Born in 1573; died in 1637; became a player in 1597; his first play, "Everyman in His Humor," performed at the Globe Theater in 1598, Shakespeare taking one of the parts; went to France in 1613 as tutor to a son of Raleigh; visited Drummond of Hawthornden in 1618; his library, one of the finest in England, burned about 1621; his works first collected in 1616; buried in Poet's Corner, Westminster, Abbey.