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born, Jonson was raised as the adopted son of a bricklayer: not very different from
Selden,whosefatherownedbarelyenoughlandtosupporthisfamily.LikeSelden,
Jonson would spend time in the king's prison, and not for what he thought but
for what he dared to write. Even though Jonson was twelve years Selden's seni-
or, they spotted each other as kindred spirits in Selden's first year in London. Jon-
son was not an easy man to please; for Selden to withstand his scrutiny was quite
an achievement. When Jonson came out of prison in 1605, Selden was among
the guests at the banquet celebrating his release. Despite Jonson's reputation, en-
tirely deserved, for being 'a great lover and praiser of himself; a contemner and
scorner of others; given rather to lose a friend than a jest', he was also someone
who 'thinketh nothing well but what either he himself or some of his friends and
countrymen hath said or done'. Selden was one of those friends. Their personal-
ities were worlds apart, Jonson 'passionately kynde and angry', Selden scholarly
and cool. Jonson had come out of the satirical 1590s; Selden was a product of
the hedonistic and more polarised 1600s. Yet mutual affection bound them togeth-
er. Selden loved Jonson's wicked humour, and Jonson knew that Selden was the
smartest man in the room. He would always be numbered among Jonson's closest
friends, one of 'the Tribe of Ben'.
Jonson was the ideal companion to go calling on a censorious king. It was Jon-
son who had been commissioned to write the masque welcoming King James and
Queen Anne to their new home in 1607, and who had been doing his best to keep
the royals amused ever since. The first show was pure Vegas. The text fairly drips
withwhatseemstobecravenflatteryfor'thefairestqueen'and'thegreatestking',
whose reign is 'a splendent sun' that 'shall never set'. The central character in the
masque is the genius or spirit of the house, who is rather depressed at the thought
that his domain is about to undergo a change of ownership. Genius finishes his
gloomy opening monologue with the lines: 'And I, uncertain what I must endure, /
Since all the ends of destiny are obscure.' Selden may have been in much the same
gloomy mood as he and Jonson made their way to see the king. Jonson was famili-
ar with the court, but it was a world Selden had never entered. He belonged among
the poets and the lawyers, not the lords of the realm. He was nobody; his future
hung in the balance.
Selden grew up in rural Sussex a mile from the English Channel. His father,
known as John Selden the Minstrel, was a small farmer who supplemented his in-
comebyplayingatchurchservicesandbanquets.Hisbetter-bornmother,Margaret
Baker, claimed kinship with the Bakers of Sissinghurst, a gentry family over the
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