BECKETT 123 



is one of the many men whose name is associated 

 with great work, but of whose life there is little 

 authentically known. 



Born on the 25th of July in 1572, in the parish 

 of S. Bartholomew-the-less in West Smithfield, 

 his baptism is recorded in the register of that 

 church, as well as many other references to the 

 family history. Evidently his strange name puzzles 

 the writer not a little, as he makes many attempts 

 at spelling it " Enego," " Ennigo," etc. Inigo 

 Jones's father was a clothmaker by trade, and a 

 Roman Catholic. Opinions differ as to his position ; 

 some say he was a rich merchant, and others that 

 he was very poor and far from being a successful 

 man. The well-known pride of Inigo Jones rather 

 points to the latter; he is markedly reticent upon 

 the subject of his parents and his early life, which 

 is therefore shrouded in obscurity and can only be 

 conjectured. That he was apprenticed to a joiner 

 in S. Paul's Churchyard seems most likely, as he 

 and this humble trade are made a great jest of more 

 than once by his brilliant at one time friend, and 

 later bitter enemy, Ben Jonson. "It is perfectly 

 well known," writes Cunningham, in his Life of the 

 architect, "that In-and-in Medley, the Joiner of 

 Islington, was meant for Inigo Jones ; that the 

 ridicule which it threw on his name and history 

 caused him to complain, and that in consequence 

 the representation was forbidden." Certainly there 



