Catiline His Conspiracy

Jonson, a devout Catholic convert, wrote Catiline in the historical context of the Gunpowder Plot and surrounding events.

Stephen Gosson in his "School of Abuse" (1579) praised a play called Catiline's Conspiracies, which was acted by Leicester's Men at The Theatre sometime between 1576 and 1579.

[2] The play was first published in quarto in 1611 by the stationer Walter Burre, prefaced with commendatory verses by Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, and Nathan Field.

Besides Catiline appear other historical figures such as Julius Caesar, Sempronia, Fulvia, Crassus, Cicero, and Aurelia Orestilla.

[4] John Dryden introduced the traditional prescriptive rule against preposition stranding in English in criticising a phrase from this play: "The maws, and dens of beasts could not receive / the bodies that those souls were frighted from.