With them romantic drama died a natural death and the Puritans' closing of the theatre only gave it a _coup de grace_.
In England it has had no second birth.
(4) Outside the direct romantic succession there worked another author whose lack of sympathy with it, as well as his close connection with the age which followed, justifies his separate treatment.

Ben Jonson shows a marked contrast to Shakespeare in his character, his accomplishments, and his attitude to letters, while his career was more varied than Shakespeare's own.

The first "classic" in English writing, he was a "romantic" in action.

In his adventurous youth he was by turns scholar, soldier, bricklayer, actor.

He trailed a pike with Leicester in the Low Countries; on his return to England fought a duel and killed his man, only escaping hanging by benefit of clergy; at the end of his life he was Poet Laureate.