, a book-safe sentence is:

In Jonson's later Shakespeare reminiscence, preserved in the 1641 second volume, Jonson praises Shakespeare's nature and imagination but says his fluent wit sometimes needed checking, invoking Augustus's saying about Haterius. Because Haterius is a Roman senator/orator in the Tacitus/Suetonius tradition, the comparison can be read as a discreet political allusion to Sir Henry Neville, a parliamentarian whom Jonson separately praised. That is an interpretive connection, not a direct identification.

The Greenwey/Tacitus support can be added cautiously:

Greenwey's 1598 English Tacitus strengthens the classical route because it presents Haterius both as a Senate/oratory figure and, in book 1, as the man whose intercession prevailed in a dispute over the punishment of stage-players. This makes the Haterius choice unusually apt for a learned, theatrical, political allusion, while still falling short of proving Jonson's intent.

For the Nevil epigram dating lane, a book-safe sentence is:

The 1616 Works prints Jonson's epigram to Sir Henry Nevil after Neville's death, and its language of lent life, Fates, posterity, and tombes is compatible with memorial reading. But Tara Lyons's evidence for a lost printed Epigrammes before 1616 means the poem may have existed while Neville was alive unless we can prove it was absent from the lost ca. 1612 edition or revised after July 1615.

6. Citations

• Shakespeare, William. Mr. VVilliam Shakespeares comedies, histories, & tragedies. London: Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, 1623. STC 22273; TCP A11954; ESTC S111228. EarlyPrint database: [local source path removed]. Header: A11954 header.
• Jonson, Ben. The Works. London: printed by Will. Stansby, 1616. TCP A04632. EarlyPrint database: [local source path removed]. Header: A04632 header.
• Jonson, Ben. The vvorkes of Beniamin Ionson. The second volume. London, 1641. TCP A72473. EarlyPrint database: [local source path removed]. Controls the Timber/Discoveries Haterius/Shakespeare reminiscence.
• Internet Archive / Boston Public Library copy of Jonson's second volume, including Timber, or Discoveries (1641): https://archive.org/details/vvorkesofbeniami00jons.
• Jonson, Ben. Seianus his fall. London: G. Elld for Thomas Thorpe, 1605. TCP B14291. EarlyPrint database: [local source path removed].
• Tacitus, Cornelius. The annales of Cornelius Tacitus. The description of Germanie. Translated by Richard Greenwey. London, 1598. TCP A13333. EarlyPrint database: [local source path removed].
• Lyons, Tara L. "New Evidence for Ben Jonson's Epigrammes (ca. 1612) in Bodleian Library Records." Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 114.3 (2020): 343-364. document witnesses: lyons_new_evidence_jonson_epigrammes_1612_pbsa_2020.pdf. Gmail source: Gregory Thompson to Ken Feinstein, Jonson epigrammes, 2020-08-17, attachment 710019.pdf.
• Internet Archive / Boston Public Library. Mr. VVilliam Shakespeares comedies, histories, & tragedies, 1623: https://archive.org/details/mrvvilliamshakes00shak.
• Internet Archive / Google Books-derived scan. The workes of Benjamin Jonson (1st folio), 1616: https://archive.org/details/workesofbenjamin01jons.
• First Folio / Herbert / Jonson image packet, 2026-06-20: SOURCE NOTES.
• McPherson, David. "Ben Jonson's Library and Marginalia: An Annotated Catalogue." Studies in Philology, vol. 71, no. 5, Texts and Studies, 1974, pp. 1, 3-106. JSTOR 4173858. document witnesses: McPherson-BenJonsonsLibrary-1974.pdf.
• "Books from Ben Jonson's library at the Folger." Folgerpedia, Folger Shakespeare Library, https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Books_from_Ben_Jonson%27s_library_at_the_Folger.
• Jonson, Ben. The Workes of Benjamin Jonson, 1692 folio, Epigrams, public transcription with commentary: https://hollowaypages.com/jonson1692epigrams.htm. Reception/commentary witness only.
• Feinstein, Ken. Preserved local First Folio tweet file: twitter First Folio.
• Feinstein, Ken. Preserved local Ben Jonson tweet file: twitter Ben Jonson.
• Related source-control packet: ben jonsons library and henry savile.

7. image witnesses Witnesses and Page-Image Controls

Direct page-image controls

Preserved tweet-media witnesses

8. Notes on Access

• The First Folio and 1616 Jonson folio evidence is now controlled at both EarlyPrint/TCP XML/transcription level and direct page-image level for the key Jonson passages. Remaining work: compare against other copy-specific witnesses for variant-state control.
• The tweet images remain useful orientation, but book prose should quote from page images or checked local XML, not from tweet text alone.
• The separate Jonson/Savile packet should continue to carry the library/provenance qualifications.

9. Direct 1641 Timber / Discoveries Page Images, 2026-07-09

The Internet Archive/Boston Public Library witness vvorkesofbeniami00jons supplies direct colour images of the decisive passage at printed pp. 97-98.

• Ben_Jonson_Timber_1641_IA_vvorkesofbeniami00jons_page_n804.jpg begins beneath the heading Discoveries and carries the marginal label De Shakespeare nostrat. It reads:

I remember, the Players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing, (whatsoever he penn'd) hee never blotted out line. My answer hath beene, would he had blotted a thousand.

• Ben_Jonson_Timber_1641_IA_vvorkesofbeniami00jons_page_n805.jpg continues:

I lov'd the man, and doe honour his memory (on this side Idolatry) as much as any. Hee was (indeed) honest, and of an open, and free nature; had an excellent Phantsie; brave notions, and gentle expressions: wherein hee flow'd with that facility, that sometime it was necessary he should be stop'd: Sufflaminandus erat; as Augustus said of Haterius.

The page images confirm the local TCP text and clarify the argument's structure. Jonson first rejects the players' uncritical “never blotted” praise, then explicitly affirms love, honour, honesty, imagination, and expression before applying the Haterius check to excessive fluency. The classical comparison is real. A Neville identification is not stated.

10. Lost Epigrammes PDF Recheck

Tara L. Lyons's local PBSA PDF was rechecked directly. It documents:

• the 15 May 1612 Stationers' Register entry, Ben Johnson his Epigrams;
• the 15 September 1614 Bodleian binding-list entry, Ben Jhonsons Epigrammes;
• the return of the bound book on 30 September 1614;
• assignment to shelfmark 87 I 19 Art.;
• absence by 1635.

The lost book is therefore much better than a conjectural project: a printed copy appears to have entered and circulated through the Bodleian. But no surviving contents list proves whether CIX, To Sir Henry Nevil, belonged to that pre-1616 state. The packet retains both dating branches.

11. Completion Review, 2026-07-09

• Direct page images now control Jonson's First Folio poems, the 1616 Nevil epigram, and the 1641 Shakespeare/Haterius passage.
• Local TCP controls Jonson, Greenwey's Tacitus, and Seianus; the Lyons and McPherson PDFs supply bibliographical and library-history context.
• The packet is ready as a research base because every major claim has a source lane and an explicit limit. Remaining copy comparison, Cambridge-commentary, and lost-book contents questions are future refinements, not reasons to suppress the evidence already secured.
• Full cluster work log: PUBLICATION RECEPTION CLUSTER SOURCE PASS 2026 07 09.