The Works of Ben Jonson. With critical and explanatory notes, and a memoir, by William Gifford. Volume 2

Ben Jonson's bellicosity was not confined to the satire of his plays or the vitriol of his letters. Indeed, he killed two men in duels, and had he not avoided subsequent execution via his late father's clergy office, he might never have lived to write such comedies as Volpone, The Alchemist, and Epicene, or The Silent Woman. Jonson was known as an avid scholar of Latin and Greek, and his mastery of the classics set him apart even from Shakespeare, who is generally considered his immediate literary predecessor. Jonson's delicate phrases and subtle social criticism have won him wide acclaim as a poet and dramatist.