RAT-HISTORY: Ben Jonson Says It To Yo Face

Ben Jonson.  The most erudite bad ass Briton ever had.  He survived execution for murdering another writer in a duel because of his literacy.  Ironically Ben Jonson's most famous line fronts the Shakespeare Folio 1, claiming William was not for his time, but for all time, and Jonson was more right than I'd wager he wanted to be.  It had to have been a pain on the heart to know his own work would survive on merit but thrive because he was connected to the Shake-Man.
Ben Jonson wrote like the smartest guy in the room.  Which is to say, he had little care for people as more than archetypes to score points off.  Ben Jonson called these archetypes "Humours" -- I don't know this as fact, because Aristophanes is beyond my speed, but Wikipedia says it's there; the work goes, Yeoman Steve, a farmer, is obsessed with the possibility that his wife is unfaithful to him; Doctor Milkmuff, a county physician, can not tell a lie.  Repeat synching these humours to your characters, and you have a cast of weirdos, the meeting of their traits make a great comedic play.  But these characters never change, they just walk on stage and rub a little of their sickness against the sickness of the other one.  
If Ben Jonson and Shakespeare were Disney characters, Ben would be a stubborn aggressive bulldog to Will's beautiful and devious cocker spaniel.  Shakespeare is so gorgeous, some of his dirtiest lines have become Jesus-inspirational completely out of context.  No one misreads Ben Jonson, he's so consistently hammering it down your throat.  But then Shakespeare never killed a dude.