It seems the issue of his brain was more lively and lasting than the issue of his body, having several Children, yet none living to survive him; This he bestowed as part of an Epitaph on his eldest Son, dying an Infant.
Rest in soft peace, and ask'd, say, Here doth lye
Ben Johnson his best piece of Poetry.
But tho' the immortal Memory still lives of him in his learned Works, yet his Body, subject to mortality, left this life, Anno 1638. and was buried about the Belfrey in the Abbey-Church at Westminster, having only upon a Pavement over his Grave, this written:
O Rare Ben Johnson.
Yet were not the Poets then so dull and dry, but that many expressed their affection to his Memory in Elegies and Epitaphs; amongst which this following may not be esteemed the worst.
The Muses fairest Light in no dark time,
The Wonder of a learned Age; the line
That none can pass: the most proportion'd Wit
To Nature; the best Judge of what was fit: