V. PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS (part 1 of 3)

V. PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS (part 1 of 3)

Tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable or poem unlimited.--Hamlet.

XXII

THE PRINTING OF PLAYS

[Bibliographical Note.--The records of the Stationers’ Company were utilized by W. Herbert in Typographical Antiquities (1785–90), based on an earlier edition (1749) by J. Ames, and revised, but not for the period most important to us, by T. F. Dibdin (1810–19). They are now largely available at first hand in E. Arber, Transcript of the Registers of the Stationers’ Company, 1554–1640 (1875–94), and G. E. B. Eyre, Transcript of the Registers of the Worshipful Company of Stationers, 1640–1708 (1913–14). Recent investigations are to be found in the Transactions and other publications of the Bibliographical Society, and in the periodicals Bibliographica and The Library. The best historical sketches are H. R. Plomer, A Short History of English Printing (1900), E. G. Duff, The Introduction of Printing into England (1908, C. H. ii. 310), H. G. Aldis, The Book-Trade, 1557–1625 (1909, C. H. iv. 378), and R. B. McKerrow, Booksellers, Printers, and the Stationers’ Trade (1916, Sh. England, ii. 212). Of somewhat wider range is H. G. Aldis, The Printed Book (1916). Records of individual printers are in E. G. Duff, A Century of the English Book Trade, 1457–1557 (1905), R. B. McKerrow, Dictionary of Printers and Booksellers, 1557–1640 (1910), and H. R. Plomer, Dictionary of Booksellers and Printers, 1641–67 (1907). Special studies of value are R. B. McKerrow, Printers and Publishers’ Devices (1913), and Notes on Bibliographical Evidence for Literary Students (1914). P. Sheavyn, The Literary Profession in the Elizabethan Age (1909), is not very accurate. The early history of the High Commission (1558–64) is studied in H. Gee, The Elizabethan Clergy and the Settlement of Religion (1898). The later period awaits fuller treatment than that in An Account of the Courts Ecclesiastical by W. Stubbs in the Report of the Commission on Ecclesiastical Courts (1883), i. 21. J. S. Burn, The High Commission (1865), is scrappy.

For plays in particular, W. W. Greg, List of English Plays (1900), gives the title-pages, and Arber the registration entries. Various problems are discussed by A. W. Pollard, Shakespeare Folios and Quartos (1909) and Shakespeare’s Fight with the Pirates (1917, ed. 2, 1920), and in connexion with the Shakespearian quartos of 1619 (cf. ch. xxiii). New ground is opened by A. W. Pollard and J. D. Wilson, The ‘Stolne and Surreptitious’ Shakespearian Texts (T. L. S. Jan.–Aug. 1919), and J. D. Wilson, The Copy for Hamlet, 1603, and the Hamlet Transcript, 1593 (1918). Other studies are C. Dewischeit, Shakespeare und die Stenographie (1898, Jahrbuch, xxxiv. 170), B. A. P. van Dam and C. Stoffel, William Shakespeare, Prosody and Text (1900), Chapters in English Printing, Prosody, and Pronunciation (1902), P. Simpson, Shakespearian Punctuation (1911), E. M. Albright, ‘To be Staied’ (1915, M. L. A. xxx. 451; cf. M. L. N., Feb. 1919), A. W. Pollard, Ad Imprimendum Solum (1919, 3 Library, x. 57), H. R. Shipheard, Play-Publishing in Elizabethan Times (1919, M. L. A. xxxiv. 580); M. A. Bayfield, Shakespeare’s Versification (1920); cf. T. L. S. (1919–20).

The nature of stage-directions is considered in many works on staging (cf. Bibl. Note to ch. xviii), and in N. Delius, Die Bühnenweisungen in den alten Shakespeare-Ausgaben (1873, Jahrbuch, viii. 171), R. Koppel, Scenen-Einteilung und Orts-Angaben in den Shakespeareschen Dramen (1874, Jahrbuch, ix. 269), Die unkritische Behandlung dramaturgischer Angaben und Anordnungen in den Shakespeare-Ausgaben (1904, E. S. xxxiv. 1). The documents printed by Arber are so fundamental as to justify a short description. Each of his vols. i-iv gives the text, or most of the text, of four books, lettered A-D in the Company’s archives, interspersed with illustrative documents from other sources; vol. v consists of indices. Another series of books, containing minutes of the Court of Assistants from 1603 onwards, remains unprinted (ii. 879). Book A contains the annual accounts of the wardens from 1554 to 1596. The Company’s year began on varying dates in the first half of July. From 1557 to 1571 the accounts include detailed entries of the books for which fees were received and of the fines imposed upon members of the Company for irregularities. Thereafter they are abstracts only, and reference is made for the details of fees to ‘the register in the clarkes booke’ (i. 451). Unfortunately this book is not extant for 1571–6. After the appointment of Richard Collins in place of George Wapull as clerk in 1575, a new ‘booke of entrances’ was bought for the clerk (i. 475). This is Book B, which is divided into sections for records of different character, including book entries for 1576–95, and fines for 1576–1605. There are also some decrees and ordinances of the Court, most of which Arber does not print, and a few pages of miscellaneous memoranda at the beginning and end (ii. 33–49, 884–6). Book C, bought ‘for the entrance of copies’ in 1594–5 (i. 572), has similar memoranda (iii. 35–8, 677–98). It continues the book entries, and these alone, for 1595–1620. Book D continues them for 1620–45. Arber’s work stops at 1640. Eyre prints a transcript by H. R. Plomer of the rest of D and of Books E, F, and G, extending to 1708.]

A historian of the stage owes so much of his material to the printed copies of plays, with their title-pages, their prefatory epistles, and their stage-directions, that he can hardly be dispensed from giving some account of the process by which plays got into print. Otherwise I should have been abundantly content to have left the subject with a reference to the researches of others, and notably of that accomplished bibliographer, my friend Mr. A. W. Pollard, to whom in any event the debt of these pages must be great. The earliest attempts to control the book-trade are of the nature of commercial restrictions, and concern themselves with the regulation of alien craftsmanship.[513] But when Tudor policy had to deal with expressions of political and religious opinion, and in particular when the interlude as well as the pamphlet, not without encouragement from Cranmer and Cromwell, became an instrument of ecclesiastical controversy, it was not long before the State found itself committed to the methods of a literary censorship. We have already followed in detail the phases of the control to which the spoken play was subjected.[514] The story of the printed play was closely analogous; and in both cases the ultimate term of the evolution, so far as our period is concerned, was the establishment of the authority of the Master of the Revels. The printing and selling of plays, however, was of course only one fragment of the general business of book-production. Censorship was applied to many kinds of books, and was also in practice closely bound up with the logically distinct problem of copyright. This to the Elizabethan mind was a principle debarring one publisher from producing and selling a book in which another member of his trade had already a vested interest. The conception of a copyright vested in the author as distinct from the publisher of a book had as yet hardly emerged.

The earliest essay in censorship in fact took the form of an extension of the procedure, under which protection had for some time past been given to the copyright in individual books through the issue of a royal privilege forbidding their republication by any other than the privileged owner or printer.[515] Three proclamations of Henry VIII against heretical or seditious books, in 1529, 1530, and 1536, were followed in 1538 by a fourth, which forbade the printing of any English book except with a licence given ‘upon examination made by some of his gracis priuie counsayle, or other suche as his highnes shall appoynte’, and further directed that a book so licensed should not bear the words ‘Cum priuilegio regali’ without the addition of ‘ad imprimendum solum’, and that ‘the hole copie, or els at the least theffect of his licence and priuilege be therwith printed’.[516] The intention was apparently to distinguish between a merely regulative privilege or licence to print, and the older and fuller type of privilege which also conveyed a protection of copyright. Finally, in 1546, a fifth proclamation laid down that every ‘Englishe boke, balet or playe’ must bear the names of the printer and author and the ‘daye of the printe’, and that an advance copy must be placed in the hands of the local mayor two days before publication.[517] It is not quite clear whether these requirements were intended to replace, or merely to reinforce, that of a licence. Henry’s proclamations lost their validity upon his death in 1547, but the policy of licensing was continued by his successors. Under Edward VI we get, first a Privy Council order of 1549, directing that all English books printed or sold should be examined and allowed by ‘M^r Secretary Peter, M^r Secretary Smith and M^r Cicill, or the one of them’, and secondly a proclamation of 1551, requiring allowance ‘by his maiestie, or his priuie counsayl in writing signed with his maiesties most gratious hand or the handes of sixe of his sayd priuie counsayl’.[518] Mary in her turn, though with a different emphasis on the kind of opinion to be suppressed, issued three proclamations against heretical books in 1553, 1555, and 1558, and in the first of these limited printers to books for which they had ‘her graces speciall licence in writynge’.[519] It is noteworthy that both in 1551 and in 1553 the printing and the playing of interludes were put upon exactly the same footing.

Mary, however, took another step of the first importance for the further history of publishing, by the grant on 4 May 1557 a charter of incorporation to the London Company of Stationers.[520] This was an old organization, traceable as far back as 1404.[521] By the sixteenth century it had come to include the printers who manufactured, as well as the stationers who sold, books; and many, although not all of its members, exercised both avocations. No doubt the issue of the charter had its origin in mixed motives. The stationers wanted the status and the powers of economic regulation within their trade which it conferred; the Government wanted the aid of the stationers in establishing a more effective control over the printed promulgation of inconvenient doctrines. This preoccupation is clearly manifested in the preamble to the charter, with its assertion that ‘seueral seditious and heretical books’ are ‘daily published’; and the objects of both parties were met by a provision that ‘no person shall practise or exercise the art or mystery of printing or stamping any book unless the same person is, or shall be, one of the society of the foresaid mystery of a stationer of the city aforesaid, or has for that purpose obtained our licence’. This practically freed the associated stationers from any danger of outside competition, and it immensely simplified the task of the heresy hunters by enlisting the help of the Company against the establishment of printing-presses by any but well-known and responsible craftsmen. Registration is always half-way towards regulation. The charter did not, however, dispense, even for the members of the Company, with the requirement of a licence; nor did it give the Company any specific functions in connexion with the issue of licences, and although Elizabeth confirmed her sister’s grant on 10 November 1559, she had already, in the course of the ecclesiastical settlement earlier in the year, taken steps to provide for the continuance of the old system, and specifically laid it down that the administration of the Company was to be subordinate thereto. The licensing authority rested ultimately upon the Act of Supremacy, by which the power of ecclesiastical jurisdiction for the ‘reformation, order, and correction’ of all ‘errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, offences, contempts, and enormities’ was annexed to the Crown, and the Crown was authorized to exercise its jurisdiction through the agency of a commission appointed under letters patent.[522] This Act received the royal assent on 8 May 1559, together with the Act of Uniformity which established the Book of Common Prayer, and made it an offence ‘in any interludes, plays, songs, rhymes, or by other open words’ to ‘declare or speak anything in the derogation, depraving, or despising’ of that book.[523] In the course of June followed a body of Injunctions, intended as a code of ecclesiastical discipline to be promulgated at a series of diocesan visitations held by commissioners under the Act of Supremacy. One of these Injunctions is directly concerned with the abuses of printers of books.[524] It begins by forbidding any book or paper to be printed without an express written licence either from the Queen herself or from six of the Privy Council, or after perusal from two persons being either the Archbishop of Canterbury or York, the Bishop of London, the Chancellor of Oxford or Cambridge, or the Bishop or Archdeacon for the place of printing. One of the two must always be the Ordinary, and the names of the licensers are to be ‘added in the end’ of every book. This seems sufficiently to cover the ground, but the Injunction goes on to make a special reference to ‘pamphlets, plays and ballads’, from which anything ‘heretical, seditious, or unseemly for Christian ears’ ought to be excluded; and for these it prescribes a licence from ‘such her majesty’s commissioners, or three of them, as be appointed in the city of London to hear and determine divers causes ecclesiastical’. These commissioners are also to punish breaches of the Injunction, and to take and notify an order as to the prohibition or permission of ‘all other books of matters of religion or policy, or governance’. An exemption is granted for books ordinarily used in universities or schools. The Master and Wardens of the Stationers’ Company are ‘straitly’ commanded to be obedient to the Injunction. The commission here referred to was not one of those entrusted with the diocesan visitations, but a more permanent body sitting in London itself, which came to be known as the High Commission. The reference to it in the Injunction reads like an afterthought, but as the principal members of this commission were the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, there is not so much inconsistency between the two forms of procedure laid down as might at first sight appear. The High Commission was not in fact yet in existence when the Injunctions were issued, but it was constituted under a patent of 19 July 1559, and was renewed from time to time by fresh patents throughout the reign.[525] The original members, other than the two prelates, were chiefly Privy Councillors, Masters of Requests, and other lawyers. The size of the body was considerably increased by later patents, and a number of divines were added. The patent of 1559 conferred upon the commissioners a general power to exercise the royal jurisdiction in matters ecclesiastical. It does not repeat in terms the provisions for the ‘allowing’ of books contained in the Injunctions, but merely recites that ‘divers seditious books’ have been set forth, and empowers the commissioners to inquire into them.

The Injunctions and the Commission must be taken as embodying the official machinery for the licensing of books up to the time of the well-known Star Chamber order of 1586, although the continued anxiety of the government in the matter is shown by a series of proclamations and orders which suggest that no absolutely effective method of suppressing undesirable publications had as yet been attained.[526] Mr. Pollard, who regards the procedure contemplated by the Injunctions as ‘impossible’, believes that in practice the Stationers’ Company, in ordinary cases, itself acted as a licensing authority.[527] Certainly this is the testimony, as regards the period 1576–86, of a note of Sir John Lambe, Dean of the Arches, in 1636, which is based wholly or in part upon information derived from Felix Kingston, then Master of the Company.[528] Kingston added the detail that in the case of a divinity book of importance the opinion of theological experts was taken. Mr. Pollard expresses a doubt whether Lambe or Kingston had much evidence before them other than the registers of the Company which are still extant, and to these we are in a position to turn for confirmation or qualification of their statements.[529] Unfortunately, the ordinances or constitutions under which the master and wardens acted from the time of the incorporation have not been preserved, and any additions made to these by the Court of Assistants before the Restoration have not been printed.[530] We have some revised ordinances of 1678–82, and these help us by recording as of ‘ancient usage’ a practice of entering all publications, other than those under letters patent, in ‘the register-book of this company’.[531] It is in fact this register, incorporated from 1557 to 1571 in the annual accounts of the wardens and kept from 1576 onwards as a subsidiary book by the clerk, which furnishes our principal material. During 1557–71 the entries for each year are collected under a general heading, which takes various forms. In 1557–8 it is ‘The entrynge of all such copyes as be lycensed to be prynted by the master and wardyns of the mystery of stacioners’; in 1558–9 simply ‘Lycense for pryntinge’; in 1559–60, for which year the entries are mixed up with others, ‘Receptes for fynes, graunting of coppyes and other thynges’; in 1560–1 ‘For takynge of fynes for coppyes’. This formula lasts until 1565–6, when ‘The entrynge of coopyes’ takes its place. The wording of the individual entries also varies during the period, but generally it indicates the receipt of a money payment in return for a license.[532] In a very few cases, by no means always of divinity books, the licence is said to be ‘by’, or the licence or perhaps the book itself, to be ‘authorized’ or ‘allowed’ or ‘perused’ or ‘appointed’ by the Bishop of London; still more rarely by the Archbishop of Canterbury or by both prelates; once by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York; once by the Council.[533]

Richard Collins, on his appointment as Clerk of the Company in 1575, records that one of his duties was to enter ‘lycences for pryntinge of copies’ and one section of his register is accordingly devoted to this purpose.[534] It has no general heading, but the summary accounts of the wardens up to 1596 continue to refer to the receipts as ‘for licencinge of copies’.[535] The character of the individual entries between 1576 and 1586 is much as in the account books. The name of a stationer is given in the margin and is followed by some such formula as ‘Receyved of him for his licence to prynte’ or more briefly ‘Lycenced vnto him’, with the title of the book, any supplementary information which the clerk thought relevant, and a note of the payment made. Occasional alternatives are ‘Allowed’, ‘Admitted’, ‘Graunted’ or ‘Tolerated’ ‘vnto him’, of which the three first appear to have been regarded as especially appropriate to transfers of existing copyrights;[536] and towards the end of the period appears the more important variant ‘Allowed vnto him for his copie’.[537] References to external authorizers gradually become rather more frequent, although they are still the exception and not the rule; the function is fulfilled, not only by the bishop, the archbishop, or the Council, but also upon occasion by the Lord Chancellor or the Secretary, by individual Privy Councillors, by the Lord Mayor, the Recorder or the Remembrancer of the City, and by certain masters and doctors, who may be the ministers mentioned by Felix Kingston, and who probably held regular deputations from a proper ecclesiastical authority as ‘correctors’ to the printers.[538] It is certain that such a post was held in 1571 by one Talbot, a servant of the Archbishop of Canterbury. On the other hand the clerk, at first tentatively and then as a matter of regular practice, begins to record the part taken by the master and wardens. The first example is a very explicit entry, in which the book is said to be ‘licensed to be printed’ by the archbishop and ‘alowed’ by the master and a warden.[539] But the formula which becomes normal does not dwell on any differentiation of functions, and merely states the licence as being ‘under the hands of’ the wardens or of one of them or the master, or of these and of some one who may be presumed to be an external corrector. To the precise significance of ‘under the hands of’ I must return. Increased caution with regard to dangerous books is also borne witness to during this period by the occasional issue of a qualified licence. In 1580 Richard Jones has to sign his name in the register to a promise ‘to bring the whole impression’ of The Labyrinth of Liberty ‘into the Hall in case it be disliked when it is printed’.[540] In 1583 the same stationer undertakes ‘to print of his own perill’.[541] In 1584 it is a play which is thus brought into question, Lyly’s Sapho and Phao, and Thomas Cadman gets no more than ‘yt is graunted vnto him yat yf he gett ye commedie of Sappho laufully alowed vnto him, then none of this cumpanie shall interrupt him to enjoye yt’. Other entries direct that lawful authority must be obtained before printing, and in one case there is a specific reference to the royal Injunctions.[542] Conditions of other kinds are also sometimes found in entries; a book must be printed at a particular press, or the licence is to be voided if it prove to be another man’s copy.[543] The caution of the Stationers may have been motived by dissatisfaction on the part of the government which finally took shape in the issue of the Star Chamber order of 23 June 1586. This was a result of the firmer policy towards Puritan indiscipline initiated by Whitgift and the new High Commission which he procured on his succession to the primacy in 1583.[544] It had two main objects. One, with which we are not immediately concerned, was to limit the number of printers and their presses; the other, to concentrate the censorship of all ordinary books, including plays, in the hands of the archbishop and the bishop. It is not clear whether the prelates were to act in their ordinary capacity or as High Commissioners; anyhow they had the authority of the High Commission, itself backed by the Privy Council, behind them. The effect of the order is shown in a bustle amongst the publishers to get on to the register a number of ballads and other trifles which they had hitherto neglected to enter, and in a considerable increase in the submissions of books for approval, either to the prelates themselves, or to persons who are now clearly acting as ecclesiastical deputies.[545] On 30 June 1588 an official list of deputies was issued by the archbishop, and amongst these were several who had already authorized books before and after 1586. These deputies, and other correctors whose names appear in the register at later dates, are as a rule traceable as episcopal chaplains, prebendaries of St. Paul’s, or holders of London benefices.[546] Some of them were themselves members of the High Commission. Occasionally laymen were appointed.[547] The main work of correction now fell to these officials, but books were still sometimes allowed by the archbishop or bishop in person, or by the Privy Council or some member of that body.

The reaction of the changes of 1586–88 upon the entries in the register is on the whole one of degree rather than of kind. Occasionally the wording suggests a differentiation between the functions of the wardens and those of the ecclesiastical licensers, but more often the clerk contents himself with a mere record of what ‘hands’ each book was under.[548] Some shifting of the point of view is doubtless involved in the fact that ‘Entered vnto him for his copie’ and ‘Allowed vnto him for his copie’ now become the normal formulas, and by 1590–1 ‘Licenced vnto him’ has disappeared altogether.[549] But a great number of books, including most ballads and pamphlets and some plays, are still entered without note of any authority other than that of the wardens, and about 1593 the proportion of cases submitted to the ecclesiastical deputies sensibly begins to slacken, although the continuance of conditional entries shows that some caution was exercised. An intervention of the prelates in 1599 reversed the tendency again.[550] As regards plays in particular, the wardens received a sharp reminder, ‘that noe playes be printed except they be allowed by suche as haue authority’; and although they do not seem to have interpreted this as requiring reference to a corrector in every case, conditional entries of plays become for a time numerous.[551] They stop altogether in 1607, when the responsibility for play correction appears to have been taken over, presumably under an arrangement with the prelates, by the Master of the Revels.[552] Henceforward and to the end of Buck’s mastership, nearly all play entries are under the hands not only of the wardens, but of the Master or of a deputy acting on his behalf. Meanwhile, for books other than plays, the ecclesiastical authority succeeded more and more in establishing itself, although even up to the time of the Commonwealth the wardens never altogether ceased to enter ballads and such small deer on their own responsibility.

A little more may be gleaned from the ‘Fynes for breakinge of good orders’, which like the book entries were recorded by the wardens in their annual accounts up to 1571 and by the clerk in his register from 1576 to 1605.[553] But many of these were for irregularities in apprenticeship and the like, and where a particular book was concerned, the book is more often named than the precise offence committed in relation to it. The fine is for printing ‘contrary to the orders of this howse’, ‘contrary to our ordenaunces’, or merely ‘disorderly’. Trade defects, such as ‘stechyng’ of books, are sometimes in question, and sometimes the infringement of other men’s copies.[554] But the character of the books concerned suggests that some at least of the fines for printing ‘without lycense’, ‘without aucthoritie’, ‘without alowance’, ‘without entrance’, ‘before the wardyns handes were to yt’ were due to breaches of the regulations for censorship, and in a few instances the information is specific.[555] The book is a ‘lewde’ book, or ‘not tolerable’, or has already been condemned to be burnt, or the printing is contrary to ‘her maiesties prohibicon’ or ‘the decrees of the star chamber’.[556] More rarely a fine was accompanied by the sequestration of the offending books, or the breaking up of a press, or even imprisonment. In these cases the company may have been acting under stimulus from higher powers; in dealing with a culprit in 1579, they direct that ‘for his offence, so farre as it toucheth ye same house only, he shall paye a fine’.[557]

Putting together the entries and the fines, we can arrive at an approximate notion of the position occupied by the Stationers’ Company as an intermediary between the individual stationers and the higher powers in Church and State. That it is only approximate and that many points of detail remain obscure is largely due to the methods of the clerk. Richard Collins did not realize the importance, at least to the future historian, of set diplomatic formulas, and it is by no means clear to what extent the variations in the phrasing of his record correspond to variations in the facts recorded. But it is my impression that he was in substance a careful registrar, especially as regards the authority under which his entries were made, and that if he did not note the presence in any case of a corrector’s ‘hand’ to a book, it is fair evidence that such a hand was not before him. On this assumption the register confirms the inference to be drawn from the statements of Lambe and Kingston in 1636, that before 1586 the provision of the Injunctions for licensing by the High Commission for London was not ordinarily operative, and that as a rule the only actual licences issued were those of the Stationers’ Company, who used their own discretion in submitting books about which they felt doubtful to the bishop or the archbishop or to an authorized corrector.[558] That books licensed by the Company without such reference were regarded as having been technically licensed under the Injunctions, one would hesitate to say. Licence is a fairly general term, and as used in the Stationers’ Register it does not necessarily cover anything more than a permit required by the internal ordinances of the Company itself. Certainly its officials claimed to issue licences to its members for other purposes than printing.[559] What Lambe and Kingston do not tell us, and perhaps ought to have told us, is that, when the master and wardens did call in the assistance of expert referees, it was not to ‘ministers’ merely chosen by themselves that they applied, but to official correctors nominated by the High Commission, or by the archbishop or bishop on its behalf. Nor must it be supposed that no supervision of the proceedings of the company was exercised by the High Commission itself. We find that body writing to the Company to uphold a patent in 1560.[560] It was upon its motion in 1566 that the Privy Council made a Star Chamber order calling attention to irregularities which had taken place, and directing the master and wardens to search for the offenders.[561] And its authority, concurrent with that of the Privy Council itself, to license books, is confirmed by a letter of the Council to the company in 1570.[562] So much for the period before 1586. Another thing which Lambe and Kingston do not tell us, and which the register, if it can be trusted, does, is that the effective change introduced by the Star Chamber of that year was only one of degree and not of kind. It is true that an increasing number of books came, after one set-back, to be submitted to correctors; that the clerk begins to lay emphasis in his wording upon entrance rather than upon licence; that there are some hints that the direct responsibility of the wardens was for a kind of ‘allowance’ distinct from and supplementary to that of censorship. But it does not appear to be true that, then or at any later time, they wholly refused to enter any book except after taking cognizance of an authority beyond their own.

In fact the register, from the very beginning, was not purely, or perhaps even primarily, one of allowances. It had two other functions, even more important from the point of view of the internal economy of the Company. It was a fee-book, subsidiary to the annual accounts of the wardens, and showing the details of sums which they had to return in those accounts.[563] And it was a register of copyrights. A stationer brought his copy to the wardens and paid his fee, in order that he might be protected by an official acknowledgement of his interest in the book against any infringement by a trade competitor. No doubt the wardens would not, and under the ordinances of the company might not, give this acknowledgement, unless they were satisfied that the book was one which might lawfully be printed. But copyright was what the stationer wanted, for after all most books were not dangerous in the eyes even of an Elizabethan censorship, whereas there would be little profit in publishing, if any rival were at liberty to cut in and reprint for himself the result of a successful speculation. It is a clear proof of this that the entrances include, not only new books, but also those in which rights had been transferred from one stationer to another.[564] Obviously no new allowance by a corrector would be required in such cases. And as regards copyright and licence alike, the entry in the register, although convenient to all concerned, was in itself no more than registration, the formal putting upon record of action already taken upon responsible authority. This authority did not rest with the clerk. In a few cases, indeed, he does seem to have entered an unimportant book at his own discretion.[565] But his functions were really subordinate to those of the wardens, as is shown by his practice from about 1580, of regularly citing the ‘hands’ or signed directions of those officers, as well as of the correctors, upon which he was acting. These ‘hands’ are not in the register, and there is sufficient evidence that they were ordinarily endorsed upon the manuscript or a printed copy of the book itself.[566] Exceptionally there might be an oral direction, or a separate letter or warrant of approval, which was probably preserved in a cupboard at the company’s hall.[567] Here too were kept copies of prints, although not, I think, the endorsed copies, which seem to have remained with the stationers.[568] I take it that the procedure was somewhat as follows. The stationer would bring his book to a warden together with the fee or some plausible excuse for deferring payment to a later date. The warden had to consider the questions both of property and of licence. Possibly the title of each book was published in the hall, in order that any other stationer who thought that he had an interest in it might make his claim.[569] Cases of disputed interest would go for determination to the Court of Assistants, who with the master and wardens for the year formed the ultimate governing body of the company, and had power in the last resort to revoke an authority to print already granted.[570] But if no difficulty as to ownership arose, and if the book was already endorsed as allowable by a corrector, the warden would add his own endorsement, and it was then open to the stationer to take the book to the clerk, show the ‘hands’, pay the fee if it was still outstanding, and get the formalities completed by registration.[571] If, however, the warden found no endorsement by a corrector on the copy, then there were three courses open to him. He might take the risk of passing an obviously harmless book on his own responsibility. He might refuse his ‘hand’ until the stationer had got that of the corrector. Or he might make a qualified endorsement, which the clerk would note in the register, sanctioning publication so far as copyright was concerned, but only upon condition that proper authority should first be obtained. The dates on the title-pages of plays, when compared with those of the entries, suggest that, as would indeed be natural, the procedure was completed before publication; not necessarily before printing, as the endorsements were sometimes on printed copies.[572] Several cases of re-entry after a considerable interval may indicate that copyright lapsed unless it was exercised within a reasonable time. As a rule, a play appeared within a year or so after it was entered, and was either printed or published by the stationer who had entered it, or by some other to whom he is known, or may plausibly be supposed, to have transferred his interest. Where a considerable interval exists between the date of an entry and that of the first known print, it is sometimes possible that an earlier print has been lost.[573]

I do not think that it can be assumed that the absence of an entry in the register is evidence that the book was not duly licensed, so far as the ecclesiastical authorities were concerned. If its status was subsequently questioned, the signed copy could itself be produced. Certainly, when a conditional entry had been made, requiring better authority to be obtained, the fulfilment of the condition was by no means always, although it was sometimes, recorded. Possibly the ‘better authority’ was shown to the warden rather than the clerk. On the other hand, it is certain that, under the ordinances of the Company, publication without entrance exposed the stationer to a fine, and it is therefore probable that entrance was also necessary to secure copyright.[574] Sometimes the omission was repaired on the occasion of a subsequent transfer of interest. So far as plays are concerned, there seems to have been greater laxity in this respect as time went on. Before 1586, or at any rate before 1584, there are hardly any unentered plays, if we make the reasonable assumption that certain prints of 1573 and 1575 appeared in the missing lists for 1571–5.[575] Between 1584 and 1615 the number is considerable, being over fifty, or nearly a quarter of the total number of plays printed during that period. An examination of individual cases does not disclose any obvious reason why some plays should be entered and others not. The unentered plays are spread over the whole period concerned. They come from the repertories of nearly all the theatres. They include ‘surreptitious’ plays, which may be supposed to have been printed without the consent of the authors or owners, but they also include plays to which prefaces by authors or owners are prefixed. They were issued by publishers of good standing as well as by others less reputable; and as a rule their publishers appear to have been entering or not entering, quite indifferently, at about the same date. To this generalization I find an exception, in Thomas Archer, who printed six plays without entry between 1607 and 1613 and entered none.[576] The large number of unentered plays is rather a puzzle, and I do not know the solution. In some cases, as we shall see, the publishers may have preferred not to court publicity for their enterprises by bringing them before the wardens. In others they may merely have been unbusinesslike, or may have thought that the chances of profit hardly justified the expenditure of sixpence on acquiring copyright. Yet many of the unentered plays went through more than one edition, including Mucedorus, a book of enduring popularity, and they do not appear to have been particularly subject to invasion by rival publishers. I will leave it to Mr. Pollard.

These being the conditions, let us consider what number and what kinds of plays got into print. It will be convenient to deal separately with the two periods 1557–85 and 1586–1616. The operations of the Company under their charter had hardly begun before Mary died. The Elizabethan printing of plays opens in 1559 and for the first five years is of a retrospective character. Half a dozen publishers, led by John King, who died about 1561, and Thomas Colwell, who started business in the same year, issued or entered seventeen plays. Of these one is not extant. One is a ‘May-game’, perhaps contemporary. Five are translations; four are Marian farces of the school of Udall, one a débat by John Heywood, and five Protestant interludes of the reigns of Henry and Edward, roughly edited in some cases so as to adapt them to performance under the new queen.[577] One more example of earlier Tudor drama, Ralph Roister Doister, in addition to mere reprints, appeared after 1565.[578] And with that year, after a short lull of activity, begins the genuine Elizabethan harvest, which by 1585 had yielded forty-two plays, of which thirty-nine are extant, although two only in the form of fragments. On analysis, the greater number of these, seventeen in all, fall into a group of moral interludes, often controversial in tone, and in some cases approximating, through the intermingling of concrete with abstract personages, on the one hand to classical comedy, on the other to the mediaeval miracle-play. There are also twelve translations or adaptations, including two from Italian comedy. There is one neo-classical tragedy. And there are nine plays which can best be classified as histories, of which seven have a classical and two a romantic colouring.[579] It is of interest to compare this output of the printing-press with the chronicle of Court performances over the same years which is recorded in the Revels Accounts.[580] Here we get, so far of course as can be judged from a bare enumeration of titles, fourteen morals, twenty-one classical histories, mainly shown by boys, twenty-two romantic histories, mainly shown by men, and perhaps three farces, two plays of contemporary realism, with one ‘antick’ play and two groups of short dramatic episodes. It is clear that the main types are the same in both lists. But only one of the printed plays, Orestes, actually appears in the Court records, although Damon and Pythias, Gorboduc, Sapho and Phao, Campaspe, and The Arraignment of Paris were also given at Court, and the Revels Accounts after all only cover comparatively few years out of the whole period.[581] And there is a great discrepancy in the proportions in which the various types are represented. The morals, which were obsolescent at Court, are far more numerous in print than the classical and romantic histories, which were already in enjoyment of their full vogue upon the boards. My definite impression is that these early printed morals, unlike the prints of later date, were in the main not drawn from the actual repertories of companies, but were literary products, written with a didactic purpose, and printed in the hope that they would be bought both by readers and by schoolmasters in search of suitable pieces for performance by their pupils. They belong, like some similar interludes, both original and translated, of earlier date, rather to the tradition of the humanist academic drama, than to that of the professional, or even quasi-professional, stage. There are many things about the prints which, although not individually decisive, tend when taken in bulk to confirm this theory. They are ‘compiled’, according to their title-pages; sometimes the author is declared a ‘minister’ or a ‘learned clerke’.[582] Nothing is, as a rule, said to indicate that they have been acted.[583] They are advertised, not only as ‘new’, ‘merry’, ‘pretty’, ‘pleasant’, ‘delectable’, ‘witty’, ‘full of mirth and pastime’, but also as ‘excellent’, ‘worthy’, ‘godly’, ‘pithy’, ‘moral’, ‘pityfull’, ‘learned’, and ‘fruitfull’, and occasionally the precise didactic intention is more elaborately expounded either on the title-page or in a prologue.[584] They are furnished with analyses showing the number of actors necessary to take all the parts, and in one case there is a significant note that the arrangement is ‘most convenient for such as be disposed, either to shew this comedie in priuate houses, or otherwise’.[585] They often conclude with a generalized prayer for the Queen and the estates of the realm, which omits any special petition for the individual lord such as we have reason to believe the protected players used.[586] The texts are much better than the later texts based upon acting copies. The stage-directions read like the work of authors rather than of book-keepers, notably in the use of ‘out’ rather than of ‘in’ to indicate exits, and in the occasional insertion both of hints for ‘business’ and of explanatory comments aimed at a reader rather than an actor.[587] It should be added that this type of play begins to disappear at the point when the growing Calvinist spirit led to a sharp breach between the ministry and the stage, and discredited even moral play-writing amongst divines. The latest morals, of which there are some even during the second period of play-publication, have much more the look of rather antiquated survivals from working repertories.[588] The ‘May-game’ of Robin Hood seems to me to be of a literary origin similar to that of the contemporary ‘morals’.

Towards the end of the period a new element is introduced with Lyly and Peele, who, like Edwardes before them, were not divines but secular scholars, and presumably desired a permanent life for their literary achievements. The publication of Lyly’s plays for Paul’s carries us on into the period 1586–1616, and the vaunting of their performance before the Queen is soon followed by that of other plays, beginning with The Troublesome Reign of John, as publicly acted in the City of London. During 1586–1616 two hundred and thirty-seven plays in all were published or at least entered on the Stationers’ Register, in addition to thirteen printed elsewhere than in London. Of many of these, and of some of those earlier published, there were one or more reprints. It is not until the last year of the period that the first example of a collective edition of the plays of any author makes its appearance. This is The Workes of Benjamin Jonson, which is moreover in folio, whereas the prints of individual plays were almost invariably in quarto.[589] A second volume of Jonson’s Works was begun in 1631 and completed in 1640. Shakespeare’s plays had to wait until 1623 for collective treatment, Lyly’s until 1632, Marston’s until 1633, and Beaumont and Fletcher’s until 1647 and 1679, although a partial collection of Shakespearian plays in quarto has been shown to have been contemplated and abandoned in 1619.[590] Of the two hundred and thirty-seven plays proposed for publication two hundred and fourteen are extant. Twenty-three are only known by entries in the Stationers’ Register, and as plays were not always entered, it is conceivable that one or two may have been published, and have passed into oblivion. Of the two hundred and fourteen extant plays, six are translations from the Latin, Italian, or French, and seven may reasonably be suspected of being merely closet plays, intended for the eye of the reader alone. The other two hundred and one may be taken to have undergone the test of actual performance. Six were given by amateurs, at Court or elsewhere, and eleven, of which three are Latin and eight English, are University plays. So far as the professional companies are concerned, the repertories which have probably been best preserved, owing to the fact that the poets were in a position to influence publication, are those of the boys. We have thirty-one plays which, certainly or probably, came to the press from the Chapel and Queen’s Revels boys, twenty-five from the Paul’s boys, and eight from the King’s Revels boys. To the Queen’s men we may assign eleven plays, to Sussex’s three, to Pembroke’s five, to Derby’s four, to Oxford’s one, to Strange’s or the Admiral’s and Henry’s thirty-two, to the Chamberlain’s and King’s thirty-four, to Worcester’s and Anne’s sixteen, to Charles’s one. Some of these had at earlier dates been played by other companies. Fifteen plays remain, not a very large proportion, which cannot be safely assigned.[591] There are twenty-seven manuscript English plays or fragments of plays or plots of plays, and twenty-one Latin ones, mostly of a university type, which also belong to the period 1586–1616. There are fifty-one plays which were certainly or probably produced before 1616, but were not printed until later, many of them in the Shakespeare and Beaumont and Fletcher folios. And there are some twenty-two others, which exist in late prints, but may be wholly, or more often partially, of early workmanship. The resultant total of three hundred and seven is considerable, but there is reason to suppose that it only represents a comparatively small fraction of the complete crop of these thirty pullulating dramatic years. Of over two hundred and eighty plays recorded by Henslowe as produced or commissioned by the companies for whom he acted as banker between 1592 and 1603, we have only some forty and perhaps revised versions of a few others.[592] Thomas Heywood claimed in 1633 to have had ‘an entire hand, or at least a maine finger’, in not less than two hundred and twenty plays, and of these we can only identify or even guess at about two score, of which several are certainly lost. That any substantial number of plays got printed, but have failed to reach us, is improbable. From time to time an unknown print, generally of early date, turns up in some bibliographical backwater, but of the seventy-five titles which I have brought together under the head of ‘Lost Plays’ some probably rest upon misunderstandings and others represent works which were not plays at all, while a large proportion are derived from late entries in the Stationers’ Register by Humphrey Moseley of plays which he may have possessed in manuscript but never actually proceeded to publish.[593] Some of the earlier unfulfilled entries may be of similar type. An interesting piece of evidence pointing to the practically complete survival at any rate of seventeenth-century prints is afforded in a catalogue of his library of plays made by Sir John Harington in or about 1610.[594] Harington possessed 129 distinct plays, as well as a number of duplicates. Only 9 of these were printed before 1586. He had 14 out of 38 printed during 1588–94, and 15 out of 25 printed during 1595–99. His absence in Ireland during 1599 probably led him to miss several belonging to that year, and his most vigorous period as a collector began with 1600. During 1600–10 he secured 90 out of 105; that is to say exactly six-sevenths of the complete output of the London press. I neglect plays printed outside London in these figures. There is only one play among the 129 which is not known to us. Apparently it bore the title Belinus and Brennus.

It is generally supposed, and I think with justice, that the acting companies did not find it altogether to their advantage to have their plays printed. Heywood, indeed, in the epistle to his English Traveller (1633) tells us that this was sometimes the case.[595] Presumably the danger was not so much that readers would not become spectators, as that other companies might buy the plays and act them; and of this practice there are some dubious instances, although at any rate by Caroline times it had been brought under control by the Lord Chamberlain.[596] At any rate, we find the Admiral’s in 1600 borrowing 40_s._ ‘to geue vnto the printer, to staye the printing of Patient Gresell’.[597] We find the King’s Revels syndicate in 1608 entering into a formal agreement debarring its members from putting any of the play-books jointly owned by them into print. And we find the editor and publisher of Troilus and Cressida, although that had in fact never been played, bidding his readers in 1609 ‘thanke fortune for the scape it hath made amongst you; since by the grand possessors wills I beleeue you should have prayd for them rather than beene prayd’. The marked fluctuation in the output of plays in different years is capable of explanation on the theory that, so long as the companies were prosperous, they kept a tight hold on their ‘books’, and only let them pass into the hands of the publishers when adversity broke them up, or when they had some special need to raise funds. The periods of maximum output are 1594, 1600, and 1607. In 1594 the companies were reforming themselves after a long and disastrous spell of plague; and in particular the Queen’s, Pembroke’s, and Sussex’s men were all ruined, and their books were thrown in bulk upon the market.[598] It has been suggested that the sales of 1600 may have been due to Privy Council restrictions of that year, which limited the number of companies, and forbade them to play for more than two days in the week.[599] But it is very doubtful whether the limitation of days really became operative, and many of the plays published belonged to the two companies, the Chamberlain’s and the Admiral’s, who stood to gain by the elimination of competitors. An alternative reason might be found in the call for ready money involved by the building of the Globe in 1599 and the Fortune in 1600. The main factor in 1607 was the closing of Paul’s and the sale of the plays acted there.

Sometimes the companies were outwitted. Needy and unscrupulous stationers might use illegitimate means to acquire texts for which they had not paid as a basis for ‘surreptitious’ or ‘piratical’ prints.[600] A hired actor might be bribed to disclose his ‘part’ and so much as he could remember of the ‘parts’ of others. Dr. Greg has made it seem probable that the player of the Host was an agent in furnishing the text of the Merry Wives.[601] A player of Voltimand and other minor parts may have been similarly guilty as regards Hamlet.[602] Long before, the printer of Gorboduc had succeeded in ‘getting a copie thereof at some yongmans hand that lacked a little money and much discretion’. Or the poet himself might be to blame. Thomas Heywood takes credit in the epistle to The Rape of Lucrece that it had not been his custom ‘to commit my playes to the presse’, like others who ‘have vsed a double sale of their labours, first to the stage, and after to the presse’. Yet this had not saved his plays from piracy, for some of them had been ‘copied only by the eare’ and issued in a corrupt and mangled form. A quarter of a century later, in writing a prologue for a revival of his If You Know not Me, You Know Nobody, he tells us that this was one of the corrupt issues, and adds that

Some by Stenography drew The plot: put it in print: (scarce one word trew).

Modern critics have sought in shorthand the source of other ‘bad’ and probably surreptitious texts of plays, and one has gone so far as to trace in them the peculiarities of a particular system expounded in the Characterie (1588) of Timothy Bright.[603] The whole question of surreptitious prints has naturally been explored most closely in connexion with the textual criticism of Shakespeare, and the latest investigator, Mr. Pollard, has come to the conclusion that, in spite of the general condemnation of the Folio editors, the only Shakespearian Quartos which can reasonably be labelled as surreptitious or as textually ‘bad’ are the First Quartos of Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, Merry Wives of Windsor, Hamlet, and Pericles, although he strongly suspects that there once existed a similar edition of Love’s Labour’s Lost.[604] I have no ground for dissenting from this judgement.

The question whether the actors, in protecting their property from the pirates, could look for any assistance from the official controllers of the press is one of some difficulty. We may perhaps infer, with the help of the conditional entries of The Blind Beggar of Alexandria and The Spanish Tragedy, and the special order made in the case of Dr. Faustus, that before assigning a ‘copy’ to one stationer the wardens of the Company took some steps to ascertain whether any other stationer laid a claim to it. It does not follow that they also inquired whether the applicant had come honestly or dishonestly by his manuscript.[605] Mr. Pollard seems inclined to think that, although they were under no formal obligation to intervene, they would not be likely, as men of common sense, to encourage dishonesty.[606] If this argument stood alone, I should not have much confidence in it. There is a Publishers’ Association to-day, doubtless composed of men of common sense, but it is not a body to which one would naturally commit interests which might come into conflict with those of members of the trade. It would be another matter, however, if the actors were in a position to bring outside interest to bear against the pirates, through the licensers, or through the Privy Council on whom ultimately the licensers depended. And this in fact seems to have been the way in which a solution of the problem was gradually arrived at. Apart altogether from plays, there are instances upon record in which individuals, who were in a position to command influence, successfully adopted a similar method. We find Fulke Greville in 1586 writing to Sir Francis Walsingham, on the information of the stationer Ponsonby, to warn him that the publication of the Arcadia was being planned, and to advise him to get ‘made stay of that mercenary book’ by means of an application to the Archbishop or to Dr. Cosin, ‘who have, as he says, a copy to peruse to that end’.[607] Similarly we find Francis Bacon, in the preface to his Essayes of 1597, excusing himself for the publication on the ground that surreptitious adventurers were at work, and ‘to labour the staie of them had bin troublesome and subiect to interpretation’. Evidently he had come to a compromise, of which the Stationers’ Register retains traces in the cancellation by a court of an entry of the Essayes to Richard Serger, and a re-entry to H. Hooper, the actual publisher, ‘under the handes of Master Francis Bacon, Master Doctor Stanhope, Master Barlowe, and Master Warden Lawson’.[608] The actors, too, were not wholly without influence. They had their patrons and protectors, the Lord Chamberlain and the Lord Admiral, in the Privy Council, and although, as Mr. Pollard points out, it certainly would not have been good business to worry an important minister about every single forty-shilling piracy, it may have been worth while to seek a standing protection, analogous to the old-fashioned ‘privilege’, against a series of such annoyances. At any rate, this is what, while the Admiral’s contented themselves with buying off the printer of Patient Grissell, the Chamberlain’s apparently attempted, although at first with indifferent success, to secure. In 1597 John Danter, a stationer of the worst reputation, had printed a surreptitious and ‘bad’ edition of Romeo and Juliet, and possibly, if Mr. Pollard’s conjecture is right, another of Love’s Labour’s Lost. He had made no entry in the Register, and it was therefore open to another publisher, Cuthbert Burby, to issue, without breach of copyright, ‘corrected’ editions of the same plays.[609] This he did, with suitable trumpetings of the corrections on the title-pages, and presumably by arrangement with the Chamberlain’s men. It was this affair which must, I think, have led the company to apply for protection to their lord. On 22 July 1598 an entry was made in the Stationers’ Register of The Merchant of Venice for the printer James Roberts. This entry is conditional in form, but it differs from the normal conditional entries in that the requirement specified is not an indefinite ‘aucthoritie’ but a ‘lycence from the Right honorable the lord chamberlen’. Roberts also entered Cloth Breeches and Velvet Hose on 27 May 1600, A Larum for London on 29 May 1600, and Troilus and Cressida on 7 February 1603. These also are all conditional entries but of a normal type. No condition, however, is attached to his entry of Hamlet on 26 July 1602. Now comes a significant piece of evidence, which at least shows that in 1600, as well as in 1598, the Stationers’ Company were paying particular attention to entries of plays coming from the repertory of the Chamberlain’s men. The register contains, besides the formal entries, certain spare pages upon which the clerk was accustomed to make occasional memoranda, and amongst these memoranda we find the following:[610]

My lord chamberlens menns plaies Entred viz

[Sidenote: 27 May 1600 To Master Robertes]

A moral of ‘clothe breches and velvet hose’

[Sidenote: 27 May To hym]

Allarum to London

4 Augusti As you like yt, a booke } Henry the ffift, a booke } Every man in his humour, a booke } to be staied The commedie of ‘muche A doo about } nothing’, a booke }

There are possibly two notes here, but we may reasonably date them both in 1600, as Every Man In his Humour was entered to Cuthbert Burby and Walter Burre on 14 August 1600 and Much Ado about Nothing to Andrew Wise and William Aspley on 23 August 1600, and these plays appeared in 1601 and 1600 respectively. Henry V was published, without entry and in a ‘bad’ text by Thomas Millington and John Busby, also in 1600, while As You Like It remained unprinted until 1623. Many attempts have been made to explain the story of 4 August. Mr. Fleay conjectured that it was due to difficulties of censorship; Mr. Furness that it was directed against James Roberts, whom he regarded on the strength of the conditional entries as a man of ‘shifty character’.[611] But there is no reason to read Roberts’s name into the August memorandum at all; and I agree with Mr. Pollard that the evidence of dishonesty against him has been exaggerated, and that the privilege which he held for printing all play-bills for actors makes it prima facie unlikely that his relations with the companies would be irregular.[612] On the other hand, I hesitate to accept Mr. Pollard’s counter-theory that the four conditional Roberts entries were of the nature of a deliberate plan ‘in the interest of the players in order to postpone their publication till it could not injure the run of the play and to make the task of the pirates more difficult’. One would of course suppose that any entry, conditional or not, might serve such a purpose, if the entering stationer was in league with the actors and deliberately reserved publication. This is presumably what the Admiral’s men paid Cuthbert Burby to do for Patient Grissell. Mr. Pollard applies the same theory to Edward Blount’s unconditional entries of Pericles and Antony and Cleopatra in 1608, and it would certainly explain the delays in the publication of Troilus and Cressida from 1603 to 1609 and of Antony and Cleopatra from 1608 to 1623, and the absence of any edition of Cloth Breeches and Velvet Hose. But it does not explain why Hamlet, entered by Roberts in 1602, was issued by others in the ‘bad’ text of 1603, or why Pericles was issued by Henry Gosson in the ‘bad’ text of 1609.[613] Mr. Pollard’s interpretation of the facts appears to be influenced by the conditional character of four out of Roberts’s five entries during 1598–1603, and I understand him to believe that the ‘further aucthoritie’ required for Cloth Breeches and Velvet Hose and A Larum for London and the ‘sufficient aucthoritie’ required for Troilus and Cressida were of the same nature as the licence from the Lord Chamberlain specifically required for The Merchant of Venice.[614] It is not inconceivable that this may have been so, but one is bound to take the Roberts conditional entries side by side with the eight similar entries made between 1601 and 1606 for other men, and in three at least of these (The Dutch Courtesan, Sir Giles Goosecap, The Fleir) it is obvious that the authority demanded was that of the official correctors. Of course, the correctors may themselves have had a hint from the Lord Chamberlain to keep an eye upon the interests of his servants, but if the eleven conditionally entered plays of 1600–6 be looked at as a group, it will be seen that they are all plays of either a political or a satirical character, which might well therefore call for particular attention from the correctors in the discharge of their ordinary functions. I have already suggested that the normal conditional entries represent cases in which the wardens of the Stationers’ Company, while not prepared to license a book on their own responsibility, short-circuited as far as they could the procedure entailed. Properly they ought to have seen the corrector’s hand before adding their own endorsement. But if this was not forthcoming, the applicant may have been allowed, in order to save time, to have the purely trade formalities completed by a conditional entry, which would be a valid protection against a rival stationer, but would not, until the corrector’s hand was obtained, be sufficient authority for the actual printing. No doubt the clerk should have subsequently endorsed the entry after seeing the corrector’s hand, but he did not always do so, although in cases of transfer the transferee might ask for a record to be made, and in any event the owner of the copy had the book with the ‘hand’ to it. The Lord Chamberlain’s ‘stay’ was, I think, another matter. I suppose it to have been directed, not to the correctors, but to the wardens, and to have taken the form of a request not to enter any play of the Chamberlain’s men, otherwise entitled to licence or not, without satisfying themselves that the actors were assenting parties to the transaction. Common sense would certainly dictate compliance with such a request, coming from such a source. The plan seems to have worked well enough so far as As You Like It, Every Man In his Humour, and Much Ado about Nothing were concerned, for we have no reason to doubt that the subsequent publication of two of these plays had the assent of the Chamberlain’s men, and the third was effectively suppressed. But somehow not only Hamlet but also The Merry Wives of Windsor slipped through in 1602, and although the actors apparently came to some arrangement with Roberts and furnished a revised text of Hamlet, the other play seems to have gone completely out of their control. Moreover, it was an obvious weakness of the method adopted, that it gave no security against a surreptitious printer who was in a position to dispense with an entry. Danter, after all, had published without entry in 1597. He had had to go without copyright; but an even more audacious device was successfully tried in 1600 with Henry V. This was one of the four plays so scrupulously ‘staied’ by the Stationers’ clerk on 4 August. Not merely, however, was the play printed in 1600 by Thomas Creede for Thomas Millington and John Busby, but on 21 August it was entered on the Register as transferred to Thomas Pavier amongst other ‘thinges formerlye printed and sett ouer to’ him. I think the explanation is that the print of 1600 was treated as merely a reprint of the old play of The Famous Victories of Henry V, which was indeed to some extent Shakespeare’s source, and of which Creede held the copyright.[615] Similarly, it is conceivable that the same John Busby and Nathaniel Butter forced the hands of the Chamberlain’s men into allowing the publication of King Lear in 1608 by a threat to issue it as a reprint of King Leir.[616] Busby was also the enterer of The Merry Wives, and he and Butter, at whose hands it was that Heywood suffered, seem to have been the chief of the surreptitious printers after Danter’s death.

The Chamberlain’s men would have been in a better position if their lord had brought his influence to bear, as Sidney’s friends had done, upon the correctors instead of the Stationers’ Company. Probably the mistake was retrieved in 1607 when the ‘allowing’ of plays for publication passed to the Master of the Revels, and he may even have extended his protection to the other companies which, like the Chamberlain’s, had now passed under royal protection. I do not suggest that the convenience of this arrangement was the sole motive for the change; the episcopal correctors must have got into a good deal of hot water over the affair of Eastward Ho![617] Even the Master of the Revels did not prevent the surreptitious issue of Pericles in 1609. In Caroline times we find successive Lord Chamberlains, to whom the Master of the Revels continued to be subordinate, directing the Stationers’ Company not to allow the repertories of the King’s men or of Beeston’s boys to be printed, and it is implied that there were older precedents for these protections.[618]

A point might come at which it was really more to the advantage of the actors to have a play published than not. The prints were useful in the preparation of acting versions, and they saved the book-keepers from the trouble of having to prepare manuscript copies at the demand of stage-struck amateurs.[619] The influence of the poets again was on the side of publication, and it is perhaps due to the greater share which they took in the management of the boys’ companies that so disproportionate a number of the plays preserved are of their acting. Heywood hints that thereby the poets sold their work twice. It is more charitable to assume that literary vanity was also a factor; and it is with playwrights of the more scholarly type, Ben Jonson and Marston, that a practice first emerges of printing plays at an early date after publication, and in the full literary trappings of dedicatory epistles and commendatory verses. Actor-playwrights, such as Heywood himself and Dekker, followed suit; but not Shakespeare, who had long ago dedicated his literary all to Southampton and penned no prefaces. The characteristic Elizabethan apologies, on such grounds as the pushfulness of publishers or the eagerness of friends to see the immortal work in type, need not be taken at their full face value.[620] Opportunity was afforded on publication to restore passages which had been ‘cut’ to meet the necessities of stage-presentation, and of this, in the Second Quarto of Hamlet, even Shakespeare may have availed himself.[621]

The conditions of printing therefore furnish us with every variety of text, from the carefully revised and punctuated versions of Ben Jonson’s Works of 1616 to the scrappy notes, from memory or shorthand, of an incompetent reporter. The average text lies between these extremes, and is probably derived from a play-house ‘book’ handed over by the actors to the printer. Mr. Pollard has dealt luminously with the question of the nature of the ‘book’, and has disposed of the assumption that it was normally a copy made by a ‘play-house’ scrivener of the author’s manuscript.[622] For this assumption there is no evidence whatever. There is, indeed, little direct evidence, one way or other; but what there is points to the conclusion that the ‘original’ or standard copy of a play kept in the play-house was the author’s autograph manuscript, endorsed with the licence of the Master of the Revels for performance, and marked by the book-keeper or for his use with indications of cuts and the like, and with stage-directions for exits and entrances and the disposition of properties, supplementary to those which the author had furnished.[623] Most of the actual manuscripts of this type which remain in existence are of Caroline, rather than Elizabethan or Jacobean, date.[624] But we have one of The Second Maid’s Tragedy, bearing Buck’s licence of 1611, and one of Sir Thomas More, belonging to the last decade of the sixteenth century, which has been submitted for licence without success, and is marked with instructions by the Master for the excision or alteration of obnoxious passages. It is a curious document. The draft of the original author has been patched and interpolated with partial redrafts in a variety of hands, amongst which, according to some palaeographers, is to be found that of Shakespeare. One wonders that any licenser should have been complaisant enough to consider the play at all in such a form; and obviously the instance is a crucial one against the theory of scrivener’s copies.[625] It may also be argued on a priori grounds that such copies would be undesirable from the company’s point of view, both as being costly and as tending to multiply the opportunities for ‘surreptitious’ transmission to rivals or publishers. Naturally it was necessary to copy out individual parts for the actors, and Alleyn’s part in Orlando Furioso, with the ‘cues’, or tail ends of the speeches preceding his own, can still be seen at Dulwich.[626] From these ‘parts’ the ‘original’ could be reconstructed or ‘assembled’ in the event of destruction or loss.[627] Apparently the book-keeper also made a ‘plot’ or scenario of the action, and fixed it on a peg for his own guidance and that of the property-man in securing the smooth progress of the play.[628] Nor could the companies very well prevent the poets from keeping transcripts or at any rate rough copies, when they handed over their ‘papers’, complete or in instalments, as they drew their ‘earnests’ or payments ‘in full’.[629] It does not follow that they always did so. We know that Daborne made fair copies for Henslowe;[630] but the Folio editors tell us that what Shakespeare thought ‘he vttered with that easinesse, that we haue scarse receiued from him a blot in his papers’, and Mr. Pollard points out that there would have been little meaning in this praise if what Shakespeare sent in had been anything but his first drafts.[631]

The character of the stage-directions in plays confirm the view that many of them were printed from working play-house ‘originals’. They are primarily directions for the stage itself; it is only incidentally that they also serve to stimulate the reader’s imagination by indicating the action with which the lines before him would have been accompanied in a representation.[632] Some of them are for the individual guidance of the actors, marginal hints as to the ‘business’ which will give point to their speeches. These are not very numerous in play-house texts; the ‘kneeling’ and ‘kisses her’ so frequent in modern editions are merely attempts of the editors to show how intelligently they have interpreted the quite obvious implications of the dialogue. The more important directions are addressed rather to the prompter and the tire-man; they prescribe the exits and the entrances, the ordering of a procession or a dumb-show, the use of the curtains or other structural devices, the introduction of properties, the precise moment for the striking up of music or sounds ‘within’. It is by no means always possible, except where a manuscript betrays differences of handwriting, to distinguish between what the author, often himself an actor familiar with the possibilities of the stage, may have originally written, and what the book-keeper may have added. Either may well use the indicative or the imperative form, or merely an adverbial, participial, or substantival expression.[633] But it is natural to trace the hand of the book-keeper where the direction reduces itself to the bare name of a property noted in the margin; even more so when it is followed by some such phrase as ‘ready’, ‘prepared’, or ‘set out’;[634] and still more so when the note occurs at the point when the property has to be brought from the tire-room, and some lines before it is actually required for use.[635] The book-keeper must be responsible, too, for the directions into which, as not infrequently happens, the name of an actor has been inserted in place of that of the personage whom that actor represented.[636] On the other hand, we may perhaps safely assign to the author directions addressed to some one else in the second person, those which leave something to be interpreted according to discretion, and those which contain any matter not really necessary for stage guidance.[637] Such superfluous matter is only rarely found in texts of pure play-house origin, although even here an author may occasionally insert a word or two of explanation or descriptive colouring, possibly taken from the source upon which he has been working.[638] In the main, however, descriptive stage-directions are characteristic of texts which, whether ultimately based upon play-house copies or not, have undergone a process of editing by the author or his representative, with an eye to the reader, before publication. Some literary rehandling of this sort is traceable, for example, in the First Folio of Shakespeare, although the hearts of the editors seem to have failed them before they had got very far with the task.[639] Yet another type of descriptive stage-direction presents itself in certain ‘surreptitious’ prints, where we find the reporter eking out his inadequately recorded text by elaborate accounts of the details of the business which he had seen enacted before him.[640] So too William Percy, apparently revising plays some of which had already been acted and which he hoped to see acted again, mingles his suggestions to a hypothetical manager with narratives in the past tense of how certain actors had carried out their parts.[641]

It must not be assumed that, because a play was printed from a stage copy, the author had no chance of editing it. Probably the compositors treated the manuscript put before them very freely, modifying, if they did not obliterate, the individual notions of the author or scribe as to orthography and punctuation; and the master printer, or some press corrector in his employment, went over and ‘improved’ their work, perhaps not always with much reference to the original ‘copy’.[642] This process of correction continued during the printing off of the successive sheets, with the result that different examples of the same imprint often show the same sheet in corrected and in uncorrected states.[643] The trend of modern criticism is in the direction of regarding Shakespeare’s plays as printed, broadly speaking, without any editorial assistance from him; the early quartos from play-house manuscripts, the later quartos from the earlier quartos, the folio partly from play-house manuscripts, partly from earlier quartos used in the play-house instead of manuscripts, and bearing marks of adaptation to shifting stage requirements.[644] On this theory, the aberrations of the printing-house, even with the author’s original text before them, have to account in the main for the unsatisfactory condition in which, in spite of such posthumous editing, not very extensive, as was done for the folio, even the best texts of the plays have reached us. Whether it is sound or not--I think that it probably is--there were other playwrights who were far from adopting Shakespeare’s attitude of detachment from the literary fate of his works. Jonson was a careful editor. Marston, Middleton, and Heywood all apologize for misprints in various plays, which they say were printed without their knowledge, or when they were urgently occupied elsewhere; and the inference must be that in normal circumstances the responsibility would have rested with them.[645] Marston, indeed, definitely says that he had ‘perused’ the second edition of The Fawn, in order ‘to make some satisfaction for the first faulty impression’.[646]

The modern editions, with their uniform system of acts and scenes and their fanciful notes of locality--‘A room in the palace’, ‘Another room in the palace’--are again misleading in their relation to the early prints, especially those based upon the play-house. Notes of locality are very rare. Occasionally a definite shift from one country or town to another is recorded;[647] and a few edited plays, such as Ben Jonson’s, prefix, with a ‘dramatis personae’, a general indication of ‘The scene’.[648] For the rest, the reader is left to his own inferences, with such help as the dialogue and the presenters give him; and the modern editors, with a post-Restoration tradition of staging in their minds, have often inferred wrongly. Even the shoulder-notes appended to the accurate reprints of the Malone Society, although they do not attempt localities, err by introducing too many new scenes. In the early prints the beginnings of scenes are rarely marked, and the beginnings of acts are left unmarked to an extent which is rather surprising. The practice is by no means uniform, and it is possible to distinguish different tendencies in texts of different origin. The Tudor interludes and the early Elizabethan plays of the more popular type are wholly undivided, and there was probably no break in the continuity of the performances.[649] Acts and scenes, which are the outward form of a method of construction derived from the academic analysis of Latin comedy and tragedy, make their appearance, with other notes of neo-classic influence, in the farces of the school of Udall, in the Court tragedies, in translated plays, in Lyly’s comedies, and in a few others belonging to the same milieu of scholarship.[650] Ben Jonson and a few other later writers adopt them in printing plays of theatrical origin.[651] But the great majority of plays belonging to the public theatres continue to be printed without any divisions at all, while plays from the private houses are ordinarily divided into acts, but not into scenes, although the beginning of each act has usually some such heading as ‘Actus Primus, Scena prima’.[652] This distinction corresponds to the greater significance of the act-interval in the performance of the boy companies; but, as I have pointed out in an earlier chapter, it is difficult to suppose that the public theatres paid no regard to act-intervals, and one cannot therefore quite understand why neither the poets nor the book-keepers were in the habit of showing them in the play-house ‘originals’ of plays.[653] Had they been shown there, they would almost inevitably have got into the prints. It is a peculiarity of the surreptitious First Quarto of Romeo and Juliet, that its later sheets, which differ typographically from the earlier ones, although they do not number either acts or scenes, insert lines of ornament at the points at which acts and scenes may be supposed to begin. It must be added that, so far as an Elizabethan playwright looked upon his work as made up of scenes, his conception of a scene was not as a rule that familiar to us upon the modern stage. The modern scene may be defined as a piece of action continuous in time and place between two falls of a drop-curtain. The Elizabethans had no drop-curtain, and the drawing of an alcove curtain, at any rate while personages remain on the stage without, does not afford the same solution of continuity. The nearest analogy is perhaps in such a complete clearance of the stage, generally with a shift of locality, as enables the imagination to assume a time interval. A few texts, generally of the seventeenth century, are divided into scenes on this principle of clearance; and it was adopted by the editors of the First Folio, when, in a half-hearted way, they attempted to divide up the continuous texts of their manuscripts and quartos.[654] But it was not the principle of the neo-classic dramatists, or of Ben Jonson and his school. For them a scene was a section, not of action, but of dialogue; and they started a new scene whenever a speaker, or at any rate a speaker of importance, entered or left the stage. This is the conception which is in the mind of Marston when he regrets, in the preface to The Malcontent, that ‘scenes, invented merely to be spoken, should be enforcively published to be read’. It is also the conception of the French classicist drama, although the English playwrights do not follow the French rule of liaison, which requires at least one speaker from each scene to remain on into the next, and thus secures continuity throughout each act by making a complete clearance of the stage impossible.[655]

XXIII

PLAYWRIGHTS

[Bibliographical Note.--The abundant literature of the drama is more satisfactorily treated in the appendices to F. E. Schelling, Elizabethan Drama (1908), and vols. v and vi (1910) of the Cambridge History of English Literature, than in R. W. Lowe, Bibliographical Account of English Theatrical Literature (1888), K. L. Bates and L. B. Godfrey, English Drama: a Working Basis (1896), or W. D. Adams, Dictionary of the Drama (1904). There is an American pamphlet on Materials for the Study of the English Drama, excluding Shakespeare (1912, Newbery Library, Chicago), which I have not seen. Periodical lists of new books are published in the Modern Language Review, the Beiblatt to Anglia, and the Bulletin of the English Association, and annual bibliographies by the Modern Humanities Research Association (from 1921) and in the Shakespeare Jahrbuch. The bibliography by H. R. Tedder in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th ed.) s.v. Shakespeare, A. C. Shaw, Index to the Shakespeare Memorial Library (1900–3), and W. Jaggard, Shakespeare Bibliography (1911), on which, however, cf. C. S. Northup in J. G. P. xi. 218, are also useful.

W. W. Greg, Notes on Dramatic Bibliographers (1911, M. S. C. i. 324), traces from the publishers’ advertisements of the Restoration a catena of play-lists in E. Phillips, Theatrum Poetarum (1675), W. Winstanley, Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687), G. Langbaine, Momus Triumphans (1688) and Account of the English Dramatick Poets (1691), C. Gildon, Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick Poets (1698), W. R. Chetwood, The British Theatre (1750), E. Capell, Notitia Dramatica (1783), and the various editions of the Biographica Dramatica from 1764 to 1812. More recent are J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps, Dictionary of Old English Plays (1860), and W. C. Hazlitt, Manual of Old English Plays (1892); but all are largely superseded by W. W. Greg, A List of English Plays (1900) and A List of Masques, Pageants, &c. (1902). His account of Warburton’s collection in The Bakings of Betsy (Library, 1911) serves as a supplement. A few plays discovered later than 1900 appeared in an Irish sale of 1906 (cf. Jahrbuch, xliii. 310) and in the Mostyn sale of 1919 (cf. t.p. facsimiles in Sotheby’s sale catalogue). For the problems of the early prints, the Bibliographical Note to ch. xxii should be consulted.

I ought to add that the notices of the early prints of plays in this and the following chapter lay no claim to minute bibliographical erudition, and that all deficiencies in this respect are likely to be corrected when the full results of Dr. Greg’s researches on the subject are published.

The fundamental works on the history of the drama are A. W. Ward, History of English Dramatic Literature (1875, 1899), F. G. Fleay, Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama (1891), F. E. Schelling, Elizabethan Drama (1908), the Cambridge History of English Literature, vols. v and vi (1910), and W. Creizenach, Geschichte des neueren Dramas, vols. iv, v (1909, 1916). These and others, with the relevant periodicals, are set out in the General Bibliographical Note (vol. i); and to them may be added F. S. Boas, Shakspere and his Predecessors (1896), B. Matthews, The Development of the Drama (1904), F. E. Schelling, English Drama (1914), A. Wynne, The Growth of English Drama (1914). Less systematic collections of studies are L. M. Griffiths, Evenings with Shakespeare (1889), J. R. Lowell, Old English Dramatists (1892), A. H. Tolman, The Views about Hamlet (1904), C. Crawford, Collectanea (1906–7), A. C. Swinburne, The Age of Shakespeare (1908). The older critical work of Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, and others cannot be neglected, but need not be detailed here.

Special dissertations on individual plays and playwrights are recorded in the body of this chapter. A few of wider scope may be roughly classified; as dealing with dramatic structure, H. Schwab, Das Schauspiel im Schauspiel zur Zeit Shakespeares (1896), F. A. Foster, Dumb Show in Elizabethan Drama before 1620 (1911, E. S. xliv. 8); with types of drama, H. W. Singer, Das bürgerliche Trauerspiel in England (1891), J. Seifert, Wit-und Science Moralitäten (1892), J. L. McConaughty, The School Drama (1913), E. N. S. Thompson, The English Moral Plays (1910), R. Fischer, Zur Kunstentwickelung der englischen Tragödie bis zu Shakespeare (1893), A. C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy (1904), F. E. Schelling, The English Chronicle Play (1902), L. N. Chase, The English Heroic Play (1903), C. G. Child, The Rise of the Heroic Play (1904, M. L. N. xix), F. H. Ristine, English Tragicomedy (1910), C. R. Baskervill, Some Evidence for Early Romantic Plays in England (1916, M. P. xiv. 229, 467), L. M. Ellison, The Early Romantic Drama at the English Court (1917), H. Smith, Pastoral Influence in the English Drama (1897, M. L. A. xii. 355). A. H. Thorndike, The Pastoral Element in the English Drama before 1605 (1900, M. L. N. xiv. 228), J. Laidler, History of Pastoral Drama in England (1905, E. S. xxxv. 193), W. W. Greg, Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama (1906); with types of plot and characterization, H. Graf, Der Miles Gloriosus im englischen Drama (1891), E. Meyer, Machiavelli and the Elizabethan Drama (1897), G. B. Churchill, Richard the Third up to Shakespeare (1900), L. W. Cushman, The Devil and the Vice in the English Dramatic Literature before Shakespeare (1900), E. Eckhardt, Die lustige Person im älteren englischen Drama (1902), F. E. Schelling, Some Features of the Supernatural as Represented in Plays of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James (1903, M. P. i), H. Ankenbrand, Die Figur des Geistes im Drama der englischen Renaissance (1906), F. G. Hubbard, Repetition and Parallelism in the Earlier Elizabethan Drama (1905, M. L. A. xx), E. Eckhardt, Die Dialekt-und Ausländertypen des älteren englischen Dramas (1910–11), V. O. Freeburg, Disguise Plots in Elizabethan Drama (1915); with Quellenforschung and foreign influences, E. Koeppel, Quellen-Studien zu den Dramen Jonson’s, Marston’s, und Beaumont und Fletcher’s (1895), Quellen-Studien zu den Dramen Chapman’s, Massinger’s und Ford’s (1897), Zur Quellen-Kunde der Stuarts-Dramen (1896, Archiv, xcvii), Studien zur Geschichte der italienischen Novelle in der englischen Litteratur des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts (1892), L. L. Schücking, Studien über die stofflichen Beziehungen der englischen Komödie zur italienischen bis Lilly (1901), A. Ott, Die italienische Novelle im englischen Drama von 1600 (1904), W. Smith, The Commedia dell’ Arte (1912), M. A. Scott, Elizabethan Translations from the Italian (1916), A. L. Stiefel, Die Nachahmung spanischer Komödien in England unter den ersten Stuarts (1890), Die Nachahmung spanischer Komödien in England (1897, Archiv, xcix), L. Bahlsen, Spanische Quellen der dramatischen Litteratur besonders Englands zu Shakespeares Zeit (1893, Z. f. vergleichende Litteraturgeschichte, N. F. vi), A. S. W. Rosenbach, The Curious Impertinent in English Drama (1902, M. L. N. xvii), J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, Cervantes in England (1905), J. W. Cunliffe, The Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy (1893), O. Ballweg, Das klassizistische Drama zur Zeit Shakespeares (1909), O. Ballmann, Chaucers Einfluss auf das englische Drama (1902, Anglia, xxv), R. M. Smith, Froissart and the English Chronicle Play (1915); with the interrelations of dramatists, A. H. Thorndike, The Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakespeare (1901), E. Koeppel, Studien über Shakespeares Wirkung auf zeitgenössische Dramatiker (1905), Ben Jonson’s Wirkung auf zeitgenössische Dramatiker (1906).

The special problem of the authorship of the so-called Shakespeare Apocrypha is dealt with in the editions thereof described below, and by Halliwell-Phillipps (ii. 413), Ward (ii. 209), R. Sachs, Die Shakespeare zugeschriebenen zweifelhaften Stücke (1892, Jahrbuch, xxvii), and A. F. Hopkinson, Essays on Shakespeare’s Doubtful Plays (1900). The analogous question of the possible non-Shakespearian authorship of plays or parts of plays published as his is too closely interwoven with specifically Shakespearian literature to be handled here; J. M. Robertson, in Did Shakespeare Write Titus Andronicus? (1905), Shakespeare and Chapman (1917), The Shakespeare Canon (1922), is searching; other dissertations are cited under the plays or playwrights concerned. The attempts to use metrical or other ‘tests’ in the discrimination of authorship or of the chronology of work have been predominantly applied to Shakespeare, although Beaumont and Fletcher (vide infra) and others have not been neglected. The broader discussions of E. N. S. Thompson, Elizabethan Dramatic Collaboration (1909, E. S. xl. 30) and E. H. C. Oliphant, Problems of Authorship in Elizabethan Dramatic Literature (1911, M. P. viii, 411) are of value.

To the general histories of Elizabethan literature named in the General Bibliographical Note may be added Chambers’s Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1901–3), E. Gosse, Modern English Literature (1897), G. Saintsbury, Short History of English Literature (1900), A. Lang, English Literature from ‘Beowulf’ to Swinburne (1912), W. Minto, Characteristics of English Poets from Chaucer to Shirley (1874), G. Saintsbury, Elizabethan Literature (1887), E. Gosse, The Jacobean Poets (1894), T. Seccombe and J. W. Allen, The Age of Shakespeare (1903), F. E. Schelling, English Literature during the Lifetime of Shakespeare (1910); and for the international relations, G. Saintsbury, The Earlier Renaissance (1901), D. Hannay, The Later Renaissance (1898), H. J. C. Grierson, The First Half of the Seventeenth Century (1906), C. H. Herford, The Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century (1886), L. Einstein, The Italian Renaissance in England (1902), S. Lee, The French Renaissance in England (1910), J. G. Underhill, Spanish Literature in the England of the Tudors (1899).

I append a chronological list of miscellaneous collections of plays, covering those of more than one author. A few of minimum importance are omitted.

(a) Shakespeare Apocrypha

1664. M^r William Shakespear’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. Published according to the true Original Copies. The Third Impression. And unto this Impression is added seven Playes, never before printed in Folio, viz. Pericles Prince of Tyre. The London Prodigall. The History of Thomas L^d Cromwell. Sir John Oldcastle Lord Cobham. The Puritan Widow. A Yorkshire Tragedy. The Tragedy of Locrine. For P[hilip] C[hetwinde]. [A second issue of the Third Folio (F_{3}) of Shakespeare. I cite these as ‘The 7 Plays’.]

1685. M^r William Shakespear’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies.... The Fourth Edition. _For H. Herringman, E. Brewster, and R. Bentley. [The Fourth Folio (F{4}) of Shakespeare, The 7 Plays.]

1709, 1714. N. Rowe, The Works of Sh. [The 7 Plays in vol. vi of 1709 and vol. viii of 1714.]

1728, &c. A. Pope, The Works of Sh. [The 7 Plays in vol. ix of 1728.]

1780. [E. Malone], Supplement to the Edition of Sh.’s Plays published in 1778 by S. Johnson and G. Steevens. [The 7 Plays in vol. ii.]

1848, 1855. W. G. Simms, A Supplement to the Works of Sh. (New York). [T. N. K. and the 7 Plays, except Pericles.]

N.D. [1851?]. H. Tyrrell, The Doubtful Plays of Sh. [The 7 Plays, T. A., Edward III, Merry Devil of Edmonton, _Fair Em_, Mucedorus, Arden of Feversham, Birth of Merlin, _T. N. K._]

1852, 1887. W. Hazlitt, The Supplementary Works of Sh. [The 7 Plays, T. A.]

1854–74. N. Delius, Pseudo-Shakespere’sche Dramen. [_Edward III_ (1854), Arden of Feversham (1855), Birth of Merlin (1856), Mucedorus (1874), Fair Em (1874), separately.]

1869. M. Moltke, Doubtful Plays of Sh. (Tauchnitz). [_Edward III_, Thomas Lord Cromwell, Locrine, Yorkshire Tragedy, London Prodigal, Birth of Merlin.]

1883–8. K. Warnke und L. Proescholdt, _Pseudo-Shakespearian Plays_. [Fair Em (1883), Merry Devil of Edmonton (1884), Edward III (1886), Birth of Merlin (1887), _Arden of Feversham_ (1888), separately, with Mucedorus (1878) outside the series.]

1891–1914. A. F. Hopkinson, Sh.’s Doubtful Plays (1891–5). Old English Plays (1901–2). Sh.’s Doubtful Works (1910–11). [Under the above collective titles were issued some, but not all, of a series of plays bearing separate dates as follows: Thomas Lord Cromwell (1891, 1899), Yorkshire Tragedy (1891, 1910), Edward III (1891, 1911), Merry Devil of Edmonton (1891, 1914), Warning for Fair Women (1891, 1904), Locrine (1892), Birth of Merlin (1892, 1901), London Prodigal (1893), Mucedorus (1893), Sir John Oldcastle (1894), Puritan (1894), T. N. K. (1894), Fair Em (1895), _Famous Victories of Henry V_ (1896), Contention of York and Lancaster (1897), Arden of Feversham (1898, 1907), _True Tragedy of Richard III_ (1901), Sir Thomas More (1902). My list may not be complete.]

1908. C. F. T. Brooke, The Sh. Apocrypha. [The 7 Plays except Pericles, Arden of Feversham, Edward III, Mucedorus, Merry Devil of Edmonton, Fair Em, T. N. K., _Birth of Merlin_, Sir Thomas More.]

(b) General Collections

1744. A Select Collection of Old Plays. 12 vols. (Dodsley). [Cited as Dodsley^1.]

1750. [W. R. Chetwood], A Select Collection of Old Plays (Dublin).

1773. T. Hawkins, The Origin of the English Drama. 3 vols.

1779. [J. Nichols], Six Old Plays. 2 vols.

1780. A Select Collection of Old Plays. The Second Edition ... by I. Reed. 12 vols. (Dodsley). [Cited as Dodsley^2.]

1810. [Sir W. Scott], The Ancient British Drama. 3 vols. (W. Miller). [Cited as A. B. D.]

1811. [Sir W. Scott], The Modern British Drama. 5 vols. (W. Miller). [Cited as M. B. D.]

1814–15. [C. W. Dilke], Old English Plays. 6 vols. [Cited as O. E. P.]

1825. The Old English Drama. 2 vols. (Hurst, Robinson, & Co., and A. Constable). [Most of the plays have the separate imprint of C. Baldwyn, 1824.]

1825–7. Select Collection of Old Plays. A new edition ... by I. Reed, O. Gilchrist and [J. P. Collier]. 12 vols. [Cited as Dodsley^3.]

1830. The Old English Drama. 3 vols. (Thomas White).

1833. J. P. Collier, Five Old Plays (W. Pickering). [Half-title has ‘Old Plays, vol. xiii’, as a supplement to Dodsley.]

1841–53. Publications of the Shakespeare Society. [Include, besides several plays of T. Heywood (q.v.), Dekker, Chettle, and Haughton’s Patient Grissell, Munday’s John a Kent and John a Cumber, Legge’s Richardus Tertius, Norton and Sackville’s Gorboduc, Merbury’s Marriage between Wit and Wisdom, and Sir Thomas More, True Tragedy of Richard III, 1 Contention, True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, Taming of A Shrew, Timon, by various editors. Some copies of these plays, not including Heywood’s, were bound up in 4 vols., with the general date 1853, as a Supplement to Dodsley.]

1848. F. J. Child, Four Old Plays.

1851. J. P. Collier, Five Old Plays (Roxburghe Club).

1870. J. S. Keltie, The Works of the British Dramatists.

[Many of the collections enumerated above are obsolete, and I have not usually thought it worth while to record here the plays included in them. Lists of the contents of most of them are given in Hazlitt; Manual, 267.]

1874–6. A Select Collection of Old English Plays: Fourth Edition, now first Chronologically Arranged, Revised and Enlarged; with the notes of all the Commentators, and New Notes, by W. C. Hazlitt. Vols. i-ix (1874), x-xiv (1875), xv (1876). [Cited as Dodsley, or Dodsley^4; incorporates with Collier’s edition of Dodsley the collections of 1833, 1848, 1851, and 1853.]

1875. W. C. Hazlitt, Shakespeare’s Library. Second Edition. Part i, 4 vols.; Part ii, 2 vols. [Part i is based on Collier’s Shakespeare’s Library (1844). Part ii, based on the collections of 1779 and 1841–53, adds the dramatic sources, Warner’s Menaechmi, _True Tragedie of Richard III_, Legge’s Richardus Tertius, _Troublesome Raigne of John_, Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth, _1 Contention of York and Lancaster_, True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor (Q_{1}), Whetstone’s Promos and Cassandra, King Leire, Timon, _Taming of A Shrew_.]

1878. R. Simpson, The School of Shakspere. 2 vols. [Captain Thomas Stukeley, Nobody and Somebody, Histriomastix, Jack Drum’s Entertainment, Warning for Fair Women, Fair Em, with A Larum for London (1872) separately printed.]

1882–5. A. H. Bullen, A Collection of Old English Plays. 4 vols. [Cited as Bullen, O. E. P. Maid’s Metamorphosis, Noble Soldier, Sir Giles Goosecap, _Wisdom of Doctor Dodipoll_, Charlemagne or The Distracted Emperor, _Trial of Chivalry_, Yarington’s Two Lamentable Tragedies, _Costly Whore_, Every Woman in her Humour, with later plays.]

[1885]-91. 43 Shakspere Quarto Facsimiles. Issued under the superintendence of F. J. Furnivall. [Photographic facsimiles by W. Griggs and C. Praetorius, with introductions by various editors, including, besides accepted Shakespearian plays, Pericles (Q_{1}, Q_{2}), 1 Contention (Q_{1}), True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York (Q_{1}), Whole Contention (Q_{3}), Famous Victories of Henry V (Q_{1}), Troublesome Raigne of John (Q_{1}), Taming of A Shrew (Q_{1}).]

1888. Nero and other Plays (Mermaid Series). [Nero (1624), Porter’s Two Angry Women of Abingdon, Day’s Parliament of Bees and Humour Out of Breath, Field’s Woman is a Weathercock and Amends for Ladies, by various editors.]

1896–1905. The Temple Dramatists. [Cited as T. D. Single plays by various editors, including, besides plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, Dekker, Heywood, Jonson, Kyd, Marlowe, Peele, Udall, Webster (q.v.), Arden of Feversham, Edward III, Merry Devil of Edmonton, Selimus, T. N. K., Return from Parnassus.]

1897. J. M. Manly, Specimens of the Pre-Shakspearean Drama. 2 vols. issued. [Udall’s Roister Doister, _Gammer Gurton’s Needle_, Preston’s Cambyses, Norton and Sackville’s Gorboduc, Lyly’s Campaspe, Greene’s James IV, Peele’s David and Bethsabe, Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy in vol. ii; earlier plays in vol. i.]

1897. H. A. Evans, English Masques (Warwick Library). [Ten masks by Jonson (q.v.), Daniel’s Twelve Goddesses, Campion’s Lords’ Mask, Beaumont’s Inner Temple Mask, Mask of Flowers, and later masks.]

1897–1912. Jahrbuch der deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, vols. xxxiii-xlviii. [Wilson’s Cobbler’s Prophecy (1897), _1 Richard II_ (1899), Wager’s _The Longer Thou Livest, the More Fool Thou Art_ (1900), The Wars of Cyrus (1901), Jonson’s E. M. I. (1902), Lupton’s All for Money (1904), Wapull’s The Tide Tarrieth No Man (1907), Lumley’s translation of Iphigenia (1910), Caesar and Pompey, or Caesar’s Revenge (1911, 1912), by various editors.]

1898. A. Brandl, Quellen des weltlichen Dramas in England vor Shakespeare. Ein Ergänzungsband zu Dodsley’s Old English Plays. (Quellen und Forschungen, lxxx.) [King Darius, Misogonus, Horestes, Wilmot’s Gismond of Salern, Common Conditions, and earlier plays.]

1902–8. The Belles Lettres Series. Section iii. The English Drama. General Editor, G. P. Baker. [Cited as B. L. Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, Chapman, Dekker, Gascoigne, Jonson, Webster (q.v.), in separate volumes by various editors.]

1902–14. Materialien zur Kunde des älteren englischen Dramas ... begründet und herausgegeben von W. Bang. 44 vols. issued. (A. Uystpruyst, Louvain.) [Includes, with other ‘material’, text facsimile reprints of plays, &c., of Barnes, Brewer, Daniel, Chettle and Day, Dekker, Heywood, Jonson, Mason, Sharpham (q.v.), with How a Man may Choose a Good Wife from a Bad, Sir Giles Goosecap, the Latin Victoria of A. Fraunce and Pedantius, and translations from Seneca.]

1903, 1913, 1914. C. M. Gayley, _Representative English Comedies_. 3 vols. [Plays of Udall, Lyly, Peele, Greene, Porter, Jonson, and Dekker, with Gammer Gurton’s Needle, _Eastward Ho!_, Merry Devil of Edmonton, and later plays, by various editors.]

1905–8. J. S. Farmer, Publications of the Early English Drama Society. [Modernized texts, mainly of little value, but including a volume of Recently Recovered Plays, from the quartos in the Irish sale of 1906.]

1907–20. Malone Society Reprints. 46 vols. issued. [In progress; text-facsimile reprints of separate plays, by various editors, under general editorship of W. W. Greg; cited as M. S. R.]

1907–14. J. S. Farmer, The Tudor Facsimile Texts, with a Hand List (1914). [Photographic facsimiles, mostly by R. B. Fleming; cited as T. F. T. The Hand List states that 184 vols. are included in the collection, but I believe that some were not actually issued before the editor’s death. Some or all of these, with reissues of others, appear in Old English Plays, Student’s Facsimile Edition; cited as S. F. T.]

1908–14. The Shakespeare Classics. General Editor, I. Gollancz. (The Shakespeare Library). [Includes Warner’s Menaechmi and Leire, Taming of A Shrew, and _Troublesome Reign of King John_.]

1911. W. A. Neilson, The Chief Elizabethan Dramatists excluding Shakespeare. [Plays by Lyly, Peele, Greene, Marlowe, Kyd, Chapman, Jonson, Dekker, Marston, Heywood, Beaumont, Fletcher, Webster, Middleton, and later writers; cited as C. E. D.]

1911. R. W. Bond, Early Plays from the Italian. [Gascoigne’s Supposes, Bugbears, Misogonus.]

1912. J. W. Cunliffe, Early English Classical Tragedies. [Norton and Sackville’s Gorboduc, Gascoigne and Kinwelmersh’s Jocasta, Wilmot’s Gismond of Salerne, Hughes’s Misfortunes of Arthur.]

1912. Masterpieces of the English Drama. General Editor, F. E. Schelling, [Cited as M. E. D. Plays of Marlowe, Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster and Tourneur (q.v.), with Massinger and Congreve, in separate volumes by various editors.]

1915. C. B. Wheeler, _Six Plays by Contemporaries of Shakespeare_ (World’s Classics). [Dekker’s _Shoemaker’s Holiday_, Beaumont and Fletcher’s K. B. P. and Philaster, Webster’s White Devil and Duchess of Malfi, Massinger’s _New Way to Pay Old Debts_.]

* * * * *

[In this chapter I give under the head of each playwright (a) a brief sketch of his life in relation to the stage, (b) a list of contemporary and later collections of his dramatic works, (c) a list of dissertations (books, pamphlets, articles in journals) bearing generally upon his life and works. Then I take each play, mask, &c., up to 1616 and give (a) the MSS. if any; (b) the essential parts of the entry, if any, on the Stationers’ Register, including in brackets the name of any licenser other than an official of the Company, and occasionally adding a note of any transfer of copyright which seems of exceptional interest; (c) the essential parts of the title-page of the first known print; (d) a note of its prologues, epilogues, epistles, and other introductory matter; (e) the dates and imprints of later prints before the end of the seventeenth century with any new matter from their t.ps. bearing on stage history; (f) lists of all important 18th-20th century editions and dissertations, not of the collective or general type already dealt with; (g) such notes as may seem desirable on authorship, date, stage history and the like. Some of these notes are little more than compilations; others contain the results of such work as I have myself been able to do on the plays concerned. Similarly, I have in some cases recorded, on the authority of others, editions and dissertations which I have not personally examined. The section devoted to each playwright concludes with lists of work not extant and of work of which his authorship has, often foolishly, been conjectured. I ought to make it clear that many of my title-pages are borrowed from Dr. Greg, and that, while I have tried to give what is useful for the history of the stage, I have no competence in matters of minute bibliographical accuracy.]

WILLIAM ALABASTER (1567–1640)

Alabaster, or Alablaster, was born at Hadleigh, Suffolk, in 1567 and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, from Westminster in 1583. His Latin poem Eliseis is mentioned by Spenser in Colin Clout’s Come Home Again (1591). He was incorporated M.A. of Oxford in 1592, and went as chaplain to Essex in the Cadiz expedition of 1596. On 22 Sept. 1597 Richard Percival wrote to Sir Robert Cecil (Hatfield MSS. vii. 394), ‘Alabaster has made a tragedy against the Church of England’. Perhaps this is not to be taken literally, but only refers to his conversion to Catholicism. Chamberlain, 7, 64, records that he was ‘clapt up for poperie’, had escaped from the Clink by 4 May 1598, but was recaptured at Rochelle. This was about the beginning of Aug. 1599 (Hatfield MSS. ix. 282). Later he was reconverted and at his death in 1640 held the living of Therfield, Herts. He wrote on mystical theology, and a manuscript collection of 43 sonnets, mostly unprinted, is described by B. Dobell in Athenaeum (1903), ii. 856.

Roxana. c. 1592

[MSS.] T. C. C. MS. (‘Authore Domino Alabaster’); Camb. Univ. MS. Ff. ii. 9; Lambeth MS. 838 (‘finis Roxanae Alabastricae’).

S. R. 1632, May 9 (Herbert). ‘A Tragedy in Latyn called Roxana &c.’ Andrew Crooke (Arber, iv. 277).

1632. Roxana Tragædia olim Cantabrigiae, Acta in Col. Trin. Nunc primum in lucem edita, summaque cum diligentia ad castigatissimum exemplar comparata. R. Badger for Andrew Crook. [At end is Herbert’s imprimatur, dated ‘1 March, 1632’.]

1632. Roxana Tragædia a plagiarii unguibus vindicata, aucta, & agnita ab Authore Gulielmo Alabastro. William Jones. [Epistle by Gulielmus Alabaster to Sir Ralph Freeman; commendatory verses by Hugo Hollandius and Tho. Farnabius; engraved title-page, with representation of a stage (cf. ch. xviii, Bibl. Note).]

The Epistle has ‘Ante quadraginta plus minus annos, morticinum hoc edidi duarum hebdomadarum abortum, et unius noctis spectaculo destinatum, non aevi integri’. The play is a Latin version of Luigi Groto’s La Dalida (1567).

SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER, EARL OF STIRLING (c. 1568–1640).

William Alexander of Menstrie, after an education at Glasgow and Leyden and travel in France, Spain, and Italy, was tutor to Prince Henry before the accession of James, and afterwards Gentleman extraordinary of the Privy Chamber both to Henry and to Charles. He was knighted about 1609, appointed a Master of Requests in 1614 and Secretary for Scotland in 1626. He was created Earl of Stirling in 1633. He formed literary friendships with Michael Drayton and William Drummond of Hawthornden, but Jonson complained (Laing, 11) that ‘Sir W. Alexander was not half kinde unto him, and neglected him, because a friend to Drayton’. His four tragedies read like closet plays, and his only connexion with the stage appears to be in some verses to Alleyn after the foundation of Dulwich in 1619 (Collier, Memoirs of Alleyn, 178).

Collections

S. R. 1604, April 30 (by order of Court). ‘A booke Called The Woorkes of William Alexander of Menstrie Conteyninge The Monarchicke Tragedies, Paranethis to the Prince and Aurora.’ Edward Blunt (Arber, iii. 260).

1604. The Monarchicke Tragedies. By William Alexander of Menstrie. V. S. for Edward Blount. [Croesus and Darius (with a separate t.p.).]

1607. The Monarchick Tragedies; Croesus, Darius, The Alexandraean, Iulius Caesar, Newly enlarged. By William Alexander, Gentleman of the Princes priuie Chamber. Valentine Simmes for Ed. Blount. [New issue, with additions. Julius Caesar has separate t.p. Commendatory verses, signed ‘Robert Ayton’.]

1616. The Monarchicke Tragedies. The third Edition. By S^r. W. Alexander Knight. William Stansby. [Croesus, Darius, The Alexandraean Tragedy, Julius Caesar, in revised texts, the last three with separate t.ps.]

1637. Recreations with the Muses. By William Earle of Sterline. Tho. Harper. [Croesus, Darius, The Alexandraean Tragedy, Julius Caesar.]

1870–2. Poetical Works. 3 vols.

1921. L. E. Kastner and H. B. Charlton, The Poetical Works of Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling. Vol. i. The Dramatic Works.--Dissertations: C. Rogers, Memorials of the Earl of S. and the House of A. (1877); H. Beumelburg, Sir W. A. Graf von S., als dramatischer Dichter (1880, Halle diss.).

Darius > 1603

1603. The Tragedie of Darius. By William Alexander of Menstrie. Robert Waldegrave. Edinburgh. [Verses to James VI; Epistle to Reader; Commendatory verses by ‘Io Murray’ and ‘W. Quin’.]

1604. G. Elde for Edward Blount. [Part of Coll. 1604, with separate t.p.; also in later Colls. Two sets of verses to King at end.]

Croesus > 1604

1604. [Part of Coll. 1604; also in later Colls. Argument; Verses to King at end.]

The Alexandraean Tragedy > 1607

1605? [Hazlitt, Manual, 7, and others cite a print of this date, which is not confirmed by Greg, Plays, 1.]

1607. (Running Title). The Alexandraean Tragedie. [Part of Coll. 1607; also in later Colls. Argument.]

Julius Caesar > 1607

1607. The Tragedie of Iulius Caesar. By William Alexander, Gentleman of the Princes priuie Chamber. Valentine Simmes for Ed. Blount. [Part of Coll. 1607, with separate t.p.; also in later Colls. Argument.]

Edition in H. H. Furness, Julius Caesar (1913, New Variorum Shakespeare, xvii).

WILLIAM ALLEY (c. 1510–70).

Alley’s Πτωχὸμυσεῖον. The Poore Mans Librarie (1565) contains three and a half pages of dialogue between Larymos and Phronimos, described as from ‘a certaine interlude or plaie intituled Aegio. In the which playe ij persons interlocutorie do dispute, the one alledging for the defence of destenie and fatall necessitie, and the other confuting the same’. P. Simpson (9 N. Q. iii. 205) suggests that Alley was probably himself the author. The book consists of praelectiones delivered in 1561 at St. Paul’s, of which Alley had been a Prebendary. He became Bishop of Exeter in 1560. On his attitude to the public stage, cf. App. C. No. viii. It is therefore odd to find the Lord Bishop’s players at Barnstaple and Plymouth in 1560–1 (Murray, ii. 78).

ROBERT AMERIE (c. 1610).

The deviser of the show of Chester’s Triumph (1610). See ch. xxiv (C).

ROBERT ARMIN (> 1588–1610 <). For biography see Actors (ch. xv).

The Two Maids of Moreclacke. 1607–8 (?)

1609. The History of the two Maids of Moreclacke, With the life and simple maner of Iohn in the Hospitall. Played by the Children of the Kings Maiesties Reuels. Written by Robert Armin, seruant to the Kings most excellent Maiestie. N. O. for Thomas Archer. [Epistle to Reader, signed ‘Robert Armin’.]

Editions in A. B. Grosart, Works of R. A. Actor (1880, Choice Rarities of Ancient English Poetry, ii), 63, and J. S. Farmer (1913, S. F. T.). The epistle says that the play was ‘acted by the boyes of the Reuels, which perchaunce in part was sometime acted more naturally in the Citty, if not in the hole’, that the writer ‘would haue againe inacted Iohn my selfe but ... I cannot do as I would’, and that he had been ‘requested both of Court and Citty, to show him in priuate’. John is figured in a woodcut on the title-page, which is perhaps meant for a portrait of Armin. As a King’s man, and no boy, he can hardly have played with the King’s Revels; perhaps we should infer that the play was not originally written for them. All their productions seem to date from 1607–8.

Doubtful Play

Armin has been guessed at as the R. A. of The Valiant Welshman.

THOMAS ASHTON (ob. 1578).

Ashton took his B.A. in 1559–60, and became Fellow of Trinity, Cambridge. He was appointed Head Master of Shrewsbury School from 24 June 1561 (G. W. Fisher, Annals of Shrewsbury School, 4). To the same year a local record, Robert Owen’s Arms of the Bailiffs (17th c.), assigns ‘M^r Astons first playe upon the Passion of Christ’, and this is confirmed by an entry in the town accounts (Owen and Blakeway, Hist. of Shrewsbury, i. 353) of 20s. ‘spent upon M^r Aston and a other gentellmane of Cambridge over pareadijs’ on 25 May 1561. Whitsuntide plays had long been traditional at Shrewsbury (Mediaeval Stage, ii. 250, 394, where the dates require correction). A local chronicle (Shropshire Arch. Soc. Trans. xxxvii. 54) has ‘Elizabeth 1565 [i. e. 1566; cf. App. A], The Queen came to Coventry intending for Salop to see M^r Astons Play, but it was ended. The Play was performed in the Quarry, and lasted the Whitson [June 2] hollydays’. This play is given in Mediaeval Stage, from local historians, as Julian the Apostate, but the same chronicle assigns that to 1556. Another chronicle (Taylor MS. of 16th-17th c.) records for 1568–9 (Shropshire Arch. Soc. Trans. iii. 268), ‘This yeare at Whytsoontyde [29 May] was a notable stage playe playeed in Shrosberie in a place there callyd the quarrell which lastid all the hollydayes unto the which cam greate number of people of noblemen and others the which was praysed greatlye and the chyff aucter therof was one Master Astoon beinge the head scoolemaster of the freescole there a godly and lernyd man who tooke marvelous greate paynes therin’. Robert Owen, who calls this Aston’s ‘great playe’ of the Passion of Christ, assigns it to 1568, but it is clear from the town accounts that 1569 is right (Fisher, 18). This is presumably the play referred to by Thomas Churchyard (q.v.) in The Worthiness of Wales (1587, ed. Spenser Soc. 85), where after describing ‘behind the walles ... a ground, newe made Theator wise’, able to seat 10,000, and used for plays, baiting, cockfights, and wrestling, he adds:

At Astons Play, who had beheld this then, Might well have seene there twentie thousand men.

In the margin he comments, ‘Maister Aston was a good and godly Preacher’. A ‘ludus in quarell’ is noted in 1495, and this was ‘where the plases [? playes] have bine accustomyd to be usyd’ in 1570 (Mediaeval Stage, ii. 251, 255). Ashton resigned his Mastership about 1571 and was in the service of the Earl of Essex at Chartley in 1573. But he continued to work on the Statutes of the school, which as settled in 1578, the year of his death, provide that ‘Everie Thursdaie the Schollers of the first forme before they goo to plaie shall for exercise declame and plaie one acte of a comedie’ (Fisher, 17, 23; E. Calvert, Shrewsbury School Register). It is interesting to note that among Ashton’s pupils were Sir Philip Sidney and Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, who entered the school together on 16 Nov. 1564.

JAMES ASKE (c. 1588).

Author of Elizabetha Triumphans (1588), an account of Elizabeth’s visit to Tilbury. See ch. xxiv (C).

THOMAS ATCHELOW (c. 1589).

The reference to him in Nashe’s Menaphon epistle (App. C, No. xlii) rather suggests that he may have written plays.

FRANCIS BACON (1561–1626).

Bacon was son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, by Anne, daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke. He was at Trinity, Cambridge, from April 1573 to March 1575, and entered Gray’s Inn in June 1576. He sat in the Parliaments of 1584 and 1586, and about 1591 attached himself to the rising fortunes of the Earl of Essex, who in 1595 gave him an estate at Twickenham. His public employment began as a Queen’s Counsel about 1596. He was knighted on 23 July 1603, became Solicitor-General on 25 June 1607, Attorney-General on 27 Oct. 1613, Lord Keeper on 7 March 1617, and Lord Chancellor on 7 Jan. 1618. He was created Lord Verulam on 12 July 1618, and Viscount St. Albans on 27 Jan. 1621. Later in the same year he was disgraced for bribery. The edition of his Works (with his Letters and Life) by J. Spedding, R. L. Ellis, and D. D. Heath (1857–74) is exhaustive. Many papers of his brother Anthony are at Lambeth, and are drawn on by T. Birch, Memoirs of the Reign of Elizabeth (1754). F. J. Burgoyne, Facsimile of a Manuscript at Alnwick (1904), reproduces the Northumberland MS. which contains some of his writings, with others that may be his, and seems once to have contained more. Apart from philosophy, his chief literary work was The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall, of which 10 appeared in 1597, and were increased to 38 in 1612 and 58 in 1625. Essay xxxvii, added in 1625, is Of Masks and Triumphs, and, although Bacon was not a writer for the public stage, he had a hand, as deviser or patron, in several courtly shows.

(i) He helped to devise dumb-shows for Thomas Hughes’s Misfortunes of Arthur (q.v.) given by Gray’s Inn at Greenwich on 28 Feb. 1588.

(ii) The list of contents of the Northumberland MS. (Burgoyne, xii) includes an item, now missing from the MS., ‘Orations at Graies Inne Revells’, and Spedding, viii. 342, conjectures that Bacon wrote the speeches of the six councillors delivered on 3 Jan. 1595 as part of the Gesta Grayorum (q.v.).

(iii) Rowland Whyte (Sydney Papers, i. 362) describes a device on the Queen’s day (17 Nov.), 1595, in which the speeches turned on the Earl of Essex’s love for Elizabeth, who said that, ‘if she had thought there had been so much said of her, she would not have been there that night’. A draft list of tilters, of whom the challengers were led by the Earl of Cumberland and the defendants by the Earl of Essex, is in Various MSS. iv. 163, and a final one, with descriptions of their appearance, in the Anglorum Feriae of Peele (q.v.). They were Cumberland, Knight of the Crown, Essex, Sussex, Southampton, as Sir Bevis, Bedford, Compton, Carew, the three brothers Knollys, Dudley, William Howard, Drury, Nowell, John Needham, Skydmore, Ratcliffe, Reynolds, Charles Blount, Carey. The device took place partly in the tiltyard, partly after supper. Before the entry of the tilters a page made a speech and secured the Queen’s glove. A dialogue followed between a Squire on one hand, and a Hermit, a Secretary, and a Soldier, who on the entry of Essex tried to beguile him from love. A postboy brought letters, which the Secretary gave to Essex. After supper, the argument between the Squire and the three tempters was resumed. Whyte adds, ‘The old man [the Hermit] was he that in Cambridg played Giraldy; Morley played the Secretary; and he that plaid Pedantiq was the soldior; and Toby Matthew acted the Squires part. The world makes many untrue constructions of these speaches, comparing the Hermitt and the Secretary to two of the Lords [Burghley and Robert Cecil?]; and the soldier to Sir Roger Williams.’ The Cambridge reference is apparently to Laelia (q.v.) and the performers of the Hermit and Soldier were therefore George Meriton and George Mountaine, of Queen’s. Morley might perhaps be Thomas Morley, the musician, a Gentleman of the Chapel.

Several speeches, apparently belonging to this device, are preserved. Peele speaks of the balancing of Essex between war and statecraft as indicated in the tiltyard by ‘His mute approach and action of his mutes’, but they may have presented a written speech.

(a) Lambeth MS. v. 118 (copied by Birch in Sloane MS. 4457, f. 32) has, in Bacon’s hand, a speech by the Squire in the tiltyard, and four speeches by the Hermit, Soldier, Secretary, and Squire ‘in the Presence’. These are printed by Birch (1763), Nichols, Eliz. iii. 372, and Spedding, viii. 378.

(b) Lambeth MS. viii. 274 (copied by Birch in Addl. MS. 4164, f. 167) has, in Bacon’s hand, the beginning of a speech by the Secretary to the Squire, which mentions Philautia and Erophilus, and a letter from Philautia to the Queen. These are printed in Spedding, viii. 376.

(c) The Northumberland MS. ff. 47–53 (Burgoyne, 55) has ‘Speeches for my Lord of Essex at the tylt’. These deal with the attempts of Philautia to beguile Erophilus. Four of them are identical with the four speeches ‘in the Presence’ of (a); the fifth is a speech by the Hermit in the tiltyard. They were printed by Spedding, separately, in 1870, as A Conference of Pleasure composed for some festive occasion about the year 1592 by Francis Bacon; but 1592 is merely a guess which Whyte’s letter corrects.

(d) S. P. D. Eliz. ccliv. 67, 68, docketed ‘A Device made by the Earl of Essex for the Entertainment of her Majesty’, has a speech by the Squire, distinct from any in the other MSS., a speech by the Attendant on an Indian Prince, which mentions Philautia, and a draft by Edward Reynolds, servant to Essex, of a French speech by Philautia. The two first of these are printed by Spedding, viii. 388, and Devereux, Lives of the Earls of Essex, ii. 501. The references to Philautia are rather against Spedding’s view that these belong to some occasion other than that of 1595.

Sir Henry Wotton says of Essex (Reliquiae Wottonianae, 21), ‘For his Writings, they are beyond example, especially in his ... things of delight at Court ... as may be yet seen in his Impresses and Inventions of entertainment; and above all in his darling piece of love, and self love’. This, for what it is worth--and Wotton was secretary to Essex in 1595, suggests that the Earl himself, rather than Bacon, was the author of the speeches, which in fact none of the MSS. directly ascribe to Bacon. But it is hard to distinguish the literary productions of a public man from those of his staff.

(iv) The Northumberland MS. (Burgoyne, 65) has a speech of apology for absence, headed ‘ffor the Earle of Sussex at y^e tilt an: 96’, which might be Bacon’s, especially as he wrote from Gray’s Inn to the Earl of Shrewsbury on 15 Oct. 1596, ‘to borrow a horse and armour for some public show’ (Lodge, App. 79).

(v) Beaumont (q.v.) acknowledges his encouragement of the Inner Temple and Gray’s Inn mask on 20 Feb. 1613, for the Princess Elizabeth’s wedding.

(vi) He bore the expenses of the Gray’s Inn Mask of Flowers (q.v.) on 6 Jan. 1614 for the Earl of Somerset’s wedding. To this occasion probably belongs an undated letter signed ‘Fr. Bacon’, and addressed to an unknown lord (M. S. C. i. 214 from Lansdowne MS. 107, f. 13; Spedding, ii. 370; iv. 394), in which he expresses regret that ‘the joynt maske from the fowr Innes of Cowrt faileth’, and offers a mask for ‘this occasion’ by a dozen gentlemen of Gray’s Inn, ‘owt of the honor which they bear to your lordship, and my lord Chamberlayne, to whome at theyr last maske they were so much bownde’. The last mask would be (v) above, and the then Lord Chamberlain was Suffolk, prospective father-in-law of Somerset, to whom the letter may be supposed to be addressed. But it is odd that the letter is endorsed ‘M^r’ Fr. Bacon, and bound up with papers of Burghley, and it is just possible, although not, I think, likely, that the reference may be to some forgotten Elizabethan mask.

(vii) A recent attempt has been made to assign to Bacon the academic Pedantius (cf. App. K).

JOHN BADGER (c. 1575).

A contributor to the Kenilworth entertainment (cf. ch. xxiv, C). Gascoigne calls him ‘Master Badger of Oxenforde, Maister of Arte, and Bedle in the same Universitie’. A John Badger of Ch. Ch. took his M.A. in 1555, and a superior bedel of divinity of the same name made his will on 15 July 1577 (Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, i. 54).

WILLIAM BARKSTED.

For biography, cf. ch. xv (Actors), and for his share in The Insatiate Countess, s.v. Marston.

There is no reason to regard him as the ‘William Buckstead, Comedian’, whose name is at the end of a Prologue to a playe to the cuntry people in Bodl. Ashm. MS. 38 (198).

BARNABE BARNES (c. 1569–1609).

Barnes was born in Yorkshire, the son of Richard Barnes, bishop of Durham. He entered Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1586, but took no degree, accompanied Essex to France in 1591, and dedicated his poems Parthenophil and Parthenophe (1593) to William Percy (q.v.). He was a friend of Gabriel Harvey and abused by Nashe and Campion. In 1598 he was charged with an attempt at poison, but escaped from prison (Athenaeum, 1904, ii. 240). His Poems were edited by A. B. Grosart in Occasional Issues (1875). Hazlitt, Manual, 23, states that a manuscript of a play by him with the title The Battle of Hexham was sold with Isaac Reed’s books in 1807, but this, which some writers call The Battle of Evesham, has not been traced. As Barnes was buried at Durham in Dec. 1609, it is probable that The Madcap ‘written by Barnes’, which Herbert licensed for Prince Charles’s men on 3 May 1624, was by another of the name.

The Devil’s Charter. 2 Feb. 1607

S. R. 1607, Oct. 16 (Buck). ‘The Tragedie of Pope Alexander the Sixt as it was played before his Maiestie.’ John Wright (Arber, iii. 361).

1607. The Divils Charter: A Tragedie Conteining the Life and Death of Pope Alexander the sixt. As it was plaide before the Kings Maiestie, vpon Candlemasse night last: by his Maiesties Seruants. But more exactly reuewed, corrected and augmented since by the Author, for the more pleasure and profit of the Reader. G. E. for John Wright. [Dedication by Barnabe Barnes to Sir William Herbert and Sir William Pope; Prologue with dumb-show and Epilogue.]

Extracts by A. B. Grosart in Barnes’s Poems (1875), and editions by R. B. McKerrow (1904, Materialien, vi) and J. S. Farmer (1913, S. F. T.)--Dissertation: A. E. H. Swaen, G. C. Moore Smith, and R. B. McKerrow, Notes on the D. C. by B. B. (1906, M. L. R. i. 122).

DAVID, LORD BARRY (1585–1610).

David Barry was the eldest son of the ninth Viscount Buttevant, and the ‘Lo:’ on his title-page represents a courtesy title of ‘Lord’, or ‘Lording’ as it is given in the lawsuit of Androwes v. Slater, which arose out of the interest acquired by him in 1608 in the Whitefriars theatre (q.v.). Kirkman’s play-lists (Greg, Masques, ci) and Wood, Athenae Oxon. ii. 655, have him as ‘Lord’ Barrey, which did not prevent Langbaine (1691) and others from turning him into ‘Lodowick’.--Dissertations: J. Q. Adams, Lordinge (alias Lodowick) Barry (1912, M. P. ix. 567); W. J. Lawrence, The Mystery of Lodowick Barry (1917, University of North Carolina Studies in Philology, xiv. 52).

Ram Alley. 1607–8

S. R. 1610, Nov. 9 (Buck). ‘A booke called, Ramme Alley, or merry trickes. Robert Wilson (Arber, iii. 448).

1611. Ram-Alley: Or Merrie-Trickes. A Comedy Diuers times heretofore acted. By the Children of the Kings Reuels. Written by Lo: Barrey. G. Eld for Robert Wilson. [Prologue and Epilogue.]

1636; 1639.

Editions in Dodsley^4 (1875, x) and by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. ii) and J. S. Farmer (1913, S. F. T.).

Fleay, i. 31, attempts to place the play at the Christmas of 1609, but it is improbable that the King’s Revels ever played outside 1607–8. Archer’s play-list of 1656 gives it to Massinger. There are references (ed. Dodsley, pp. 280, 348, 369) to the baboons, which apparently amused London about 1603–5 (cf. s.v. Sir Giles Goosecap), and to the Jacobean knightings (p. 272).

FRANCIS BEAUMONT (c. 1584–1616).

Beaumont was third son of Francis Beaumont, Justice of Common Pleas, sprung from a gentle Leicestershire family, settled at Grace Dieu priory in Charnwood Forest. He was born in 1584 or 1585 and had a brother, Sir John, also known as a poet. He entered Broadgates Hall, Oxford, in 1597, but took no degree, and the Inner Temple in 1600. In 1614 or 1615 he had a daughter by his marriage, probably recent, to Ursula Isley of Sundridge Hall, Kent, and another daughter was born after his death on 6 March 1616. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Beaumont contributed a humorous grammar lecture (preserved in Sloane MS. 1709, f. 13; cf. E. J. L. Scott in Athenaeum for 27 Jan. 1894) to some Inner Temple Christmas revels of uncertain date. This has allusions to ‘the most plodderly plotted shew of Lady Amity’ given ‘in this ill-instructed hall the last Christmas’, and to seeing a play at the Bankside for sixpence. His poetical career probably begins with the anonymous Salmacis and Hermaphroditus of 1602. His non-dramatic poems, of which the most important is an epistle to Elizabeth Countess of Rutland in 1612, appeared after his death in volumes of 1618, 1640, and 1653, which certainly ascribe to him much that is not his. His connexion with the stage seems to have begun about 1606, possibly through Michael Drayton, a family friend, in whose Eglogs of that year he appears as ‘sweet Palmeo’. But his first play, The Woman Hater, written independently for Paul’s, shows him under the influence of Ben Jonson, who wrote him an affectionate epigram (lv), told Drummond in 1619 that ‘Francis Beaumont loved too much himself and his own verses’ (Laing, 10), and according to Dryden (Essay on Dramatick Poesie) ‘submitted all his writings to his censure, and, ’tis thought, used his judgment in correcting, if not contriving, all his plots’. To Jonson’s Volpone (1607) commendatory verses were contributed both by Beaumont, whose own Knight of the Burning Pestle was produced in the same year, and by John Fletcher, whose names are thus first combined. Jonson and Beaumont, in their turn, wrote verses for Fletcher’s The Faithful Shepherdess, probably written in 1608 or 1609 and published in 1609 or 1610. About 1608 or 1609 it may also be supposed that the famous literary collaboration began. This, although it can only be proved to have covered some half-dozen plays, left the two names so closely associated that when, in 1647 and 1679, the actors and publishers issued collections of fifty-three pieces, in all or most of which Fletcher had had, or was supposed to have had, a hand, they described them all as ‘by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher’, and thus left to modern scholarship a task with which it is still grappling. A contemporary protest by Sir Aston Cockaine pointed out the small share of Beaumont and the large share of Massinger in the 1647 volume; and the process of metrical analysis initiated by Fleay and Boyle may be regarded as fairly successful in fixing the characteristics of the very marked style of Fletcher, although it certainly raises more questions than it solves as to the possible shares not only of Massinger, but of Jonson, Field, Tourneur, Daborne, Middleton, Rowley, and Shirley, as collaborators or revisers, in the plays as they have come down to us. Since Fletcher wrote up to his death in 1625, much of this investigation lies outside my limits, and it is fortunate that the task of selecting the plays which may, certainly or possibly, fall before Beaumont’s death in 1616 is one in which a fair number of definite data are available to eke out the slippery metrical evidence. It would seem that the collaboration began about 1608 and lasted in full swing for about four or five years, that in it Beaumont was the ruling spirit, and that it covered plays, not only for the Queen’s Revels, for whom both poets had already written independently, and for their successors the Lady Elizabeth’s, but also, and concurrently, for the King’s. According to Dryden, two or three plays were written ‘very unsuccessfully’ before the triumph of Philaster, but these may include the independent plays, of which we know that the Knight of the Burning Pestle and the Faithful Shepherdess failed. The Folios contain a copy of verses written by Beaumont to Jonson (ed. Waller, x. 199) ‘before he and M^r. Fletcher came to London, with two of the precedent Comedies then not finish’d, which deferr’d their merry meetings at the Mermaid’, but this probably relates to a temporary villeggiatura and cannot be precisely dated. It is no doubt to this period of 1608–13 that we may refer the gossip of Aubrey, i. 96, who learnt from Sir James Hales and others that Beaumont and Fletcher ‘lived together on the Banke-Side, not far from the Play-house, both batchelors; lay together; had one wench in the house between them, which they did so admire; the same cloathes and cloake, &c., betweene them’. Obviously these conditions ended when Beaumont married an heiress about 1613, and it seems probable that from this date onwards he ceased to be an active playwright, although he contributed a mask to the Princess Elizabeth’s wedding at Shrovetide of that year, and his hand can be traced, perhaps later still, in The Scornful Lady. At any rate, about 1613 Fletcher was not merely writing independent plays--a practice which, unlike Beaumont, he may never have wholly dropped--but also looking about for other contributors. There is some converging evidence of his collaboration about this date with Shakespeare; and Henslowe’s correspondence (Henslowe Papers, 66) shows him quite clearly as engaged on a play, possibly The Honest Man’s Fortune, with no less than three others, Daborne, Field, and Massinger. It is not probable that, from 1616 onwards, Fletcher wrote for any company but the King’s men. Of the fifty-two plays included in the Ff., forty-four can be shown from title-pages, actor-lists, licences by the Master of the Revels, and a Lord Chamberlain’s order of 1641 (M. S. C. i. 364) to have belonged to the King’s, six by title-pages and another Lord Chamberlain’s order (Variorum, iii. 159) to have belonged to the Cockpit theatre, and two, Wit at Several Weapons and Four Plays in One, together with The Faithful Friends, which does not appear in the Ff., cannot be assigned to any company. But some of the King’s men’s plays and some or all of the Cockpit plays had originally belonged to Paul’s, the Queen’s Revels, or the Lady Elizabeth’s, and it is probable that all these formed part of the Lady Elizabeth’s repertory in 1616, and that upon the reorganization of the company which then took place they were divided into two groups, of which one passed with Field to the King’s, while the other remained with his late fellows and was ultimately left with Christopher Beeston when their occupation of the Cockpit ended in 1625.

I classify the plays dealt with in these notes as follows: (a) Plays wholly or substantially by Beaumont--The Woman Hater, The Knight of the Burning Pestle; (b) Plays of the Beaumont-Fletcher collaboration--Philaster, A Maid’s Tragedy, A King and No King, Four Plays in One, Cupid’s Revenge, The Coxcomb, The Scornful Lady; (c) Plays wholly or substantially by Fletcher--The Woman’s Prize, The Faithful Shepherdess, Monsieur Thomas, Valentinian, Bonduca, Wit Without Money; (d) Plays of doubtful authorship and, in some cases, period--The Captain, The Honest Man’s Fortune, The Two Noble Kinsmen, The Faithful Friends, Thierry and Theodoret, Wit at Several Weapons, Love’s Cure, The Night Walker. Full treatment of The Two Noble Kinsmen, as of Henry VIII, in which Fletcher certainly had a hand, is only possible in relation to Shakespeare. I have not thought it necessary to include every play which, or a hypothetical version of which, an unsupported conjecture, generally from Mr. Oliphant, puts earlier than 1616. The Queen of Corinth, The Noble Gentleman, The Little French Lawyer, The Laws of Candy, The Knight of Malta, The Fair Maid of the Inn, The Chances, Beggar’s Bush, The Bloody Brother, Love’s Pilgrimage, Nice Valour, and Rule a Wife and Have a Wife are omitted on this principle, and I believe I might safely have extended the same treatment to some of those in my class (d).

Collections

S. R. 1646, Sept. 4 (Langley). ‘These severall Tragedies & Comedies hereunder mencioned (viz^t.) ... [thirty plays named] ... by M^r. Beamont and M^r. Flesher.’ H. Robinson and H. Moseley (Eyre, i. 244).

1660, June 29. ‘The severall Plays following, vizt.... [names] ... all six copies written by Fra: Beamont & John Fletcher.’ H. Robinson and H. Moseley (Eyre, ii. 268).

F_{1}, 1647. Comedies and Tragedies Written by Francis Beaumont and Iohn Fletcher Gentlemen. Never printed before, And now published by the Authours Originall Copies. For H. Robinson and H. Moseley. [Twenty-nine plays of the 1646 entry, excluding The Wildgoose Chase, and the five plays and one mask of the 1660 entry, none but the mask previously printed; Portrait of Fletcher by W. Marshall; Epistle to Philip Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, signed ‘John Lowin, Richard Robinson, Eylaerd Swanston, Hugh Clearke, Stephen Hammerton, Joseph Taylor, Robert Benfield, Thomas Pollard, William Allen, Theophilus Bird’; Epistle to the Reader, signed ‘Ja. Shirley’; The Stationer to the Readers, signed ‘Humphrey Moseley’ and dated ‘Feb. 14^{th} 1646’; Thirty-seven sets of Commendatory verses, variously signed; Postscript; cf. W. W. Greg in 4 Library, ii. 109.]

F_{2}, 1679. Fifty Comedies and Tragedies. Written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, Gentlemen. All in one Volume. Published by the Authors Original Copies, the Songs to each Play being added. J. Macock, for John Martyn, Henry Herringman, Richard Marriot. [The thirty-four plays and one mask of F_{1}, with eighteen other plays, all previously printed; Epistle by the Stationers to the Reader; Actor Lists prefixed to many of the plays.]

1711. The Works of B. and F. 7 vols. Jacob Tonson.

Editions by Theobald, Seward and Sympson (1750, 10 vols.), G. Colman (1778, 10 vols.; 1811, 3 vols.), H. Weber (1812, 14 vols., adding The Faithful Friends), G. Darley (1839, 2 vols.; 1862–6, 2 vols.), A. Dyce (1843–6, 11 vols.; 1852, 2 vols.).

1905–12. A. Glover and A. R. Waller. The Works of F. B. and J. F. 10 vols. (C. E. C.). [Text of F_{2}, with collations of F_{1} and Q_{q}.]

1904–12 (in progress). A. H. Bullen, The Works of F. B. and J. F. Variorum Edition. 4 vols. issued. [Text based on Dyce; editions of separate plays by P. A. Daniel, R. W. Bond, W. W. Greg, R. B. McKerrow, J. Masefield, M. Luce, C. Brett, R. G. Martin, E. K. Chambers.]

Selections

1887. J. S. L. Strachey, The Best Plays of B. and F. 2 vols. (Mermaid Series). [Maid’s Tragedy, Philaster, Thierry and Theodoret, K. B. P., King and No King, Bonduca, Faithful Shepherdess, Valentinian, and later plays.]

1912. F. E. Schelling, Beaumont and Fletcher (M. E. D.). [Philaster, Maid’s Tragedy, Faithful Shepherdess, Bonduca.]

Dissertations: A. C. Swinburne, B. and F. (1875–94, Studies in Prose and Poetry), The Earlier Plays of B. and F. (1910, English Review); F. G. Fleay, On Metrical Tests as applied to Dramatic Poetry: Part ii, B., F., Massinger (1874, N. S. S. Trans. 51, 23*, 61*, reprinted, 1876–8, with alterations in Shakespeare Manual, 151), On the Chronology of the Plays of F. and Massinger (1886, E. S. ix. 12), and in B. C. (1891), i. 164; R. Boyle, B., F., and Massinger (1882–7, E. S. v. 74, vii. 66, viii. 39, ix. 209, x. 383), B., F., and Massinger (1886, N. S. S. Trans. 579), Mr. Oliphant on B. and F. (1892–3, E. S. xvii. 171, xviii. 292), Daborne’s Share in the B. and F. Plays (1899, E. S. xxvi. 352); G. C. Macaulay, F. B.: a Critical Study (1883), B. and F. (1910, C. H. vi. 107); E. H. C. Oliphant, The Works of B. and F. (1890–2, E. S. xiv. 53, xv. 321, xvi. 180); E. Koeppel, Quellen-Studien zu den Dramen Ben Jonson’s, John Marston’s und B. und F.’s (1895, Münchener Beiträge, xi); C. E. Norton, F. B.’s Letter to Ben Jonson (1896, Harvard Studies and Notes, v. 19); A. H. Thorndike, The Influence of B. and F. on Shakspere (1901); O. L. Hatcher, J. F.: a Study in Dramatic Method (1905); R. M. Alden, Introduction to B.’s Plays (1910, B. L.); C. M. Gayley, F. B.: Dramatist (1914); W. E. Farnham, Colloquial Contractions in B., F., Massinger and Shakespeare as a Test of Authorship (1916, M. L. A. xxxi. 326).

Bibliographies: A. C. Potter, A Bibl. of B. and F. (1890, Harvard Bibl. Contributions, 39); B. Leonhardt, Litteratur über B. und F. (1896, Anglia, xix. 36, 542).

The Woman Hater, c. 1606

S. R. 1607, May 20 (Buck). ‘A booke called “The Woman Hater” as it hath ben lately acted by the Children of Powles.’ Eleazar Edgar and Robert Jackson (Arber, iii. 349). [A note ‘Sir George Buckes hand alsoe to it’.]

1607. The Woman Hater. As it hath beene lately Acted by the Children of Paules. Sold by John Hodgets. [Prologue in prose.]

1607. R. R. sold by John Hodgets. [A reissue.]

S. R. 1613, April 19. Transfer of Edgar’s share to John Hodgettes (Arber, iii. 521).

1648.... As it hath beene Acted by his Majesties Servants with great Applause. Written by John Fletcher Gent. For Humphrey Moseley.

1649. The Woman Hater, or the Hungry Courtier. A Comedy ... Written by Francis Beamont and John Fletcher, Gent. For Humphrey Moseley. [A reissue. Prologue in verse, said by Fleay, i. 177, to be Davenant’s, and Epilogue, used also for The Noble Gentleman.]

Fleay, i. 177, and Gayley, 73, put the date in the spring of 1607, finding a reference in ‘a favourite on the sudden’ (I. iii) to the success of Robert Carr in taking the fancy of James at the tilt of 24 March 1607, to which Fleay adds that ‘another inundation’ (III. i) recalls a flood of 20 Jan. 1607. Neither argument is convincing, and it is not known that the Paul’s boys went on into 1607; they are last heard of in July 1606. The prologue expresses the author’s intention not to lose his ears, perhaps an allusion to Jonson’s and Chapman’s peril after Eastward Ho! in 1605. Gayley notes in II. iii what certainly looks like a reminiscence of Antony and Cleopatra, IV. xiv. 51 and xv. 87, but it is no easier to be precise about the date of Antony and Cleopatra than about that of The Woman Hater. The play is universally regarded as substantially Beaumont’s and the original prologue only speaks of a single author, but Davenant in 1649 evidently supposed it to be Fletcher’s, saying ‘full twenty yeares, he wore the bayes’. Boyle, Oliphant, Alden, and Gayley suggest among them III. i, ii; IV. ii; V. i, ii, v as scenes to which Fletcher or some other collaborator may have given touches.

The Knight of the Burning Pestle. 1607

1613. The Knight of the Burning Pestle. For Walter Burre. [Epistle to Robert Keysar, signed ‘W. B.’, Induction with Prologue, Epilogue.]

1635.... Full of Mirth and Delight. Written by Francis Beaumont and Iohn Fletcher, Gent. As it is now Acted by Her Maiesties Servants at the Private house in Drury Lane. N. O. for I. S. [Epistle to Readers, Prologue (from Lyly’s Sapho and Phaon).]

1635.... Francis Beamont....

Editions by F. W. Moorman (1898, T. D.), H. S. Murch (1908, Yale Studies, xxxiii), R. M. Alden (1910, B. L.), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).--Dissertations: R. Boyle, B. and F.’s K. B. P. (1889, E. S. xiii. 156); B. Leonhardt, Ueber B. und F.’s K. B. P. (1885, Annaberg programme), Die Text-Varianten von B. und F.’s K. B. P. (1896, Anglia, xix. 509).

The Epistle tells us that the play was ‘in eight daies ... begot and borne’, ‘exposed to the wide world, who ... utterly reiected it’, preserved by Keysar and sent to Burre, who had ‘fostred it priuately in my bosome these two yeares’. The play ‘hopes his father will beget him a yonger brother’. Burre adds, ‘Perhaps it will be thought to bee of the race of Don Quixote: we both may confidently sweare, it is his elder aboue a yeare’. The references to the actors in the induction as boys and the known connexion of Keysar with the Queen’s Revels fix the company. The date is more difficult. It cannot be earlier than 1607, since the reference to a play at the Red Bull in which the Sophy of Persia christens a child (IV. i. 46) is to Day’s Travels of Three English Brothers of that year. With other allusions, not in themselves conclusive, 1607 would agree well enough, notably with Ind. 8, ‘This seuen yeares there hath beene playes at this house’, for it was just seven years in the autumn of 1607 since Evans set up plays at the Blackfriars. The trouble is IV. i. 73, ‘Read the play of the Foure Prentices of London, where they tosse their pikes so’, for this implies that the Four Prentices was not merely produced but in print, and the earliest extant edition is of 1615. It is, however, quite possible that the play may have been in print, even as far back as 1594 (cf. s.v. Heywood). Others put it, and with it the K. B. P., in 1610, in which case the production would have been at the Whitefriars, the history of which can only be traced back two or three years and not seven years before 1610. On the whole, I think the reference to Don Quixote in the Epistle is in favour of 1607 rather than 1610. It is, of course, conceivable that Burre only meant to claim that the K. B. P. was a year older than Thomas Shelton’s translation of Don Quixote, which was entered in S. R. on 19 Jan. 1611 and published in 1612. Even this brings us back to the very beginning of 1610, and the boast would have been a fairly idle one, as Shelton states in his preface that the translation was actually made ‘some five or six yeares agoe’. Shelton’s editor, Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, has shown that it was based on the Brussels edition of 1607. If we put it in 1608 and the K. B. P. in 1607 the year’s priority of the latter is preserved. Most certainly the K. B. P. was not prior to the Spanish Don Quixote of 1605. Its dependence on Cervantes is not such as necessarily to imply that Beaumont had read the romance, but he had certainly heard of its general drift and of the particular episodes of the inn taken for a castle and the barber’s basin. Fleay, Boyle, Moorman, Murch, and Alden are inclined to assign to Fletcher some or all of the scenes in which Jasper and Luce and Humphrey take part; but Macaulay, Oliphant and Gayley regard the play, except perhaps for a touch or two, as wholly Beaumont’s. Certainly the Epistle suggests that the play had but one ‘father’.

The Faithful Shepherdess. 1608–9

N.D. The Faithfull Shepherdesse. By John Fletcher. For R. Bonian and H. Walley. [Commendatory verses by N. F. (‘Nath. Field’, Q_{2}), Fr. Beaumont, Ben Jonson, G. Chapman; Dedicatory verses to Sir Walter Aston, Sir William Skipwith, Sir Robert Townsend, all signed ‘John Fletcher’; Epistle to Reader, signed ‘John Fletcher’.]

S. R. 1628, Dec. 8. Transfer from Walley to R. Meighen (Arber, iv. 206).

1629.... newly corrected ... T. C. for R. Meighen.

1634.... Acted at Somerset House before the King and Queene on Twelfe night last, 1633. And divers times since with great applause at the Private House in Blacke-Friers, by his Majesties Servants.... A. M. for Meighen. [Verses to Joseph Taylor, signed ‘Shakerley Marmion’, and Prologue, both for the performance of 6 Jan. 1634.]

1656; 1665.

Editions by F. W. Moorman (1897, T. D.), W. W. Greg (1908, Bullen, iii), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).

Jonson told Drummond in the winter of 1618–19 (Laing, 17) that ‘Flesher and Beaumont, ten yeers since, hath written the Faithfull Shipheardesse, a Tragicomedie, well done’. This gives us the date 1608–9, which there is nothing to contradict. The undated Q_{1} may be put in 1609 or 1610, as Skipwith died on 3 May 1610 and the short partnership of the publishers is traceable from 22 Dec. 1608 to 14 Jan. 1610. It is, moreover, in Sir John Harington’s catalogue of his plays, which was made up in 1609 or 1610 (cf. ch. xxii). The presence of Field, Chapman, and Jonson amongst the verse-writers and the mentions in Beaumont’s verses of ‘the waxlights’ and of a boy dancing between the acts point to the Queen’s Revels as the producers. It is clear also from the verses that the play was damned, and that Fletcher alone, in spite of Drummond’s report, was the author. This is not doubted on internal grounds.

The Woman’s Prize, or, The Tamer Tamed. 1604 <

1647. The Womans Prize, or The Tamer Tam’d. A Comedy. [Part of F_{1}. Prologue and Epilogue.]

1679. [Part of F_{2}.]

Fleay, i. 198, Oliphant, and Thorndike, 70, accumulate inconclusive evidence bearing on the date, of which the most that can be said is that an answer to The Taming of the Shrew would have more point the nearer it came to the date of the original, and that the references to the siege of Ostend in I. iii would be topical during or not long after that siege, which ended on 8 Sept. 1604. On the other hand, Gayley (R. E. C. iii, lxvi) calls attention to possible reminiscences of Epicoene (1609) and Alchemist (1610). I see no justification for supposing that a play written in 1605 would undergo revision, as has been suggested, in 1610–14. A revival by the King’s in 1633 got them into some trouble with Sir Henry Herbert, who claimed the right to purge even an old play of ‘oaths, prophaness, and ribaldrye’ (Variorum, iii. 208). Possibly the play is also The Woman is too Hard for Him, which the King’s took to Court on 26 Nov. 1621 (Murray, ii. 193). But the original writing was not necessarily for this company. There is general agreement in assigning the play to Fletcher alone.

Philaster > 1610

S. R. 1620, Jan. 10 (Taverner). ‘A Play Called Philaster.’ Thomas Walkley (Arber, iii. 662).

1620. Phylaster, Or Loue lyes a Bleeding. Acted at the Globe by his Maiesties Seruants. Written by Francis Baymont and Iohn Fletcher. Gent. For Thomas Walkley.

1622.... As it hath beene diuerse times Acted, at the Globe, and Blacke-friers, by his Maiesties Seruants.... The Second Impression, corrected, and amended. For Thomas Walkley. [Epistle to the Reader by Walkley. Different text of I. i; V. iv, v.]

1628. A. M. for Richard Hawkins. [Epistle by the Stationer to the Understanding Gentry.]

1634; 1639; 1652; N.D. [1663]; 1687.

Editions by J. S. L. Strachey (1887, Mermaid, i), F. S. Boas (1898, T. D.), P. A. Daniel (1904, Variorum, i), A. H. Thorndike (1906, B. L.), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).--Dissertations: B. Leonhardt, Über die Beziehungen von B. und F.’s P. zu Shakespeare’s Hamlet und Cymbeline (1885, Anglia, viii. 424) and Die Text-Varianten von B. und F.’s P. (1896, Anglia, xix. 34).

The play is apparently referred to in John Davies of Hereford, Scourge of Folly (S. R. 8 Oct. 1610), ep. 206:

To the well deseruing M^r John Fletcher. Loue lies ableeding, if it should not proue Her vttmost art to shew why it doth loue. Thou being the Subiect (now) It raignes vpon: Raign’st in Arte, Iudgement, and Inuention: For this I loue thee: and can doe no lesse For thine as faire, as faithfull Shepheardesse.

If so, the date 1608–10 is suggested, and I do not think that it is possible to be more precise. No trustworthy argument can be based with Gayley, 342, on the fact that Davies’s epigram follows that praising Ostler as ‘Roscius’ and ‘sole king of actors’; and I fear that the view of Thorndike, 65, that 1608 is a ‘probable’ conjecture is biased by a desire to assume priority to Cymbeline. There were two Court performances in the winter of 1612–13, and Fleay, i. 189, suggests that the versions of I. i and V. iv, v which appear in Q_{1} were made for these. The epistle to Q_{2} describes them as ‘dangerous and gaping wounds ... received in the first impression’. There is general agreement that most of the play, whether Davies knew it or not, is Beaumont’s. Most critics assign V. iii, iv and some the whole or parts of I. i, ii, II. ii, iv, and III. ii to Fletcher.

The Coxcomb. 1608 < > 10

1647. The Coxcomb. [Part of F_{1}. Prologue and Epilogue.]

1679. [Part of F_{2}. ‘The Principal Actors were Nathan Field, Joseph Taylor, Giles Gary, Emanuel Read, Rich. Allen, Hugh Atawell, Robert Benfeild, Will Barcksted.’]

Dissertation: A. S. W. Rosenbach, The Curious Impertinent in English Dramatic Literature (1902, M. L. N. xvii. 179).

The play was given at Court by the Queen’s Revels on 2 or 3 Nov. 1612. It passed, doubtless, through the Lady Elizabeth’s, to whom the actor-list probably belongs, to the King’s, who took it to Court on 5 March 1622 (Murray, ii. 193) and again on 17 Nov. 1636 (Cunningham, xxiv). There was thus more than one opportunity for the prologue, which speaks of the play as having a mixed reception at first, partly because of its length, then ‘long forgot’, and now revived and shortened. The original date may be between the issue in 1608 of Baudouin’s French translation of The Curious Impertinent from Don Quixote, which in original or translation suggested its plot, and Jonson’s Alchemist (1610), IV. vii. 39, ‘You are ... a Don Quixote. Or a Knight o’ the curious coxcombe’. The prologue refers to ‘makers’, and there is fair agreement in giving some or all of I. iv, vi, II. iv, III. iii, and V. ii to Beaumont and the rest to Fletcher. Fleay, Boyle, Oliphant, and Gayley think that there has been revision by a later writer, perhaps Massinger or W. Rowley.

The Maid’s Tragedy > 1611

S. R. 1619, April 28 (Buck). ‘A play Called The maides tragedy.’ Higgenbotham and Constable (Arber, iii. 647).

1619. The Maides Tragedy. As it hath beene divers times Acted at the Blacke-friers by the King’s Maiesties Seruants. For Francis Constable.

1622.... Newly perused, augmented, and inlarged, This second Impression. For Francis Constable.

1630.... Written by Francis Beaumont, and Iohn Fletcher Gentlemen. The Third Impression, Reuised and Refined. A. M. for Richard Hawkins.

1638; 1641; 1650 [1660?]; 1661.

Editions by J. S. L. Strachey (1887, Mermaid, i), P. A. Daniel (1904, Variorum, i), A. H. Thorndike (1906, B. L.), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).--Dissertation: B. Leonhardt, Die Text-Varianten in B. und F.’s M. T. (1900, Anglia, xxiii. 14).

The play must have been known by 31 Oct. 1611 when Buck named the Second Maiden’s Tragedy (q.v.) after it, and it was given at Court during 1612–13. An inferior limit is not attainable and any date within c. 1608–11 is possible. Gayley, 349, asks us to accept the play as more mature than, and therefore later than, Philaster. Fleay, i. 192, thinks that the mask in I. ii was added after the floods in the winter of 1612, but you cannot bring Neptune into a mask without mention of floods. As to authorship there is some division of opinion, especially on II. ii and IV. iii; subject thereto, a balance of opinion gives I, II, III, IV. ii, iv and V. iv to Beaumont, and only IV. i and V. i, ii, iii to Fletcher.

An episode (I. ii) consists of a mask at the wedding of Amintor and Evadne, with an introductory dialogue between Calianax, Diagoras, who keeps the doors, and guests desiring admission. ‘The ladies are all placed above,’ says Diagoras, ‘save those that come in the King’s troop.’ Calianax has an ‘office’, evidently as Chamberlain. ‘He would run raging among them, and break a dozen wiser heads than his own in the twinkling of an eye.’

The maskers are Proteus and other sea-gods; the presenters Night, Cinthia, Neptune, Aeolus, Favonius, and other winds, who ‘rise’ or come ‘out of a rock’. There are two ‘measures’ between hymeneal songs, but no mention of taking out ladies.

In an earlier passage (I. i. 9) a poet says of masks, ‘They must commend their King, and speak in praise Of the Assembly, bless the Bride and Bridegroom, In person of some God; th’are tyed to rules Of flattery’.

A King and No King. 1611

S. R. 1618, Aug. 7 (Buck). ‘A play Called A king and noe kinge.’ Blount (Arber, iii. 631).

1619. A King and no King. Acted at the Globe, by his Maiesties Seruants: Written by Francis Beamount and Iohn Flecher. For Thomas Walkley. [Epistle to Sir Henry Nevill, signed ‘Thomas Walkley’.]

1625.... Acted at the Blacke-Fryars, by his Maiesties Seruants. And now the second time Printed, according to the true Copie.... For Thomas Walkley.

1631; 1639; 1655; 1661; 1676.

Editions by R. W. Bond (1904, Bullen, i), R. M. Alden (1910, B. L.).--Dissertation: B. Leonhardt, Die Text-Varianten von B.’s und F.’s A K. and No K. (1903, Anglia, xxvi. 313).

This is a fixed point, both for date and authorship, in the history of the collaboration. Herbert records (Var. iii. 263) that it was ‘allowed to be acted in 1611’ by Sir George Buck. It was in fact acted at Court by the King’s on 26 Dec. 1611 and again during 1612–13. A performance at Hampton Court on 10 Jan. 1637 is also upon record (Cunningham, xxv). The epistle, which tells us that the publisher received the play from Nevill, speaks of ‘the authors’ and of their ‘future labours’; rather oddly, as Beaumont was dead. There is practical unanimity in assigning I, II, III, IV. iv, and V. ii, iv to Beaumont and IV. i, ii, iii and V. i, iii to Fletcher.

Cupid’s Revenge > 1612

S. R. 1615, April 24 (Buck). ‘A play called Cupid’s revenge.’ Josias Harrison (Arber, iii. 566).

1615. Cupid’s Revenge. As it hath beene diuers times Acted by the Children of her Maiesties Reuels. By Iohn Fletcher. Thomas Creede for Josias Harrison. [Epistle by Printer to Reader.]

1630.... As it was often Acted (with great applause) by the Children of the Reuells. Written by Fran. Beaumont & Io. Fletcher. The second edition. For Thomas Jones.

1635.... The third Edition. A. M.

The play was given by the Queen’s Revels at Court on 5 Jan. 1612, 1 Jan. 1613, and either 9 Jan. or 27 Feb. 1613. It was revived by the Lady Elizabeth’s at Court on 28 Dec. 1624, and is in the Cockpit list of 1639. It cannot therefore be later than 1611–12, while no close inferior limit can be fixed. Fleay, i. 187, argues that it has been altered for Court, chiefly by turning a wicked king, queen, and prince into a duke, duchess, and marquis. I doubt if this implies revision as distinct from censorship, and in any case it does not, as Fleay suggests, imply the intervention of a reviser other than the original authors. The suggestion has led to chaos in the distribution of authorship, since various critics have introduced Daborne, Field, and Massinger as possible collaborators or revisers. The stationer speaks of a single ‘author’, meaning Fletcher, but says he was ‘not acquainted with him’. And the critics at least agree in finding both Beaumont and Fletcher, pretty well throughout.

The Captain. 1609 < > 12

1647. The Captain. [Part of F_{1}. Prologue and Epilogue.]

1679. The Captain. A Comedy. [Part of F_{2}.] ‘The principal Actors were, Richard Burbadge, Henry Condel, William Ostler, Alexander Cooke.’

The play was given by the King’s at Court during 1612–13, and presumably falls between that date and the admission of Ostler to the company in 1609. The 1679 print, by a confusion, gives the scene as ‘Venice, Spain’, but this hardly justifies the suggestion of Fleay, i. 195, that we have a version of Fletcher’s work altered for the Court by Barnes. He had formerly conjectured collaboration between Fletcher and Jonson (E. S. ix. 18). The prologue speaks of ‘the author’; Fleay thinks that the mention of ‘twelve pence’ as the price of a seat indicates a revival. Several critics find Massinger; Oliphant finds Rowley; and Boyle and Oliphant find Beaumont, as did Macaulay, 196, in 1883, but apparently not in 1910 (C. H. vi. 137).

Two Noble Kinsmen. 1613

S. R. 1634, April 8 (Herbert). ‘A Tragicomedy called the two noble kinsmen by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare.’ John Waterson (Arber, iv. 316).

1634. The Two Noble Kinsmen: Presented at the Black-friers by the Kings Maiesties servants, with great applause: Written by the memorable Worthies of their time; Mr. John Fletcher, and Mr. William Shakspeare. Gent. Tho. Cotes for Iohn Waterson. [Prologue and Epilogue.]

1679. [Part of F_{2} of Beaumont and Fletcher.]

Editions by W. W. Skeat (1875), H. Littledale (1876–85, N. S. S.), C. H. Herford (1897, T. D.), J. S. Farmer (1910, T. F. T.), and with Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, Sh. Apocrypha, and sometimes Works of Shakespeare.--Dissertations: W. Spalding, A Letter on Sh.’s Authorship of T. N. K. (1833; 1876, N. S. S.); S. Hickson, The Shares of Sh. and F. in T. N. K. (1847, Westminster Review, xlvii. 59; 1874, N. S. S. Trans. 25*, with additions by F. G. Fleay and F. J. Furnivall); N. Delius, Die angebliche Autorschaft des T. N. K. (1878, Jahrbuch, xiii. 16); R. Boyle, Sh. und die beiden edlen Vettern (1881, E. S. iv. 34), On Massinger and T. N. K. (1882, N. S. S. Trans. 371); T. Bierfreund, Palamon og Arcite (1891); E. H. C. Oliphant (1892, E. S. xv. 323); B. Leuschner, Über das Verhältniss von T. N. K. zu Chaucer’s Knightes Tale (1903, Halle diss.); O. Petersen, The T. N. K. (1914, Anglia, xxxviii. 213); H. D. Sykes, The T. N. K. (1916, M. L. R. xi. 136); A. H. Cruickshank, Massinger and T. N. K. (1922).

The date of T. N. K. is fairly well fixed to 1613 by its adaptation of Beaumont’s wedding mask of Shrovetide in that year; there would be a confirmation in Jonson, Bartholomew Fair (1614), iv. 3,

Quarlous. Well my word is out of the Arcadia, then: Argalus.

Win-wife. And mine out of the play, Palemon;

did not the juxtaposition of the Arcadia suggest that the allusion may be, not to the Palamon of T. N. K. but to the Palaemon of Daniel’s The Queen’s Arcadia (1606). In spite of the evidence of the t.p. attempts have been made to substitute Beaumont, or, more persistently, Massinger, for Shakespeare as Fletcher’s collaborator. This question can only be discussed effectively in connexion with Shakespeare.

The Honest Man’s Fortune. 1613

[MS.] Dyce MS. 9, formerly in Heber collection.

1647. The Honest Mans Fortune. [Part of F_{1}. After play, verses ‘Upon an Honest Mans Fortune. By M^r. John Fletcher’, beginning ‘You that can look through Heaven, and tell the Stars’.]

1679. The Honest Man’s Fortune. A Tragicomedie. [Part of F_{2}. ‘The principal actors were Nathan Field, Joseph Taylor, Rob. Benfield, Will Eglestone, Emanuel Read, Thomas Basse.’]

Dissertation: K. Richter, H. M. F. und seine Quellen (1905, Halle diss.).

On the fly-leaf of the MS. is ‘The Honest Man’s Fortune, Plaide in the yeare 1613’, and in another hand at the end of the text, ‘This Play, being an olde one, and the Originall lost was reallow’d by mee this 8 Febru. 1624. Att the intreaty of Mr. .’ The last word is torn off, but a third hand has added ‘Taylor’. The MS. contains some alterations, partly by the licenser, partly by the stage-manager or prompter. The latter include the names of three actors, ‘G[eorge] Ver[non]’, ‘J: R Cro’ and ‘G. Rick’. The ending of the last scene in the MS. differs from that of the Ff. The endorsement is confirmed by Herbert’s entry in his diary (Variorum, iii. 229), ‘For the King’s company. An olde play called The Honest Mans Fortune, the originall being lost, was re-allowed by mee at M^r. Taylor’s intreaty, and on condition to give mee a booke [The Arcadia], this 8 Februa. 1624.’ The actor-list suggests that the original performers were Lady Elizabeth’s men, after the Queen’s Revels had joined them in March 1613. Fleay, i. 196, suggests that this is the play by Fletcher, Field, Massinger, and Daborne which is the subject of some of Henslowe’s correspondence and was finally delivered on 5 Aug. 1613 (Greg, Henslowe Papers, 65, 90). Attempts to combine this indication with stylistic evidence have led the critics to some agreement that Fletcher is only responsible for V and that Massinger is to be found in III, and for the rest into a quagmire of conjecture amongst the names of Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger, Field, Daborne, Tourneur, and Cartwright. The appended verses of the Ff. are not in the Dyce MS., but they are in Addl. MS. 25707, f. 66, and Bodl. Rawlinson Poet. MS. 160, f. 20, where they are ascribed to Fletcher, and in Beaumont’s Poems (1653).

Bonduca. 1609 < > 14

1647. Bonduca, A Tragedy. [Part of F_{1}.]

1679. [Part of F_{2}. ‘The Principal Actors were Richard Burbadge, Henry Condel, William Eglestone, Nich. Toolie, William Ostler, John Lowin, John Underwood, Richard Robinson.’]

Dissertations: B. Leonhardt, Die Text-Varianten von B. und F.’s B. (1898, Anglia, xx. 421) and Bonduca (E. S. xiii. 36).

The actor-list is of the King’s men between 1609–11 or between 1613–14, as these are the only periods during which Ecclestone and Ostler can have played together. The authorship is generally regarded as substantially Fletcher’s; and the occasional use of rhyme in II. i and IV. iv hardly justifies Oliphant’s theory of an earlier version by Beaumont, or the ascription by Fleay and Macaulay of these scenes to Field, whose connexion with the King’s does not seem to antedate 1616.

Monsieur Thomas. 1610 < > 16

S. R. 1639, Jan. 22 (Wykes). ‘A Comedy called Monsieur Thomas, by master John Fletcher.’ Waterson (Arber, iv. 451).

1639. Monsieur Thomas. A Comedy. Acted at the Private House in Blacke Fryers. The Author, Iohn Fletcher, Gent. Thomas Harper for John Waterson. [Epistle to Charles Cotton, signed ‘Richard Brome’ and commendatory verses by the same.]

N.D. [c. 1661]. Fathers Own Son. A Comedy. Formerly Acted at the Private House in Black Fryers; and now at the Theatre in Vere Street by His Majesties Servants. The Author John Fletcher Gent. For Robert Crofts. [Reissue with fresh t.p.]

Edition by R. G. Martin (1912, Bullen, iv).--Dissertations: H. Guskar, Fletcher’s Monsieur Thomas und seine Quellen (1905, Anglia, xxviii. 397; xxix. 1); A. L. Stiefel, Zur Quellenfrage von John Fletcher’s Monsieur Thomas (1906, E. S. xxxvi. 238); O. L. Hatcher, The Sources of Fletcher’s Monsieur Thomas (1907, Anglia, xxx. 89).

The title-page printed at the time of the revival by the King’s men of the Restoration enables us to identify Monsieur Thomas with the Father’s Own Son of the Cockpit repertory in 1639, and like the other plays of the Beaumont and Fletcher series in that repertory it was probably written by 1616, and either for the Queen’s Revels or for the Lady Elizabeth’s. An allusion in II. iii. 104 to ‘all the feathers in the Friars’ might indicate production at Porter’s Hall in the Blackfriars about that year. The play cannot be earlier than its source, Part ii (1610) of H. d’Urfé’s Astrée, and by 1610 the more permanent Blackfriars house had passed to the King’s, by whom the performances referred to on the original title-page must therefore have been given. Perhaps the explanation is that there had been some misunderstanding about the distribution of the Lady Elizabeth’s men’s plays between the King’s and the Cockpit, and that a revival by the King’s in 1639 led the Cockpit managers to get the Lord Chamberlain’s order of 10 Aug. 1639 (Variorum, iii. 159) appropriating their repertory to them. The authorship is ascribed with general assent to Fletcher alone.

Valentinian. 1610 < > 14

1647. The Tragedy of Valentinian. [Part of F_{1}. Epilogue.]

1679. [Part of F_{2}. ‘The principal Actors were, Richard Burbadge, Henry Condel, John Lowin, William Ostler, John Underwood.’]

Edition by R. G. Martin (1912, Bullen, iv).

The actor-list is of the King’s men before the death of Ostler on 16 Dec. 1614, and the play must fall between this date and the publication of its source, Part ii (1610) of H. d’Urfé’s Astrée. There is general agreement in assigning it to Fletcher alone.

Wit Without Money, c. 1614

S. R. 1639, April 25 (Wykes). ‘These fiue playes ... Witt without money.’ Crooke and William Cooke (Arber, iv. 464).

1639. Wit Without Money. A Comedie, As it hath beene Presented with good Applause at the private house in Drurie Lane, by her Majesties Servants. Written by Francis Beamount and John Flecher. Gent. Thomas Cotes for Andrew Crooke and William Cooke.

1661.... The Second Impression Corrected. For Andrew Crooke.

Edition by R. B. McKerrow (1905, Bullen, ii).

Allusions to the New River opened in 1613 (IV. v. 61) and to an alleged Sussex dragon of Aug. 1614 (II. iv. 53) suggest production not long after the latter date. There is general agreement in assigning the play to Fletcher alone. It passed into the Cockpit repertory and was played there both by Queen Henrietta’s men and in 1637 by Beeston’s boys (Variorum, iii. 159, 239). Probably, therefore, it was written for the Lady Elizabeth’s.

The Scornful Lady. 1613 < > 17

S. R. 1616, March 19 (Buck). ‘A plaie called The scornefull ladie written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher.’ Miles Partriche (Arber, iii. 585).

1616. The Scornful Ladie. A Comedie. As it was Acted (with great applause) by the Children of Her Maiesties Reuels in the Blacke-Fryers. Written by Fra. Beaumont and Io. Fletcher, Gent. For Miles Partriche.

1625.... As it was now lately Acted (with great applause) by the Kings Maiesties seruants, at the Blacke-Fryers.... For M. P., sold by Thomas Jones.

1630, 1635, 1639, 1651 (bis).

Edition by R. W. Bond (1904, Bullen, i).

References to ‘talk of the Cleve wars’ (V. iii. 66) and ‘some cast Cleve captain’ (V. iv. 54) cannot be earlier than 1609 when the wars broke out after the death of the Duke of Cleves on 25 March, and there can hardly have been ‘cast’ captains until some time after July 1610 when English troops first took part. Fleay, i. 181, calls attention to an allusion to the binding by itself of the Apocrypha (I. ii. 46) which was discussed for the A. V. and the Douay Version, both completed in 1610; and Gayley to a reminiscence (IV. i. 341) of Epicoene which, however, was acted in 1609, not, as Gayley thinks, 1610. None of these indications, however, are of much importance in view of another traced by Gayley (III. ii. 17):

I will style thee noble, nay, Don Diego; I’ll woo thy infanta for thee.

Don Diego Sarmiento’s negotiations for a Spanish match with Prince Charles began on 27 May 1613. The play must therefore be 1613–16. In any case the ‘Blackfriars’ of the title-page must be the Porter’s Hall house of 1615–17. Even if the end of 1609 were a possible date, Murray, i. 153, is wrong in supposing that the Revels were then at Blackfriars. There is fair unanimity in assigning I, the whole or part of II, and V. ii to Beaumont, and the rest to Fletcher, but Bond and Gayley suggest that III. i, at least, might be Massinger’s.

Thierry and Theodoret (?)

1621. The Tragedy of Thierry King of France, and his Brother Theodoret. As it was diuerse times acted at the Blacke-Friers by the Kings Maiesties Seruants. For Thomas Walkley.

1648.... Written by John Fletcher Gent. For Humphrey Moseley.

1649.... Written by Fracis Beamont and John Fletcher Gent. For Humphrey Moseley. [A reissue, with Prologue and Epilogue, not written for the play; cf. Fleay, i. 205.]

Dissertation: B. Leonhardt, Die Text-Varianten von B. und F.’s T. and T. (1903, Anglia, xxvi. 345).

Fleay, i. 205, dates the play c. 1617, supposing it to be a satire on the French Court, and the name De Vitry to be that of the slayer of the Maréchal d’Ancre. Thorndike, 79, has little difficulty in disposing of this theory, although it may be pointed out that the Privy Council did in fact intervene to suppress a play about the Maréchal in 1617 (Gildersleeve, 113); but he is less successful in attempting to show any special plausibility in a date as early as 1607. A former conjecture by Fleay (E. S. ix. 21) that III and V. i are fragments of the anonymous Branholt of the Admiral’s in 1597 may also be dismissed with Greg (Henslowe, ii. 188). Most critics find, in addition to Fletcher, Massinger, as collaborator or reviser, according to the date given to the play, and some add Field or Daborne. Oliphant and Thorndike find Beaumont. So did Macaulay, 196, in 1883, but apparently not in 1910 (C. H. vi. 138).

The Nightwalker or The Little Thief (?)

S. R. 25 April 1639 (Wykes). ‘These fiue playes ... Night walters.... Crooke and William Cooke (Arber, iv. 464).

1640. The Night-Walker, or the Little Theife. A Comedy, As it was presented by her Majesties Servants, at the Private House in Drury Lane. Written by John Fletcher. Gent. Tho. Cotes for Andrew Crooke and William Cooke. [Epistle to William Hudson, signed ‘A. C.’.]

1661. For Andrew Crook.

Herbert licensed this as ‘a play of Fletchers corrected by Sherley’ on 11 May 1633 and it was played at Court by Queen Henrietta’s men on 30 Jan. 1634 (Variorum, iii. 236). The only justification for placing Fletcher’s version earlier than 1616 is the suspicion that the only plays of Beaumont or Fletcher which passed to the Cockpit repertory were some of those written for the Queen’s Revels or the Lady Elizabeth’s before that date.

Four Plays in One (?)

1647. Four Plays, or Moral Representations in One. [Part of F_{1}. Induction with 2 Prologues, The Triumph of Honour, the Triumph of Love with Prologue, the Triumph of Death with Prologue, the Triumph of Time with Prologue, Epilogue.]

Dissertation: W. J. Lawrence, The Date of F. P. in O. (T. L. S. 11 Dec. 1919).

This does not seem to have passed to the King’s men or the Cockpit, and cannot be assigned to any particular company. It has been supposed to be a boys’ play, presumably because it has much music and dancing. It has also much pageantry in dumb-shows and so forth and stage machinery. Conceivably it might have been written for private performance in place of a mask. Time, in particular, has much the form of a mask, with antimask. But composite plays of this type were well known on the public stage. There is no clear indication of date. Fleay, i. 179, suggested 1608 because The Yorkshire Tragedy, printed that year, is also described in its heading as ‘one of the Four Plays in One’, but presumably it belonged to another series. Thorndike, 85, points out that the antimask established itself in Court masks in 1608. Gayley, 301, puts Death and Time in 1610, because he thinks that they fall stylistically between The Faithfull Shepherdess and Philaster, and the rest in 1612, because he thinks they are Field’s and that they cannot be before 1611, since they are not mentioned, like Amends for Ladies, as forthcoming in the epistle to Woman a Weathercock in that year. This hardly bears analysis, and indeed Field is regarded as the author of the Induction and Honour only by Oliphant and Gayley and of Love only by Gayley himself. All these are generally assigned to Beaumont, and Death and Time universally to Fletcher. Lawrence’s attempt to attach the piece to the wedding festivities of 1612–13 does not seem to me at all convincing.

Love’s Cure; or, The Martial Maid (?)

1647. Loves Cure, or the Martial Maid. [Part of F_{1}. A Prologue at the reviving of this Play. Epilogue.]

1679. Loves Cure, or the Martial Maid A Comedy. [Part of F_{2}.]

Dissertation: A. L. Stiefel, Die Nachahmung spanischer Komödien in England (1897, Archiv, xcix. 271).

The prologue, evidently later than Fletcher’s death in 1625, clearly assigns the authorship to Beaumont and Fletcher, although the epilogue, of uncertain date, speaks of ‘our author’. This is the only sound reason for thinking that the original composition was in Beaumont’s lifetime. The internal evidence for an early date cited by Fleay, i. 180, and Thorndike, 72, becomes trivial when we eliminate what merely fixes the historic time of the play to 1604–9, and proves nothing as to the time of composition. On the other hand, II. ii,

the cold Muscovite ... That lay here lieger in the last great frost,

points to a date later than the winter of 1621, as I cannot trace any earlier great frost in which a Muscovite embassy can have been in London (S. P. D. Jac. I, cxxiii, 11, 100; cxxiv. 40). Further, the critics seem confident that the dominant hand in the play as it exists is Massinger’s, and that Beaumont and Fletcher show, if at all, faintly through his revision. The play belonged to the repertory of the King’s men by 1641 (M. S. C. i. 364).

Wit at Several Weapons (?)

1647. Wit at several weapons. A Comedy. [Part of F_{1}. The epilogue at the reviving of this Play.]

1679. [Part of F_{2}.]

The history of the play is very obscure. It is neither in the Cockpit repertory of 1639 nor in that of the King’s in 1641, and the guesses of Fleay, i. 218, that it may be The Devil of Dowgate or Usury Put to Use, licensed by Herbert for the King’s on 17 Oct. 1623, and The Buck is a Thief, played at Court by the same men on 28 Dec. 1623, are unsupported and mutually destructive. The epilogue, clearly written after the death of Fletcher, tells us that ‘’twas well receiv’d before’ and that Fletcher ‘had to do in’ it, and goes on to qualify this by adding--

that if he but writ An Act, or two, the whole Play rose up wit.

The critics find varying amounts of Fletcher, with work of other hands, which some of them venture to identify as those of Middleton and Rowley. Oliphant, followed by Thorndike, 87, finds Beaumont, and the latter points to allusions which are not inconsistent with, but certainly do not prove, 1609–10, or even an earlier date. Macaulay, 196, also found Beaumont in 1883, but seems to have retired upon Middleton and Rowley in 1910 (C. H. vi. 138).

The Faithful Friends (?)

[MS.] Dyce MS. 10, formerly in the Heber collection.

S. R. 1660, June 29. ‘The Faithfull Friend a Comedy, by Francis Beamont & John Fletcher’. H. Moseley (Eyre, ii. 271).

Edition by A. Dyce in Works (1812).

Fleay in 1889 (E. S. xiii. 32) saw evidence of a date in 1614 in certain possible allusions (I. i. 45–52, 123–6) to the Earl of Somerset and his wedding on 26 Dec. 1613, and suggested Field and Daborne as the authors. In 1891 (i. 81, 201) he gave the whole to Daborne, except IV. v, which he thought of later date, and supposed it to be the subject of Daborne’s letter of 11 March 1614 to Henslowe, which was in fact probably The Owl (Greg, Henslowe Papers, 82). Oliphant thinks it a revision by Massinger and Field in 1614 of a play by Beaumont and Fletcher, perhaps as early as 1604. With this exception no critic seems much to believe in the presence of Beaumont or Fletcher, and Boyle, who suggests Shirley, points out that the allusion in I. i. 124 to the relation between Philip III and the Duke of Lerma as in the past would come more naturally after Philip’s death in 1621 or at least after Lerma’s disgrace in 1618. The MS. is in various hands, one of which has made corrections. Some of these seem on internal evidence to have been due to suggestions of the censor, others to play-house exigencies.

Lost Play

Among plays entered in S. R. by Humphrey Moseley on 29 June 1660 (Eyre, ii. 271) is ‘The History of Madon King of Brittain, by F. Beamont’. Madan is a character in Locrine, but even Moseley can hardly have ascribed that long-printed play to Beaumont.

Inner Temple and Gray’s Inn Mask. 20 Feb. 1613

S. R. 1613, Feb. 27 (Nidd). ‘A booke called the [description] of the maske performed before the kinge by the gent. of the Myddle temple and Lincolns Inne with the maske of Grayes Inne and the Inner Temple.’ George Norton (Arber, iii. 516).

N.D. The Masque of the Inner Temple and Grayes Inn: Grayes Inne and the Inner Temple, presented before his Maiestie, the Queenes Maiestie, the Prince, Count Palatine and the Lady Elizabeth their Highnesses, in the Banquetting-house at Whitehall on Saturday the twentieth day of Februarie, 1612. F. K. for George Norton. [Epistle to Sir Francis Bacon and the Benchers.]

N.D. ... By Francis Beaumont, Gent. F. K. for George Norton.

1647. [Part of F_{1}.]

1653. Poems: by Francis Beaumont, Gent. [&c.] for Laurence Blaiklock. [The Masque is included.]

1653. Poems ... for William Hope. [A reissue.]

1660. Poems. The golden remains of those so much admired dramatick poets, Francis Beaumont & John Fletcher, Gent. [&c.] for William Hope. [A reissue.]

1679. [Part of F_{2}.]

The texts of 1647–79 give a shorter description than the original Q_{q}, and omit the epistle.

Edition in Nichols, James (1828), ii. 591.

For general notices of the wedding masks, see ch. xxiv and the account of Campion’s Lords’ Mask; but it may be noted that the narrative in the Mercure François gives a very inaccurate description of Beaumont’s work as left to us, introducing an Atlas and an Aletheia who find no places in the text.

The maskers, in carnation, were fifteen knights of Olympia; the musicians twelve priests of Jove; the presenters Mercury and Iris. There were two antimasks, Mercury’s of four Naiads, five Hyades, four Cupids, and four Statues, ‘not of one kinde or liverie (because that had been so much in use heretofore)’, and Iris’s of a ‘rurall company’ consisting of a Pedant, a May Lord and Lady, a Servingman and Chambermaid, a Country Clown or Shepherd and Country Wench, a Host and Hostess, a He Baboon and She Baboon, and a He Fool and She Fool ‘ushering them in’.

The locality was the Banqueting House at Whitehall. The Hall was originally appointed, and on Shrove-Tuesday, 16 Feb., the mask came by water from Winchester House in the royal barge, attended by many gentlemen of the Inns in other barges. They landed at the Privy Stairs, watched by the King and princes from the Privy Gallery, and were conducted to the Vestry. But the actual mask was put off until 20 Feb., in view of the press in the Hall, and then given in Banqueting House. Beaumont’s description passes lightly over this contretemps, but cf. infra.

The ‘fabricke’ was a mountain, with separate ‘traverses’ discovering its lower and its higher slopes. From the former issued the presenters and antimasks, whose ‘measures’ were both encored by the King, but unluckily ‘one of the Statuaes by that time was undressed’. The latter bore the ‘maine masque’ in two pavilions before the altar of Jupiter. The maskers descended, danced two measures, then took their ladies to dance galliards, durets, corantoes, &c., then danced ‘their parting measure’ and ascended.

Phineas Pett, Master of the Shipwrights’ Company in 1613, relates (Archaeologia, xii. 266) that he was

‘intreated by divers gentlemen of the inns of business, whereof Sir Francis Bacon was chief, to attend the bringing of a mask by water in the night from St. Mary Over’s to Whitehall in some of the gallies; but the tide falling out very contrary and the company attending the maskers very unruly, the project could not be performed so exactly as was purposed and expected. But yet they were safely landed at the plying stairs at Whitehall, for which my paines the gentlemen gave me a fair recompence.’

Chamberlain (Birch, i. 227) says:

‘On Tuesday it came to Gray’s Inn and the Inner Temple’s turn to come with their mask, whereof Sir Francis Bacon was the chief contriver; and because the former came on horseback and in open chariots, they made choice to come by water from Winchester Place, in Southwark, which suited well with their device, which was the marriage of the river of Thames to the Rhine; and their show by water was very gallant, by reason of infinite store of lights, very curiously set and placed, and many boats and barges, with devices of light and lamps, with three peals of ordnance, one at their taking water, another in the Temple garden, and the last at their landing; which passage by water cost them better than three hundred pounds. They were received at the Privy Stairs, and great expectation there was that they should every way excel their competitors that went before them; both in device, daintiness of apparel, and, above all, in dancing, wherein they are held excellent, and esteemed for the properer men. But by what ill planet it fell out, I know not, they came home as they went, without doing anything; the reason whereof I cannot yet learn thoroughly, but only that the hall was so full that it was not possible to avoid it, or make room for them; besides that, most of the ladies were in the galleries to see them land, and could not get in.

But the worst of all was, that the King was so wearied and sleepy, with sitting up almost two whole nights before, that he had no edge to it. Whereupon, Sir Francis Bacon adventured to entreat of his majesty that by this difference he would not, as it were, bury them quick; and I hear the King should answer, that then they must bury him quick, for he could last no longer, but withal gave them very good words, and appointed them to come again on Saturday. But the grace of their mask is quite gone, when their apparel hath been already showed, and their devices vented, so that how it will fall out God knows, for they are much discouraged and out of countenance, and the world says it comes to pass after the old proverb, the properer man the worse luck.’

In a later letter (Birch, i. 229) Chamberlain concludes the story:

‘And our Gray’s Inn men and the Inner Templars were nothing discouraged, for all the first dodge, but on Saturday last performed their parts exceeding well and with great applause and approbation, both from the King and all the company.’

In a third letter, to Winwood (iii, 435), he describes the adventures of the mask more briefly, and adds the detail that the performance was

‘in the new bankquetting house, which for a kind of amends was granted to them, though with much repining and contradiction of their emulators.’

Chamberlain refers to the ‘new’ room of 1607, and not to that just put up for the wedding. This was used for the banquet. Foscarini reports (V. P. xii. 532) that:

‘After the ballet was over their Majesties and their Highnesses passed into a great Hall especially built for the purpose, where were long tables laden with comfits and thousands of mottoes. After the King had made the round of the tables, everything was in a moment rapaciously swept away.’

The records of the Inns throw light on the finance and organization of the mask. From those of the Inner Temple (Inderwick, ii. 72, 76, 81, 92, 99) we learn that the Inn’s share of the cost was ‘not so little as 1200^{li}’, that there were payments to Lewis Hele, Nicholas Polhill, and Fenner, and for ‘scarlet for the marshal of the mask’, that there was a rehearsal for the benchers at Ely House, and that funds were raised up to 1616 by assessments of £2 and £1 and by assigning the revenue derived from admission fees to chambers. Those of Gray’s Inn (Fletcher, 201–8) contain an order for such things to be bought ‘as M^r. Solicitor [Bacon] shall thinke fitt’. One Will Gerrard was appointed Treasurer, and an assessment of from £1 to £4 according to status was to be made for a sum equal to that raised by the Inner Temple. There was evidently some difficulty in liquidating the bills. In May 1613 an order was made ‘that the gent. late actors in the maske at the court shall bring in all ther masking apparrel w^{ch} they had of the howse charge ... or else the value therof’. In June a further order was drafted and then stayed, calling attention to the ‘sad contempts’ of those affected by the former, ‘albeit none of them did contribute anything to the charge’. Each suit had cost 100 marks. The offenders were to be discommonsed. In November and again in the following February it was found necessary to appropriate admission fees towards the debt.

RICHARD BERNARD (1568–1641).

The translator was born at Epworth, Lincolnshire, took his M.A. from Christ’s, Cambridge, in 1598, and became incumbent successively of Worksop, Notts., and Batcombe, Somerset.

Terence in English > 1598

1598. Terence in English. Fabulae comici facetissimi et elegantissimi poetae Terentii omnes Anglice factae primumque hac nova forma nunc editae: opera ac industria R. B. in Axholmiensi insula Lincolnsherii Epwortheatis. John Legat, Cambridge. [Epistle to Christopher and other sons of Sir W. Wray and nephews of Lady Bowes and Lady St. Paul, signed by ‘Richard Bernard’, and dated from Epworth, 30 May; Epistle to Reader. Includes Adelphi, Andria, Eunuchus, Heautontimorumenus, Hecyra, Phormio.]

1607.... Secunda editio multo emendatior ... John Legat.

1614, 1629, 1641.

WILLIAM BIRD (> 1597–1619 <).

One of the Admiral’s men (cf. ch. xiii), who collaborated with S. Rowley (q.v.) in Judas (1601) and in additions to Dr. Faustus in 1602.

RICHARD BOWER (?-1561).

On his Mastership of the Chapel, cf. ch. xii. He has been supposed to be the R. B. who wrote Apius and Virginia, and his hand has also been sought in the anonymous Clyomon and Clamydes and Common Conditions.

SAMUEL BRANDON (?-?).

Beyond his play, nothing is known of him.

The Virtuous Octavia. 1594 < > 8

S. R. 1598, Oct. 5. ‘A booke, intituled, The Tragicomoedye of the vertuous Octavia, donne by Samuell Brandon.’ Ponsonby (Arber, iii. 127).

1598. The Tragicomoedi of the vertuous Octauia. Done by Samuel Brandon. For William Ponsonby. [Verses to Lady Lucia Audelay; All’autore, signed ‘Mia’; Prosopopeia al libro, signed ‘S. B.’; Argument. After text, Epistle to Mary Thinne, signed ‘S. B.’; Argument; verse epistles Octavia to Antonius and Antonius to Octavia.’]

Editions by R. B. McKerrow (1909, M. S. R.) and J. S. Farmer (1912, S. F. T.).

This is in the manner of Daniel’s Cleopatra (1594), and probably a closet drama.

NICHOLAS BRETON (c. 1545–c. 1626).

A poet and pamphleteer, who possibly contributed to the Elvetham entertainment (cf. ch. xxiv, C) in 1591.

ANTHONY BREWER (c. 1607).

Nothing is known of Brewer beyond his play, unless, as is possible, he is the ‘Anth. Brew’ who was acting c. 1624 at the Cockpit (cf. F. S. Boas, A Seventeenth Century Theatrical Repertoire in 3 Library for July 1917).

The Lovesick King. c. 1607

S. R. 1655, June 20. ‘A booke called The Lovesick King, an English tragicall history with the life & death of Cartis Mundy the faire Nunne of Winchester. Written by Anthony Brewer, gent.’ John Sweeting (Eyre, i. 486).

1655. The Lovesick King, An English Tragical History: With The Life and Death of Cartesmunda, the fair Nun of Winchester. Written by Anth. Brewer, Gent. For Robert Pollard, and John Sweeting.

1680. The Perjured Nun.

Editions by W. R. Chetwood (1750, S. C.) and A. E. H. Swaen (1907, Materialien, xviii).--Dissertation: A. E. H. Swaen, The Date of B.’s L. K. (1908, M. L. R. iv. 87).

There are small bits of evidence, in the use of Danish names from Hamlet and other Elizabethan plays, and in a jest on ‘Mondays vein to poetize’ (l. 548), to suggest a date of composition long before that of publication, but a borrowing from The Knight of the Burning Pestle makes it improbable that this can be earlier than 1607. The amount of Newcastle local colour and a special mention of ‘those Players of Interludes that dwels at Newcastle’ (l. 534) led Fleay, i. 34, to conjecture that it was acted in that town.

Doubtful Plays

Anthony Brewer has been confused with Thomas Brewer, or perhaps with more than one writer of that name, who wrote various works of popular literature, and to whom yet others bearing only the initials T. B. are credited, between 1608 and 1656. Thus The Country Girl, printed as by T. B. in 1647, is ascribed in Kirkman’s play-lists of 1661 and 1671 to Antony Brewer, but in Archer’s list of 1656 to Thomas. Oliphant (M. P. viii. 422) points out that the scene is in part at Edmonton, and thinks it a revision by Massinger of an early work by Thomas, who published a pamphlet entitled The Life and Death of the Merry Devil of Edmonton in 1608.

ARTHUR BROOKE (ob. 1563).

In 1562 he was admitted to the Inner Temple without fee ‘in consideration of certain plays and shows at Christmas last set forth by him’ (Inderwick, Inner Temple Records, i. 219). Possibly he refers to one of these plays when he says in the epistle to his Romeus and Juliet (1562), ‘I saw the same argument lately set foorth on stage with more commendation then I can looke for: (being there much better set forth then I have or can dooe)’; but if so, he clearly was not himself the author.

SAMUEL BROOKE (c. 1574–1631).

Brooke was of a York family, and, like his brother Christopher, the poet, a friend of John Donne, whose marriage he earned a prison by celebrating in 1601. He entered Trinity, Cambridge, c. 1592, took his B.A. in 1595 and his M.A. in 1598. He became chaplain to Prince Henry, and subsequently Gresham Professor of Divinity and chaplain successively to James and Charles. In 1629 he became Master of Trinity, and in 1631, just before his death, Archdeacon of Coventry.

Adelphe. 27 Feb. 1613

[MSS.] T. C. C. MS. R. 3. 9. ‘Comoedia in Collegii Trin. aula bis publice acta. Authore D^{no} D^{re} Brooke, Coll. Trin.’; T. C. C. MS. R. 10. 4, with prologue dated 1662.

The play was produced on 27 Feb. 1613 and repeated on 2 March 1613 during the visit of Charles and the Elector Frederick to Cambridge.

Scyros. 3 March 1613

[MSS.] T. C. C. MS. R. 3. 9. ‘Fabula Pastoralis acta coram Principe Charolo et comite Palatino mensis Martii 30 A. D. 1612. Authore D^{re} Brooke Coll. Trin.’; T. C. C. MSS. R. 3. 37; R. 10. 4; R. 17. 10; O. 3. 4; Emanuel, Cambridge, MS. iii. i. 17; Cambridge Univ. Libr. MS. Ee. v. 16.

This also was produced during the visit of Charles and Frederick to Cambridge. As pointed out by Greg, Pastoral, 251, the ‘Martii 30’ of the MSS. is an error for ‘Martii 3^o’. The play is a version of the Filli di Sciro (1607) of G. Bonarelli della Rovere.

Melanthe. 10 March 1615

1615, March 27. Melanthe Fabula pastoralis acta cum Jacobus, Magnae Brit. Franc. & Hiberniae Rex, Cantabrigiam suam nuper inviseret, ibidemque Musarum atque eius animi gratia dies quinque commoraretur. Egerunt Alumni Coll. San. et Individuae Trinitatis. Cantabrigiae. Cantrellus Legge.

The ascription to Brooke is due to the Dering MS. (Gent. Mag. 1756, p. 223). Chamberlain (Birch, i. 304) says that the play was ‘excellently well written, and as well acted’.

WILLIAM BROWNE (1591–1643?).

Browne was born at Tavistock, educated at the Grammar School there and at Exeter College, Oxford, and entered the Inner Temple from Clifford’s Inn in Nov. 1611. He is known as a poet, especially by Britannia’s Pastorals (1613, 1616), but beyond his mask has no connexion with the stage. In later life he was of the household of the Herberts at Wilton.

Ulysses and Circe. 13 Jan. 1615

[MSS.] (a) Emmanuel College, Cambridge, with title, ‘The Inner Temple Masque. Presented by the gentlemen there. Jan. 13, 1614.’ [Epistle to Inner Temple, signed ‘W. Browne’.]

(b) Collection of H. Chandos Pole-Gell, Hopton Hall, Wirksworth (in 1894).

Editions with Browne’s Works by T. Davies (1772), W. C. Hazlitt (1868), and G. Goodwin (1894).

The maskers, in green and white, were Knights; the first antimaskers, with an ‘antic measure’, two Actaeons, two Midases, two Lycaons, two Baboons, and Grillus; the second antimaskers, ‘to a softer tune’, four Maids of Circe and three Nereids; the musicians Sirens, Echoes, a Woodman, and others; the presenters Triton, Circe, and Ulysses.

The locality was the hall of the Inner Temple. Towards the lower end was discovered a sea-cliff. The drawing of a traverse discovered a wood, in which later two gates flew open, disclosing the maskers asleep in an arbour at the end of a glade. Awaked by a charm, they danced their first and second measures, took out ladies for ‘the old measures, galliards, corantoes, the brawls, etc.’, and danced their last measure.

The Inner Temple records (Inderwick, ii. 99) mention an order of 21 April 1616 for recompense to the chief cook on account of damage to his room in the cloister when it and its chimney were broken down at Christmas twelvemonth ‘by such as climbed up at the windows of the hall to see the mask’.

SIR GEORGE BUCK (ob. 1623).

He was Master of the Revels (cf. ch. iii). For a very doubtful ascription to him, on manuscript authority alleged by Collier, of the dumb-shows to Locrine, cf. ch. xxiv.

JAMES CALFHILL (1530?-1570).

Calfhill was an Eton and King’s College, Cambridge, man, who migrated to Oxford and became Student of Christ Church in 1548 and Canon in 1560. He was in Orders and was Rector of West Horsley when Elizabeth was there in 1559. After various preferments, he was nominated Bishop of Worcester in 1570, but died before consecration.

On 6 July 1564 Walter Haddon wrote to Abp. Parker (Parker Correspondence, 218) deprecating the tone of a sermon by Calfhill before the Queen, and said ‘Nunquam in illo loco quisquam minus satisfecit, quod maiorem ex eo dolorem omnibus attulit, quoniam admodum est illis artibus instructus quas illius theatri celebritas postulat’. No play by Calfhill is extant, but his Latin tragedy of Progne was given before Elizabeth at Christ Church on 5 Sept. 1566 (cf. ch. iv), and appears from Bereblock’s synopsis to have been based on an earlier Latin Progne (1558) by Gregorio Corraro.

THOMAS CAMPION (1567–1620).

Thomas, son of John Campion, a Chancery clerk of Herts. extraction, was born on 12 Feb. 1567, educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he took no degree, and admitted on 27 April 1586 to Gray’s Inn, where he took part as Hidaspis and Melancholy in the comedy of 16 Jan. 1588 (cf. ch. vii). He left the law, and probably served in Essex’s expedition of 1591 to France. He first appeared as a poet, anonymously, in the appendix to Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella (1591), and has left several books of songs written as airs for music, often of his own composition, as well as a collection of Latin epigrams and Observations in the Art of English Poesie (1602). I do not know whether he can be the ‘Campnies’ who performed at the Gray’s Inn mask of Shrovetide 1595 at Court (cf. s.v. Gesta Grayorum), but one of the two hymns in that mask, A Hymn in Praise of Neptune is assigned to him by Francis Davison, Poetical Rhapsody (1602), sig. K 8, and it is possible that the second hymn, beginning ‘Shadows before the shining sun do vanish’, which Davison does not himself appear to claim, may also be his. By 1607 he had taken the degree of M.D., probably abroad, and he practised as a physician. Through Sir Thomas Monson he was entangled, although in no very blameworthy capacity, in the Somerset scandals of 1613–15. On 1 March 1620 he died, probably of the plague, naming as his legatee Philip Rosseter, with whom he had written A Booke of Airs in 1601.

Campion is not traceable as a writer for the stage, although his connexion with Monson and Rosseter would have made it not surprising to find him concerned with the Queen’s Revels syndicate of 1610. But his contribution to the Gesta Grayorum foreshadowed his place, second only to Jonson’s, who wrote a Discourse of Poesie (Laing, 1), now lost, against him, in the mask-poetry of the Jacobean period. In addition to his acknowledged masks he may also be responsible for part or all of the Gray’s Inn Mountebanks Mask of 1618, printed by Nichols, Eliz. iii. 320, as a second part of the Gesta Grayorum, and by Bullen, Marston, iii. 417, although the ascription to Marston is extremely improbable.

Collections

1828. J. Nichols. Progresses [&c.] of James the First, ii. 105, 554, 630, 707. [The four masks.]

1889. A. H. Bullen, Works of T. C. [English and Latin.]

1903. A. H. Bullen, Works of T. C. [English only.]

1907. P. Vivian, Poetical Works (in English) of T. C. (Muses’ Library).

1909. P. Vivian, C.’s Works.

Dissertation.--T. MacDonagh, T. C. and the Art of English Poetry (1913).

Lord Hay’s Mask. 6 Jan. 1607

S. R. 1607, Jan. 26 (Gwyn). ‘A booke called the discription of A maske presented before the Kings maiestie at Whitehall on Twelf-night last in honour of the Lord Haies and his bryde Daughter and heire to the right honorable the Lord Denny, their mariage havinge ben at Court the same day solemnised.’ John Browne (Arber, iii. 337).

1607. The discription of a Maske, Presented before the Kinges Maiestie at White-Hall, on Twelfth Night last, in honour of the Lord Hayes, and his Bride, Daughter and Heire to the Honourable the Lord Dennye, their Marriage hauing been the same Day at Court solemnized. To this by occasion other small Poems are adioyned. Inuented and set forth by Thomas Campion Doctor of Phisicke. John Windet for John Browne. [Engraving of the maskers’ habit; Verses to James, Lord De Walden and Lord and Lady Hay.]

The maskers, in carnation and silver, concealed at first in a ‘false habit’ of green leaves and silver, were nine Knights of Apollo; the torchbearers the nine Hours of Night; the presenters Flora, Zephyrus, Night, and Hesperus; the musicians Sylvans, who, as the mask was predominantly musical, were aided by consorts of instruments and voices above the scene and on either side of the hall.

The locality was the ‘great hall’ at Whitehall. At the upper end were the cloth and chair of state, with ‘scaffolds and seats on either side continued to the screen’. Eighteen feet from the screen was a stage, which stood three feet higher than the ‘dancing-place’ in front of it, and was enclosed by a ‘double veil’ or vertically divided curtain representing clouds. The Bower of Flora stood on the right and the House of Night on the left at the ends of the screen, and between them a grove, behind which, under the window, rose hills with a Tree of Diana. In the grove were nine golden trees which performed the first dance, and then, at the touch of Night’s wand, were drawn down by an engine under the stage, and cleft to reveal the maskers. After two more ‘new’ dances, they took out the ladies for ‘measures’. Then they danced ‘their lighter dances as corantoes, levaltas and galliards’; then a fourth ‘new’ dance; and then ‘putting off their vizards and helmets, made a low honour to the King, and attended his Majesty to the banqueting place’.

The mask was given, presumably by friends of the bridegroom, in honour of the wedding of James Lord Hay and Honora, daughter of Lord Denny. The maskers were Lord Walden, Sir Thomas Howard, Sir Henry Carey, Sir Richard Preston, Sir John Ashley, Sir Thomas Jarret, Sir John Digby, Sir Thomas Badger, and Mr. Goringe. One air for a song and one for a song and dance were made by Campion, two for dances by Mr. Lupo, and one for a dance by Mr. Thomas Giles.

Few contemporary references to the mask exist. It is probably that described in a letter, which I have not seen, from Lady Pembroke to Lord Shrewsbury, calendared among other Talbot MSS. of 1607 in Lodge, App. 121. No ambassadors were invited--‘Dieu merci’--says the French ambassador, and Anne, declaring herself ill, stayed away (La Boderie, ii. 12, 30). Expenditure on preparing the hall appears in the accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber and the Office of Works (Reyher, 520).

The Lords’ Mask. 14 Feb. 1613

1613. For John Budge. [Annexed to Caversham Entertainment (q.v.).]

This was for the wedding of Elizabeth. The men maskers, in cloth of silver, were eight transformed Stars, the women, also in silver, eight transformed Statues; the torchbearers sixteen Fiery Spirits; the antimaskers six men and six women Frantics; the presenters Orpheus, Mania, Entheus, Prometheus, and Sibylla.

The locality was the Banqueting House at Whitehall. The lower part of the scene, when discovered, represented a wood, with the thicket of Orpheus on the right and the cave of Mania on the left. After the ‘mad measure’ of the antimask, the upper part of the scene was discovered ‘by the fall of a curtain’. Here, amidst clouds, were eight Stars which danced, vanishing to give place to the eight men maskers in the House of Prometheus. The torchbearers emerged below, and danced. The maskers descended on a cloud, behind which the lower part of the scene was turned to a façade with four Statues in niches. These and then a second four were transformed to women. Then the maskers gave their ‘first new entering dance’ and their second dance, and took out the bridal pair and others, ‘men women, and women men’. The scene again changed to a prospective of porticoes leading to Sibylla’s trophy, an obelisk of Fame. A ‘song and dance triumphant’ followed, and finally the maskers’ ‘last new dance’ concluded all ‘at their going out’.

This was a mask of lords and ladies, at the cost of the Exchequer. The only names on record are those of the Earls of Montgomery and Salisbury, Lord Hay, and Ann Dudley (vide infra). Campion notes the ‘extraordinary industry and skill’ of Inigo Jones in ‘the whole invention’, and particularly his ‘neat artifice’ in contriving the ‘motion’ of the Stars.

The wedding masks were naturally of special interest to the Court gossips. Chamberlain wrote to Winwood (iii. 421) on 9 Jan.: ‘It is said the Lords and Ladyes about the court have appointed a maske upon their own charge; but I hear there is order given for £1500 to provide one upon the King’s cost, and a £1000 for fireworks. The Inns of Court are likewise dealt with for two masks against that time, and mean to furnish themselves for the service.’ On 29 Jan. he added (iii. 429), ‘Great preparations here are of braverie, masks and fireworks against the marriage.’ On 14 Jan. one G. F. Biondi informed Carleton (S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxii. 12) that the Earls of Montgomery and Salisbury and Lord Hay were practising for the wedding mask. On 20 Jan. Sir Charles Montagu wrote to Sir Edward Montagu (H. M. C. Buccleugh MSS. i. 239): ‘Here is not any news stirring, only much preparations at this wedding for masks, whereof shall be three, one of eight lords and eight ladies, whereof my cousin Ann Dudley one, and two from the Inner Courts, who they say will lay it on.’

The Lords’ mask is certainly less prominent than those of the Inns of Court (vide sub Beaumont and Chapman) in the actual descriptions of the wedding. All three are recorded in Stowe, Annales, 916, in Wilbraham’s Journal (Camden Misc. x), 110, in reports of the Venetian ambassador (V. P. xii. 499, 532), and in the contemporary printed accounts of the whole ceremonies (cf. ch. xxiv). These do not add much to the printed descriptions of the mask-writers, on which, indeed, they are largely based. The fullest unofficial account was given by Chamberlain to Alice and Dudley Carleton in three letters (Birch, i. 224, 229; S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxii. 30, 31, 48). On 18 Feb. he wrote: ‘That night [of the wedding] was the Lords’ mask, whereof I hear no great commendation, save only for riches, their devices being long and tedious, and more like a play than a mask.’ This criticism he repeated in a letter to Winwood (iii. 435). To Alice Carleton he added, after describing the bravery of the Inns of Court: ‘All this time there was a course taken, and so notified, that no lady or gentlewoman should be admitted to any of these sights with a vardingale, which was to gain the more room, and I hope may serve to make them quite left off in time. And yet there were more scaffolds, and more provision made for room than ever I saw, both in the hall and banqueting room, besides a new room built to dine and dance in.’ On 25 February, when all was over, he reported: ‘Our revels and triumphs within doors gave great contentment, being both dainty and curious in devices and sumptuous in show, specially the inns of court, whose two masks stood them in better than £4000, besides the gallantry and expense of private gentlemen that were but ante ambul[at]ores and went only to accompany them.... The next night [21 Feb.] the King invited the maskers, with their assistants, to the number of forty, to a solemn supper in the new marriage room, where they were well treated and much graced with kissing her majesty’s hand, and every one having a particular accoglienza from him. The King husbanded this matter so well that this feast was not at his own cost, but he and his company won it upon a wager of running at the ring, of the prince and his nine followers, who paid £30 a man. The King, queen, prince, Palatine and Lady Elizabeth sat at table by themselves, and the great lords and ladies, with the maskers, above four score in all, sat at another long table, so that there was no room for them that made the feast, but they were fain to be lookers on, which the young Lady Rich took no great pleasure in, to see her husband, who was one that paid, not so much as drink for his money. The ambassadors that were at this wedding and shows were the French, Venetian, Count Henry [of Nassau] and Caron for the States. The Spaniard was or would be sick, and the archduke’s ambassador being invited for the second day, made a sullen excuse; and those that were present were not altogether so well pleased but that I hear every one had some punctilio of disgust.’ John Finett, in a letter of 22 Feb. to Carleton (S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxii. 32), says the mask of the Lords was ‘rich and ingenious’ and those of the Inns ‘much commended’. His letter is largely taken up with the ambassadorial troubles to which Chamberlain refers. Later he dealt with these in Philoxenis (1656), 1 (cf. Sullivan, 79). The chief marfeast was the archiducal ambassador Boiscot, who resented an invitation to the second or third day, while in the diplomatic absence through sickness of the Spaniard the Venetian ambassador was asked with the French for the first day. Finett was charged with various plausible explanations. James did not think it his business to decide questions of precedence. It was customary to group Venice and France. The Venetian had brought an extraordinary message of congratulation from his State, and had put his retinue into royal liveries at great expense. The wedding was a continuing feast, and all its days equally glorious. In fact, whether at Christmas or Shrovetide, the last day was in some ways the most honourable, and it had originally been planned to have the Lords’ mask on Shrove-Tuesday. But Boiscot could not be persuaded to accept his invitation. The ambassadors who did attend were troublesome, at supper, rather than at the mask. The French ambassador ‘made an offer to precede the prince’. His wife nearly left because she was placed below, instead of above, the Viscountesses. The Venetian claimed a chair instead of a stool, and a place above the carver, but in vain. His rebuff did not prevent him from speaking well of the Lords’ mask, which he called ‘very beautiful’, specially noting the three changes of scene.

Several financial documents relating to the mask are preserved (Reyher, 508, 522; Devon, 158, 164; Collier, i. 364; Hazlitt, E. D. S. 43; Archaeologia, xxvi. 380). In Abstract 14 the charges are given as £400, but the total charges must have been much higher. Chamberlain (vide supra) spoke of £1,500 as assigned to them. A list of personal fees, paid through Meredith Morgan, alone (Reyher, 509) amounts to £411 6_s._ 8_d._ Campion had £66 13_s._ 4_d._, Jones £50, the dancers Jerome Herne, Bochan, Thomas Giles and Confess £30 or £40 each, the musicians John Cooper, Robert Johnson, and Thomas Lupo £10 or £20 each. One Steven Thomas had £15, ‘he that played to y^e boyes’ £6 13_s._ 4_d._, and ‘2 that played to y^e Antick Maske’ £11; while fees of £1 each went to 42 musicians, 12 mad folks, 5 speakers, 10 of the King’s violins and 3 grooms of the chamber. The supervision of ‘emptions and provisions’ was entrusted to the Lord Chamberlain and the Master of the Horse.

The Caversham Entertainment. 27–8 April 1613

1613. A Relation of the late royall Entertainment giuen by the Right Honorable the Lord Knowles, at Cawsome-House neere Redding: to our most Gracious Queene, Queene Anne, in her Progresse toward the Bathe, vpon the seuen and eight and twentie dayes of Aprill. 1613. Whereunto is annexed the Description, Speeches and Songs of the Lords Maske, presented in the Banquetting-house on the Marriage night of the High and Mightie, Count Palatine, and the Royally descended the Ladie Elizabeth. Written by Thomas Campion. For John Budge.

On arrival were speeches, a song, and a dance by a Cynic, a Traveller, two Keepers, and two Robin Hood men at the park gate; then speeches in the lower garden by a Gardener, and a song by his man and boy; then a concealed song in the upper garden.

After supper was a mask in the hall by eight ‘noble and princely personages’ in green with vizards, accompanied by eight pages as torchbearers, and presented by the Cynic, Traveller, Gardener, and their ‘crew’, and Sylvanus. The maskers gave a ‘new dance’; then took out the ladies, among whom Anne ‘vouchsafed to make herself the head of their revels, and graciously to adorn the place with her personal dancing’; ‘much of the night being thus spent with variety of dances, the masquers made a conclusion with a second new dance’.

On departure were a speech and song by the Gardeners, and presents of a bag of linen, apron, and mantle by three country maids.

Chamberlain wrote of this entertainment to Winwood (iii. 454) on 6 May, ‘The King brought her on her way to Hampton Court; her next move was to Windsor, then to Causham, a house of the Lord Knolles not far from Reading, where she was entertained with Revells, and a gallant mask performed by the Lord Chamberlain’s four sons, the Earl of Dorset, the Lord North, Sir Henry Rich, and Sir Henry Carie, and at her parting presented with a dainty coverled or quilt, a rich carrquenet, and a curious cabinet, to the value in all of 1500^l.’ He seems to have sent a similar account in an unprinted letter of 29 April to Carleton (S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxii. 120). The four sons of Lord Chamberlain Suffolk who appear in other masks are Theophilus Lord Walden, Sir Thomas, Sir Henry, and Sir Charles Howard.

Lord Somerset’s Mask [Squires]. 26 Dec. 1613

1614. The Description of a Maske: Presented in the Banqueting roome at Whitehall, on Saint Stephens night last, At the Mariage of the Right Honourable the Earle of Somerset: And the right noble the Lady Frances Howard. Written by Thomas Campion. Whereunto are annexed diuers choyse Ayres composed for this Maske that may be sung with a single voyce to the Lute or Base-Viall. E. A. for Laurence Lisle.

The maskers were twelve Disenchanted Knights; the first antimaskers four Enchanters and Enchantresses, four Winds, four Elements, and four Parts of the Earth; the second antimaskers twelve Skippers in red and white; the presenters four Squires and three Destinies; the musicians Eternity, Harmony, and a chorus of nine.

The locality was the banqueting room at Whitehall, of which the upper part, ‘where the state is placed’, and the sides were ‘theatred’ with pillars and scaffolds. At the lower end was a triumphal arch, ‘which enclosed the whole works’ and behind it the scene, from which a curtain was drawn. Above was a clouded sky; beneath a sea bounded by two promontories bearing pillars of gold, and in front ‘a pair of stairs made exceeding curiously in form of a scallop shell’, between two gardens with seats for the maskers. After the first antimask, danced ‘in a strange kind of confusion’, the Destinies brought the Queen a golden tree, whence she plucked a bough to disenchant the Knights, who then appeared, six from a cloud, six from the golden pillars. The scene changed, and ‘London with the Thames is very artificially presented’. The maskers gave the first and second dance, and then danced with the ladies, ‘wherein spending as much time as they held fitting, they returned to the seats provided for them’. Barges then brought the second antimask. After the maskers’ last dance, the Squires complimented the royalties and bridal pair.

This was a wedding mask, by lords and gentlemen. The maskers were the Duke of Lennox, the Earls of Pembroke, Dorset, Salisbury, and Montgomery, the Lords Walden, Scroope, North, and Hay, Sir Thomas, Sir Henry, and Sir Charles Howard. The ‘workmanship’ was undertaken by ‘M. Constantine’ [Servi], ‘but he being too much of himself, and no way to be drawn to impart his intentions, failed so far in the assurance he gave that the main invention, even at the last cast, was of force drawn into a far narrower compass than was from the beginning intended’. One song was by Nicholas Lanier; three were by [Giovanni] Coprario and were sung by John Allen and Lanier. G. F. Biondi informed Carleton on 24 Nov. (S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxv. 25) of the ‘costly ballets’ preparing for Somerset’s wedding. On 25 Nov. Chamberlain wrote to Carleton (S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxv. 28; Birch, i. 278): ‘All the talk is now of masking and feasting at these towardly marriages, whereof the one is appointed on St. Stephen’s day, in Christmas, the other for Twelfthtide. The King bears the charge of the first, all saving the apparel, and no doubt the queen will do as much on her side, which must be a mask of maids, if they may be found.... The maskers, besides the lord chamberlain’s four sons, are named to be the Earls of Rutland, Pembroke, Montgomery, Dorset, Salisbury, the Lords Chandos, North, Compton, and Hay; Edward Sackville, that killed the Lord Bruce, was in the list, but was put out again; and I marvel he would offer himself, knowing how little gracious he is, and that he hath been assaulted once or twice since his return.’ The Queen’s entertainment, which did not prove to be a mask, was Daniel’s Hymen’s Triumph. The actual list of performers in the mask of 26 Dec. was somewhat differently made up. On 18 Nov. Lord Suffolk had sent invitations through Sir Thomas Lake to the Earl of Rutland and Lord Willoughby d’Eresby (S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxv. 15; Reyher, 505), but apparently neither accepted. He also wrote to Lake on 8 Dec. (S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxv. 37) hoping that Sackville might be allowed to take part, not in the mask, but in the tilt (as in fact he did), at his cousin’s wedding. On 30 Dec. Chamberlain sent Alice Carleton an accurate list of the actual maskers (S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxv. 53; Birch, i. 285), with the comment, ‘I hear little or no commendation of the mask made by the lords that night, either for device or dancing, only it was rich and costly’. The ‘great bravery’ and masks at the wedding are briefly recorded by Gawdy, 175, and a list of the festivities is given by Howes in Stowe, Annales (1615), 928. He records five in all: ‘A gallant maske of Lords’ [Campion’s] on 26 Dec., the wedding night, ‘a maske of the princes gentlemen’ on 29 Dec. and 3 Jan. [Jonson’s Irish Mask], ‘2 seuerall pleasant maskes’ at Merchant Taylors on 4 Jan. [including Middleton’s lost Mask of Cupid], and a Gray’s Inn mask on 6 Jan. [Flowers].

The ambassadorial complications of the year are described by Finett, 12 (cf. Sullivan, 84). Spain had been in the background at the royal wedding of the previous year, and as there was a new Spanish ambassador (Sarmiento) this was made an excuse for asking him with the archiducal ambassador on 26 Dec. and the French and Venetian ambassadors on 6 Jan. By way of compensation these were also asked to the Roxburghe-Drummond wedding on 2 Feb. They received purely formal invitations to the Somerset wedding, and returned excuses for staying away. The agents of Florence and Savoy were asked, and when they raised the question of precedence were told that they were not ambassadors and might scramble for places.

I am not quite clear whether the costs of this mask, as well as of Jonson’s Irish Mask, fell on the Exchequer. Chamberlain’s notice of 25 Nov. (vide supra) is not conclusive. Reyher, 523, assigns most of the financial documents to the Irish Mask, but an account of the Works for an arch and pilasters to the Lords’ mask; and the payment to Meredith Morgan in Sept. 1614 (S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxvii. 92), which he does not cite, appears from the Calendar to be for more than one mask. The Irish Mask needed no costly scenery.

J[ohn] B[ruce], (Camden Misc. v), describes a late eighteenth or early nineteenth century forgery, of unknown origin, purporting to describe one of the masks at the Somerset wedding and other events. The details used belong partly to 1613–14 and partly to 1614–15.

ELIZABETH, LADY CARY (1586–1639).

Mariam. 1602 < > 5.

I have omitted a notice of this closet play, printed in 1613, by a slip, and can only add to the edition (M. S. C.) of 1914 that Lady Cary was married in 1602 (Chamberlain, 199), not 1600. She wrote an earlier play on a Syracusan theme.

SIR ROBERT CECIL, EARL OF SALISBURY (1563–1612).

But few details of the numerous royal entertainments given by Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and his sons Sir Thomas Cecil, Lord Burghley and afterwards Earl of Exeter, and Sir Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, are upon record. It is, on the whole, convenient to note here, rather than in ch. xxiv, those which have a literary element. Robert Cecil contributed to that of 1594, and possibly to others.

i. Theobalds Entertainment of 1571 (William Lord Burghley).

Elizabeth was presented with verses and a picture of the newly-finished house on 21 Sept. 1571 (Haynes-Murdin, ii. 772).

ii. Theobalds Entertainment of 1591 (William Lord Burghley).

Elizabeth came for 10–20 May 1591, and knighted Robert Cecil.

(a) Strype, Annals, iv. 108, and Nichols, Eliz. iii. 75, print a mock charter, dated 10 May 1591, and addressed by Lord Chancellor Hatton, in the Queen’s name, ‘To the disconsolate and retired spryte, the Heremite of Tybole’, in which he is called upon to return to the world.

(b) Collier, i. 276, followed by Bullen, Peele, ii. 305, prints from a MS. in the collection of Frederic Ouvry a Hermit’s speech, subscribed with the initials G. P. and said by Collier to be in Peele’s hand. This is a petition to the Queen for a writ to cause the founder of the hermit’s cell to restore it. This founder has himself occupied it for two years and a few months since the death of his wife, and has obliged the hermit to govern his house. Numerous personal allusions make it clear that the ‘founder’ is Burghley, and as Lady Burghley died 4 April 1589, the date should be in 1591.

(c) Bullen, Peele, ii. 309, following Dyce, prints two speeches by a Gardener and a Mole Catcher, communicated by Collier to Dyce from another MS. The ascription to Peele is conjectural, and R. W. Bond, Lyly, i. 417, claims them, also by conjecture, for Lyly. However this may be, they are addressed to the Queen, who has reigned thirty-three years, and introduce the gift of a jewel in a box. Elizabeth had not reigned full thirty-three years in May 1591, but perhaps near enough. That Theobalds was the locality is indicated by a reference to Pymms at Edmonton, a Cecil property 6 miles from Theobalds, as occupied by ‘the youngest son of this honourable old man’. One is bound to mistrust manuscripts communicated by Collier, but there is evidence that Burghley retired to ‘Colling’s Lodge’ near Theobalds in grief at his wife’s death in 1589, and also that in 1591, when he failed to establish Robert Cecil as Secretary, he made a diplomatic pretence of giving up public life (Hume, The Great Lord Burghley, 439, 446).

iii. Theobalds Entertainment of 1594 (William Lord Burghley).

The Hermit was brought into play again when Elizabeth next visited Theobalds, in 1594 (13–23 June). He delivered an Oration, in which he recalled the recovery of his cell at her last coming, and expressed a fear that ‘my young master’ might wish to use it. No doubt the alternative was that Robert Cecil should become Secretary. The oration, ‘penned by Sir Robert Cecill’, is printed by Nichols, Eliz. iii. 241, from Bodl. Rawlinson MS. D 692 (Bodl. 13464), f. 106.

iv. Wimbledon Entertainment of 1599 (Thomas Lord Burghley).

A visit of 27–30 July 1599 is the probable occasion for an address of welcome, not mimetic in character, by a porter, John Joye, preserved in Bodl. Tanner MS. 306, f. 266, and endorsed ‘The queenes entertainment att Wimbledon 99’.

v. Cecil House Entertainment of 1602 (Sir Robert Cecil).

Elizabeth dined with Cecil on 6 Dec. 1602.

(a) Manningham, 99, records, ‘Sundry devises; at hir entraunce, three women, a maid, a widdowe, and a wife, each commending their owne states, but the Virgin preferred; an other, on attired in habit of a Turke desyrous to see hir Majestie, but as a straunger without hope of such grace, in regard of the retired manner of hir Lord, complained; answere made, howe gracious hir Majestie in admitting to presence, and howe able to discourse in anie language; whiche the Turke admired, and, admitted, presents hir with a riche mantle.’ Chamberlain, 169, adds, ‘You like the Lord Kepers devises so ill, that I cared not to get Mr. Secretaries that were not much better, saving a pretty dialogue of John Davies ’twixt a Maide, a widow, and a wife.’ A Contention Betwixt a Wife, a Widdow, and a Maide was registered on 2 Apr. 1604 (Arber iii. 258), appeared with the initials I. D. in Francis Davison’s Poetical Rhapsody (ed. 2, 1608) and is reprinted by Grosart in the Poems of Sir John Davies (q.v.) from the ed. of 1621, where it is ascribed to ‘Sir I. D.’.

(b) Nichols, Eliz. iii. 76, prints from Harl. MS. 286, f. 248, ‘A Conference betweene a Gent. Huisher and a Poet, before the Queene, at M^r. Secretaryes House. By John Davies.’ He assigns it to 1591, but Cecil was not then Secretary, and it probably belongs to 1602.

(c) Hatfield MSS. xii. 568 has verses endorsed ‘1602’ and beginning ‘Now we have present made, To Cynthya, Phebe, Flora’.

vi. Theobalds Entertainment of 1606 (Earl of Salisbury).

See s.v. Jonson; also the mask described by Harington (ch. v).

vii. Theobalds Entertainment of 1607 (Earl of Salisbury).

See s.v. Jonson.

GEORGE CHAPMAN (c. 1560–1634).

Chapman was born in 1559 or 1560 near Hitchin in Hertfordshire. Anthony Wood believed him to have been at Oxford, and possibly also at Cambridge, but neither residence can be verified. It is conjectured that residence at Hitchin and soldiering in the Low Countries may have helped to fill the long period before his first appearance as a writer, unless indeed the isolated translation Fedele and Fortunio (1584) is his, with The Shadow of Night (1594). This shows him a member of the philosophical circle of which the centre was Thomas Harriot. The suggestion of W. Minto that he was the ‘rival poet’ of Shakespeare’s Sonnets is elaborated by Acheson, who believes that Shakespeare drew him as Holophernes and as Thersites, and accepted by Robertson; it would be more plausible if any relation between the Earl of Southampton and Chapman, earlier than a stray dedication shared with many others in 1609, could be established. By 1596, and possibly earlier, Chapman was in Henslowe’s pay as a writer for the Admiral’s. His plays, which proved popular, included, besides the extant Blind Beggar of Alexandria and Humorous Day’s Mirth, five others, of which some and perhaps all have vanished. These were The Isle of a Woman, afterwards called The Fount of New Fashions (May–Oct. 1598), The World Runs on Wheels, afterwards called All Fools but the Fool (Jan.–July 1599), Four Kings (Oct. 1598–Jan. 1599), a ‘tragedy of Bengemens plotte’ (Oct.–Jan. 1598; cf. s.v. Jonson) and a pastoral tragedy (July 1599). His reputation both for tragedy and for comedy was established when Meres wrote his Palladis Tamia in 1598. During 1599 Chapman disappears from Henslowe’s diary, and in 1600 or soon after began his series of plays for the Chapel, afterwards Queen’s Revels, children. This lasted until 1608, when his first indiscretion of Eastward Ho! (1605), in reply to which he was caricatured as Bellamont in Dekker and Webster’s Northward Ho!, was followed by a second in Byron. He now probably dropped his connexion with the stage, at any rate for many years. After completing Marlowe’s Hero and Leander in 1598, he had begun his series of Homeric translations, and these Prince Henry, to whom he had been appointed sewer in ordinary at the beginning of James’s reign, now bade him pursue, with the promise of £300, to which on his death-bed in 1612 he added another of a life-pension. These James failed to redeem, and Chapman also lost his place as sewer. His correspondence contains complaints of poverty, probably of this or a later date, and indications of an attempt, with funds supplied by a brother, to mend his fortunes by marriage with a widow. He found a new patron in the Earl of Somerset, wrote one of the masks for the wedding of the Princess Elizabeth in 1613, and went on with Homer, completing his task in 1624. He lived until 12 May 1634, and his tomb by Inigo Jones still stands at St. Giles-in-the-Fields. In his later years he seems to have touched up some of his dramatic work and possibly to have lent a hand to the younger dramatist Shirley. Jonson told Drummond in 1619 that ‘next himself, only Fletcher and Chapman could make a mask’, and that ‘Chapman and Fletcher were loved of him’ (Laing, 4, 12), and some of Jonson’s extant letters appear to confirm the kindly relations which these phrases suggest. But a fragment of invective against Jonson left by Chapman on his death-bed suggests that they did not endure for ever.

Collections

1873. [R. H. Shepherd.] The Comedies and Tragedies of George Chapman. 3 vols. (Pearson reprints). [Omits Eastward Ho!]

1874–5. R. H. Shepherd. The Works of George Chapman. 3 vols. [With Swinburne’s essay. Includes The Second Maiden’s Tragedy and Two Wise Men and All the Rest Fools.]

1895. W. L. Phelps. The Best Plays of George Chapman (Mermaid Series). [All Fools, the two Bussy and the two Byron plays.]

1910–14. T. M. Parrott. The Plays and Poems of George Chapman. 3 vols. [Includes Sir Giles Goosecap, The Ball, Alphonsus Emperor of Germany, and Revenge for Honour. The Poems not yet issued.]

Dissertations: F. Bodenstedt, C. in seinem Verhältniss zu Shakespeare (1865, Jahrbuch, i. 300); A. C. Swinburne, G. C.: A Critical Essay (1875); E. Koeppel, Quellen-Studien zu den Dramen G. C.’s, &c. (1897, Quellen und Forschungen, lxxxii); B. Dobell, Newly discovered Documents of the Elizabethan and Jacobean Periods (1901, Ath. i. 369, 403, 433, 465); A. Acheson, Shakespeare and the Rival Poet (1903); E. E. Stoll, On the Dates of some of C.’s Plays (1905, M. L. N. xx. 206); T. M. Parrott, Notes on the Text of C.’s Plays (1907, Anglia, xxx. 349, 501); F. L. Schoell, Chapman as a Comic Writer (1911, Paris diss., unprinted, but used by Parrott); J. M. Robertson, Shakespeare and C. (1917).

PLAYS

The Blind Beggar of Alexandria. 1596

S. R. 1598, Aug. 15. ‘A booke intituled The blynde begger of Alexandrya, vppon Condicon thatt yt belonge to noe other man.’ William Jones (Arber, iii. 124).

1598. The Blinde begger of Alexandria, most pleasantly discoursing his variable humours in disguised shapes full of conceite and pleasure. As it hath beene sundry times publickly acted in London, by the right honorable the Earle of Nottingham, Lord high Admirall his seruantes. By George Chapman: Gentleman. For William Jones.

The play was produced by the Admiral’s on 12 Feb. 1596; properties were bought for a revival in May and June 1601. P. A. Daniel shows in Academy (1888), ii. 224, that five of the six passages under the head of Irus in Edward Pudsey’s Notebook, taken in error by R. Savage, Stratford upon Avon Notebooks, i. 7 (1888) to be from an unknown play of Shakespeare, appear with slight variants in the 1598 text. This, which is very short, probably represents a ‘cut’ stage copy. Pudsey is traceable as an actor (cf. ch. xv) in 1626.

An Humorous Day’s Mirth. 1597

1599. A pleasant Comedy entituled: An Numerous dayes Myrth. As it hath beene sundrie times publikely acted by the right honourable the Earle of Nottingham Lord high Admirall his seruants. By G. C. Valentine Syms.

The 1598 inventories of the Admiral’s (Greg, Henslowe Papers, 115, 119) include Verone’s son’s hose and Labesha’s cloak, which justifies Fleay, i. 55, in identifying the play with the comedy of Humours produced by that company on 1 May 1597. It is doubtless also the play of which John Chamberlain wrote to Dudley Carleton (Chamberlain, 4) on 11 June 1597, ‘We have here a new play of humors in very great request, and I was drawne along to it by the common applause, but my opinion of it is (as the fellow saide of the shearing of hogges), that there was a great crie for so litle wolle.’

The Gentleman Usher. 1602 (?)

[MS.] For an unverified MS. cf. s.v. Monsieur D’Olive.

S. R. 1605, Nov. 26 (Harsnett). ‘A book called Vincentio and Margaret.’ Valentine Syms (iii. 305).

1606. The Gentleman Usher. By George Chapman. V. S. for Thomas Thorpe.

Edition by T. M. Parrott (1907, B. L.).--Dissertation: O. Cohn, Zu den Quellen von C.’s G. U. (1912, Frankfort Festschrift, 229).

There is no indication of a company, but the use of a mask and songs confirm the general probability that the play was written for the Chapel or Revels. It was later than Sir Giles Goosecap (q.v.), to the title-rôle of which II. i. 81 alludes, but of this also the date is uncertain. Parrott’s ‘1602’ is plausible enough, but 1604 is also possible.

All Fools. 1604 (?)

1605. Al Fooles A Comedy, Presented at the Black Fryers, And lately before his Maiestie. Written by George Chapman. For Thomas Thorpe. [Prologue and Epilogue. The copies show many textual variations.]

Editions in Dodsley^{2, 3} (1780–1827) and by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. ii) and T. M. Parrott (1907, B. L.).--Dissertation: M. Stier, C.’s All Fools mit Berücksichtigung seiner Quellen (1904, Halle diss.).

The Court performance was on 1 Jan. 1605 (cf. App. B), and the play was therefore probably on the Blackfriars stage in 1604. There is a reminiscence of Ophelia’s flowers in II. i. 232, and the prologue seems to criticize the Poetomachia.

Who can show cause why th’ ancient comic vein Of Eupolis and Cratinus (now reviv’d Subject to personal application) Should be exploded by some bitter spleens.

But in Jan.–July 1599 Henslowe paid Chapman £8 10_s._ on behalf of the Admiral’s for The World Runs on Wheels. The last entry is for ‘his boocke called the world Rones a whelles & now all foolles but the foolle’. This seems to me, more clearly than to Greg (Henslowe, ii. 203), to indicate a single play and a changed title. I am less certain, however, that he is right in adopting the view of Fleay, i. 59, that it was an earlier version of the Blackfriars play. It may be so, and the date of ‘the seventeenth of November, fifteen hundred and so forth’ used for a deed in IV. i. 331 lends some confirmation. But the change of company raises a doubt, and there is no ‘fool’ in All Fools. An alternative conjecture is that the Admiral’s reverted to the original title for their play, leaving a modification of the amended one available for Chapman in 1604. Collier (Dodsley^3) printed a dedicatory sonnet to Sir Thomas Walsingham. This exists only in a single copy, in which it has been printed on an inserted leaf. T. J. Wise (Ath. 1908, i. 788) and Parrott, ii. 726, show clearly that it is a forgery.

Monsieur D’Olive. 1604

[MS.] See infra.

1606. Monsieur D’Olive. A Comedie, as it was sundrie times acted by her Majesties children at the Blacke-Friers. By George Chapman. T. C. for William Holmes.

Edition by C. W. Dilke (1814, O. E. P. iii).

The title-page suggests a Revels rather than a Chapel play, and Fleay, i. 59, Stoll, and Parrott all arrive at 1604 for the date, which is rendered probable by allusions to the Jacobean knights (I. i. 263; IV. ii. 77), to the calling in of monopolies (I. i. 284), to the preparation of costly embassies (IV. ii. 114), and perhaps to the royal dislike of tobacco (II. ii. 164). There is a reminiscence of Hamlet, III. ii. 393, in II. ii. 91:

our great men Like to a mass of clouds that now seem like An elephant, and straightways like an ox, And then a mouse.

On the inadequate ground that woman’s ‘will’ is mentioned in II. i. 89, Fleay regarded the play as a revision of one written by Chapman for the Admiral’s in 1598 under the title of The Will of a Woman. But Greg (Henslowe, ii. 194) interprets Henslowe’s entry ‘the iylle of a woman’ as The Isle of Women. The 1598 play seems to have been renamed The Fount of New Fashions. Hazlitt, Manual, 89, 94, says part Heber’s sale included MSS. both of The Fount of New Fashions, and of The Gentleman Usher under the title of The Will of a Woman, but Greg could not find these in the sale catalogue.

Bussy D’Ambois. 1604

S. R. 1607, June 3 (Buck). ‘The tragedie of Busye D’Amboise. Made by George Chapman.’ William Aspley (Arber, iii. 350).

1607. Bussy D’Ambois. A Tragedie: As it hath been often presented at Paules. For William Aspley.

1608. For William Aspley. [Another issue.]

1641. As it hath been often Acted with great Applause. Being much corrected and amended by the Author before his death. A. N. for Robert Lunne. [Prologue and Epilogue.]

1646. T. W. for Robert Lunne. [Another issue.]

1657.... the Author, George Chapman, Gent. Before his death. For Joshua Kirton. [Another issue.]

Editions by C. W. Dilke (1814, O. E. P. iii), F. S. Boas (1905, _B. L._), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).--Dissertation: T. M. Parrott, The Date of C.’s B. d’A. (1908, M. L. R. iii. 126).

The play was acted by Paul’s, who disappear in 1606. It has been suggested that it dates in some form from 1598 or earlier, because Pero is a female character, and an Admiral’s inventory of 1598 (Henslowe Papers, 120) has ‘Perowes sewt, which W^m Sley were’. As Sly had been a Chamberlain’s man since 1594, this must have been a relic of some obsolete play. But the impossible theory seems to have left a trace on the suggestion of Greg (Henslowe, ii. 198) that Chapman may have worked on the basis of the series of plays on The Civil Wars of France written by Dekker (q.v.) and others for the Admiral’s at a later date in 1598 than that of the inventories. From one of these plays, however, might come the reminiscence of a ‘trusty Damboys’ in Satiromastix (1601), IV. i. 174. For Bussy itself a jest on ‘leap-year’ (I. ii. 82) points to either 1600 or 1604, and allusions to Elizabeth as an ‘old queen’ (I. ii. 12), to a ‘knight of the new edition’ (I. ii. 124), with which may be compared Day, Isle of Gulls (1606), i. 3, ‘gentlemen ... of the best and last edition, of the Dukes own making’, and to a ‘new denizened lord’ (I. ii. 173) point to 1604 rather than 1600. The play was revived by the King’s men and played at Court on 7 April 1634 (Variorum, iii. 237), and to this date probably belongs the prologue in the edition of 1641. Here the actors declare that the piece, which evidently others had ventured to play, was

known, And still believed in Court to be our own.

They add that

Field is gone, Whose action first did give it name,

and that his successor (perhaps Taylor) is prevented by his grey beard from taking the young hero, which therefore falls to a ‘third man’ who has been liked as Richard. Gayton, Festivous Notes on Don Quixote (1654), 25, tells us that Eliard Swanston played Bussy; doubtless he is the third man. The revision of the text, incorporated in the 1641 edition, may obviously date either from this or for some earlier revival. It is not necessary to assume that the performances by Field referred to in the prologue were earlier than 1616, when he joined the King’s. Parrott, however, makes it plausible that they might have been for the Queen’s Revels at Whitefriars in 1609–12, about the time when the Revenge was played by the same company. If so, the Revels must have acquired Bussy after the Paul’s performances ended in 1606. It is, of course, quite possible that they were only recovering a play originally written for them, and carried by Kirkham to Paul’s in 1605.

Eastward Ho! 1605

With Jonson and Marston.

S. R. 1605, Sept. 4 (Wilson). ‘A Comedie called Eastward Ho:’ William Aspley and Thomas Thorp (Arber, iii. 300).

1605. Eastward Hoe. As It was playd in the Black-friers. By The Children of her Maiesties Reuels. Made by Geo: Chapman. Ben Ionson. Ioh: Marston. For William Aspley. [Prologue and Epilogue. Two issues (a) and (b). Of (a) only signatures E_{3} and E_{4} exist, inserted between signatures E_{2} and E_{3} of a complete copy of (b) in the Dyce collection; neither Greg, Masques, cxxii, nor Parrott, Comedies, 862, is quite accurate here.]

1605. For William Aspley. [Another edition, reset.]

Editions in Dodsley^{1, 2, 3} (1744–1825), by W. R. Chetwood in Memoirs of Ben Jonson (1756), W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. ii), F. E. Schelling (1903, B. L.), J. W. Cunliffe (1913, R. E. C. ii), J. S. Farmer (1914, S. F. T.); and with Marston’s Works (q.v.).--Dissertations: C. Edmonds, The Original of the Hero in the Comedy of E. H. (Athenaeum, 13 Oct. 1883); H. D. Curtis, Source of the Petronel-Winifred Plot in E. H. (1907, M. P. v. 105).

Jonson told Drummond in 1619 (Laing, 20): ‘He was dilated by Sir James Murray to the King, for writing something against the Scots, in a play Eastward Hoe, and voluntarly imprissoned himself with Chapman and Marston, who had written it amongst them. The report was, that they should then [have] had their ears cut and noses. After their delivery, he banqueted all his friends; there was Camden, Selden, and others; at the midst of the feast his old Mother dranke to him, and shew him a paper which she had (if the sentence had taken execution) to have mixed in the prisson among his drinke, which was full of lustie strong poison, and that she was no churle, she told, she minded first to have drunk of it herself.’ The Hatfield MSS. contain a letter (i) from Jonson (Cunningham, Jonson, i. xlix), endorsed ‘1605’, to the Earl of Salisbury, created 4 May 1605. Another copy is in the MS. described by B. Dobell, with ten other letters, of which Dobell, followed by Schelling, prints three by Jonson, (ii) to an unnamed lord, probably Suffolk, (iii) to an unnamed earl, (iv) to an unnamed ‘excellentest of Ladies’, and three by Chapman, (v) to the King, (vi) to Lord Chamberlain Suffolk, (vii) to an unnamed lord, probably also Suffolk. These, with four others by Chapman not printed, have no dates, but all, with (i), seem to refer to the same joint imprisonment of the two poets. In (i) Jonson says that he and Chapman are in prison ‘unexamined and unheard’. The cause is a play of which ‘no man can justly complain’, for since his ‘first error’ and its ‘bondage’ [1597] Jonson has ‘attempered my style’ and his books have never ‘given offence to a nation, to a public order or state, or to any person of honour or authority’. The other letters add a few facts. In (v) Chapman says that the ‘chief offences are but two clawses, and both of them not our owne’; in (vi) that ‘our unhappie booke was presented without your Lordshippes allowance’; and in (vii) that they are grateful for an expected pardon of which they have heard from Lord Aubigny. Castelain, Jonson, 901, doubts whether this correspondence refers to Eastward Ho!, chiefly because there is no mention of Marston, and after hesitating over Sejanus, suggests Sir Giles Goosecap (q.v.), which is not worth consideration. Jonson was in trouble for Sejanus (q.v.), but on grounds not touched on in these letters, and Chapman was not concerned. I feel no doubt that the imprisonment was that for Eastward Ho! Probably Drummond was wrong about Marston, who escaped. His ‘absence’ is noted in the t.p. of Q_{2} of The Fawn (1606), and chaffed by A. Nixon, The Black Year (1606): ‘Others ... arraign other mens works ... when their own are sacrificed in Paul’s Churchyard, for bringing in the Dutch Courtesan to corrupt English conditions and sent away westward for carping both at court, city, and country.’ Evidently Jonson and Chapman, justly or not, put the blame of the obnoxious clauses upon him, and renewed acrimony against Jonson may be traced in his Epistles of 1606. I am inclined to think that it was the publication of the play in the autumn of 1605, rather than its presentation on the stage, that brought the poets into trouble. This would account for the suppression of a passage reflecting upon the Scots (III. iii. 40–7) which appeared in the first issue of Q_{1} (cf. Parrott, ii. 862). Other quips at the intruding nation, at James’s liberal knightings, and even at his northern accent (I. ii. 50, 98; II. iii. 83; IV. i. 179) appear to have escaped censure. Nor was the play as a whole banned. It passed to the Lady Elizabeth’s, who revived it in 1613 (Henslowe Papers, 71) and gave it at Court on 25 Jan. 1614 (cf. App. B). There seems to be an allusion to Suffolk’s intervention in Chapman’s gratulatory verses to Sejanus (1605):

Most Noble Suffolke, who by Nature Noble, And judgement vertuous, cannot fall by Fortune, Who when our Hearde, came not to drink, but trouble The Muses waters, did a Wall importune, (Midst of assaults) about their sacred River.

The imprisonment was over by Nov. 1605, when Jonson (q.v.) was employed about the Gunpowder plot. I put it and the correspondence in Oct. or Nov. The play may have been staged at any time between that and the staging of Dekker and Webster’s Westward Hoe, late in 1604, to which its prologue refers. Several attempts have been made to divide up the play. Fleay, ii. 81, gives Marston I. i-II. i, Chapman II. ii-IV. i, Jonson IV. ii-V. iv. Parrott gives Marston I. i-II. ii, IV. ii, V. i, Chapman II. iii-IV. i, Jonson the prologue and V. ii-v. Cunliffe gives Marston I, III. iii and V. i, the rest to Chapman, and nothing to Jonson but plotting and supervision. All make III. iii a Chapman scene, so that, if Chapman spoke the truth, Marston must have interpolated the obnoxious clauses.

May Day. c. 1609

1611. May Day. A witty Comedie, diuers times acted at the Blacke Fryers. Written by George Chapman. For John Browne.

Edition by C. W. Dilke (1814, O. E. P. iv).--Dissertation: A. L. Stiefel, G. C. und das italienische Drama (1899, Jahrbuch, xxxv. 180).

The chorus iuvenum with which the play opens fixes it to the occupancy of the Blackfriars by the Chapel and Revels in 1600–9. Parrott suggests 1602 on the ground of reminiscences of 1599–1601 plays, of which the most important is a quotation in IV. i. 18 of Marston’s 2 Antonio and Mellida (1599), V. ii. 20. But the force of this argument is weakened by the admission of a clear imitation in I. i. 378 sqq. of ch. v. of Dekker’s Gull’s Hornbook (1609), which it seems to me a little arbitrary to explain by a revision. The other reasons given by Fleay, i. 57, for a date c. 1601 are fantastic. So is his suggestion that the play is founded on the anonymous Disguises produced by the Admiral’s on 2 Oct. 1595, which, as pointed out by Greg (Henslowe, ii. 177), rests merely on the fact that the title would be appropriate.

The Widow’s Tears. 1603 < > 9

S. R. 1612, Apr. 17. John Browne [see The Revenge of Bussy D’Ambois].

1612. The Widdowes Teares. A Comedie. As it was often presented in the blacke and white Friers. Written by Geor: Chap. For John Browne. [Epistle to Jo. Reed of Mitton, Gloucestershire, signed ‘Geo. Chapman’.]

Edition in Dodsley^{1, 2, 3} (1744–1827).

The play was given at Court on 27 Feb. 1613, but the reference on the title-page to Blackfriars shows that it was originally produced by the Chapel or Revels not later than 1609 and probably before Byron (1608). Wallace, ii. 115, identifies it with the Chapel play seen by the Duke of Stettin in 1602 (cf. ch. xii), but Gerschow’s description in no way, except for the presence of a widow, fits the plot. The reference to the ‘number of strange knights abroad’ (iv. 1. 28) and perhaps also that to the crying down of monopolies (I. i. 125) are Jacobean, rather than Elizabethan (cf. M. d’Olive). Fleay, i. 61, and Parrott think that the satire of justice in the last act shows resentment at Chapman’s treatment in connexion with Eastward Ho!, and suggest 1605. It would be equally sound to argue that this is just the date when Chapman would have been most careful to avoid criticism of this kind. The Epistle says, ‘This poor comedy (of many desired to see printed) I thought not utterly unworthy that affectionate design in me’.

Charles, Duke of Byron. 1608

S. R. 1608, June 5 (Buck). ‘A booke called The Conspiracy and Tragedie of Charles Duke of Byronn written by Georg Chapman.’ Thomas Thorp (Arber, iii. 380).

1608. The Conspiracie, And Tragedie of Charles Duke of Byron, Marshall of France. Acted lately in two playes, at the Black-Friers. Written by George Chapman. G. Eld for Thomas Thorpe. [Epistle to Sir Thomas and Thomas Walsingham, signed ‘George Chapman’, and Prologue. Half-title to Part II, ‘The Tragedie of Charles Duke of Byron. By George Chapman.’]

1625.... at the Blacke-Friers, and other publique Stages.... N. O. for Thomas Thorpe. [Separate t.p. to Part II.]

Dissertation: T. M. Parrott, The Text of C.’s Byron (1908, M. L. R. iv. 40).

There can be no doubt (cf. vol. ii, p. 53) that this is the play denounced by the French ambassador, Antoine Lefèvre de la Boderie, in the following letter to Pierre Brulart de Puisieux, Marquis de Sillery, on 8 April 1608 (printed by J. J. Jusserand in M. L. R. vi. 203, from Bibl. Nat. MS. Fr. 15984):

‘Environ la micaresme ces certains comédiens à qui j’avois fait deffendre de jouer l’histoire du feu mareschal de Biron, voyant toutte la cour dehors, ne laissèrent de le faire, et non seulement cela, mais y introduisirent la Royne et Madame de Verneuil, la première traitant celle-cy fort mal de paroles, et luy donnant un soufflet. En ayant eu advis de-là à quelques jours, aussi-tost je m’en allay trouver le Comte de Salsbury et luy fis plainte de ce que non seulement ces compaignons-là contrevenoient à la deffense qui leur avoit esté faicte, mais y adjoustoient des choses non seulement plus importantes, mais qui n’avoient que faire avec le mareschal de Biron, et au partir de-là estoient toutes faulses, dont en vérité il se montra fort courroucé. Et dès l’heure mesme envoya pour les prendre. Toutteffois il ne s’en trouva que trois, qui aussi-tost furent menez en la prison où ilz sont encore; mais le principal qui est le compositeur eschapa. Un jour ou deux devant, ilz avoient dépêché leur Roy, sa mine d’Escosse et tous ses Favorits d’une estrange sorte; [in cipher car apres luy avoir fait dépiter le ciel sur le vol d’un oyseau, et faict battre un gentilhomme pour avoir rompu ses chiens, ilz le dépeignoient ivre pour le moins une fois le jour. Ce qu’ayant sçu, je pensay qu’il seroit assez en colère contre lesdits commédiens, sans que je l’y misse davantage, et qu’il valoit mieux référer leur châtiment à l’irrévérence qu’ilz lui avoient portée, qu’à ce qu’ilz pourroient avoir dit desdites Dames], et pour ce, je me résolus de n’en plus parler, mais considérer ce qu’ilz firent. Quand ledit Sieur Roy a esté icy, il a tesmoigné estre extrèmement irrité contre ces maraults-là, et a commandé qu’ilz soient chastiez et surtout qu’on eust à faire diligence de trouver le compositeur. Mesme il a fait deffense que l’on n’eust plus à jouer de Comédies dedans Londres, pour lever laquelle deffense quatre autres compagnies qui y sont encore, offrent desja cent mille francs, lesquels pourront bien leur en redonner la permission; mais pour le moins sera-ce à condition qu’ilz ne représenteront plus aucune histoire moderne ni ne parleront des choses du temps à peine de la vie. Si j’eusse creu qu’il y eust eu de la suggestion en ce qu’avoient dit lesdits comédiens, j’en eusse fait du bruit davantage; mais ayant tout subjet d’estimer le contraire, j’ay pensay que le meilleur estoit de ne point le remuer davantage, et laisser audit Roy la vengeance de son fait mesme. Touttefois si vous jugez de-là, Monsieur; que je n’y aye fait assez, il est encore temps.’

In M. L. Review, iv. 158, I reprinted a less good text from Ambassades de M. De La Boderie (1750), iii. 196. The letter is often dated 1605 and ascribed to De La Boderie’s predecessor, M. de Beaumont, on the strength of a summary in F. L. G. von Raumer, History of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ii. 219. The text has been ruthlessly censored; in particular the peccant scene has been cut out of Act II of Part ii, and most of Act IV of Part i, dealing with Byron’s visit to England, has been suppressed or altered. The Epistle offers ‘these poor dismembered poems’, and they are probably the subject of two undated and unsigned letters printed by Dobell in Ath. (1901), i. 433. The first, to one Mr. Crane, secretary to the Duke of Lennox, inquires whether the writer can leave a ‘shelter’ to which ‘the austeritie of this offended time’ has sent him. The other is by ‘the poor subject of your office’ and evidently addressed to the Master of the Revels, and complains of his strictness in revising for the press what the Council had passed for presentment. Worcester’s men had an anonymous play of Byron (Burone or Berowne) in 1602, and Greg (Henslowe, ii. 231) thinks that to this Chapman’s may have borne some relation. But Chapman’s source was Grimeston, General Inventorie of the History of France (1607).

The Revenge of Bussy D’Ambois. c. 1610

S. R. 1612, Apr. 17 (Buck). ‘Twoo play bookes, th’ one called, The revenge of Bussy D’Amboys, beinge a tragedy, thother called, The wydowes teares, beinge a Comedy, bothe written by George Chapman.’ Browne (Arber, iii. 481). [Only a 6_d._ fee charged for the two.]

1613. The Revenge of Bussy D’Ambois. A Tragedie. As it hath beene often presented at the priuate Play-house in the White-Fryers. Written by George Chapman, Gentleman. T. S., sold by Iohn Helme. [Epistle to Sir Thomas Howard, signed ‘Geo. Chapman’.]

Edition by F. S. Boas (1905, B. L.).

Boas has shown that Chapman used Grimeston, General Inventorie of the History of France (1607). Probably the play was written for the Queen’s Revels to accompany Bussy. But whether it was first produced at Whitefriars in 1609–12, or at Blackfriars in 1608–9, can hardly be settled. The title-page and the probability that the Byron affair would render it judicious to defer further plays by Chapman rather point to the Whitefriars. The Epistle commends the play because ‘Howsoever therefore in the scenical presentation it might meet with some maligners, yet considering even therein it passed with approbation of more worthy judgments’.

Chabot Admiral of France, c. 1613 (?)

S. R. 1638, Oct. 24 (Wykes). ‘A Booke called Phillip Chalbott Admirall of France and the Ball. By James Shirley. vj^d.’ Crooke and William Cooke (Arber, iv. 441).

1639. The Tragedie of Chabot Admirall of France. As it was presented by her Majesties Servants, at the private House in Drury Lane. Written by George Chapman, and James Shirly. Tho. Cotes for Andrew Crooke and William Cooke.

Edition by E. Lehman (1906, Pennsylvania Univ. Publ.).

The play was licensed by Herbert as Shirley’s on 29 April 1635 (Variorum, iii. 232). But critics agree in finding much of Chapman in it, and suppose Shirley to have been a reviser rather than a collaborator. Parrott regards I. i, II. iii, and V. ii as substantially Chapman; II. i and III. i as substantially Shirley; and the rest as Chapman revised. He suggests that Chapman’s version was for the Queen’s Revels c. 1613. Fleay, ii. 241, put it in 1604, but it cannot be earlier than the 1611 edition of its source, E. Pasquier, Les Recherches de la France.

Caesar and Pompey, c. 1613 (?)

S. R. 1631, May 18 (Herbert). ‘A Playe called Caesar and Pompey by George Chapman.’ Harper (Arber, iv. 253).

1631. The Warres of Pompey and Caesar. Out of whose euents is euicted this Proposition. Only a iust man is a freeman. By G. C. Thomas Harper, sold by Godfrey Emondson, and Thomas Alchorne. [Epistle to the Earl of Middlesex, signed ‘Geo. Chapman’.]

1631.... Caesar and Pompey: A Roman Tragedy, declaring their Warres.... By George Chapman. Thomas Harper [&c.]. [Another issue.]

1653.... As it was Acted at the Black Fryers.... [Another issue.]

Chapman says that the play was written ‘long since’ and ‘never touched at the stage’. Various dates have been conjectured; the last, Parrott’s 1612–13, ‘based upon somewhat intangible evidence of style and rhythm’ will do as well as another. Parrott is puzzled by the 1653 title-page and thinks that, in spite of the Epistle, the play was acted. Might it not have been acted by the King’s after the original publication in 1631? Plays on Caesar were so common that it is not worth pursuing the suggestion of Fleay, i. 65, that fragments of the Admiral’s anonymous Caesar and Pompey of 1594–5 may survive here.

Doubtful and Lost Plays

Chapman’s lost plays for the Admiral’s men of 1598–9 have already been noted. Two plays, ‘The Fatall Love, a French Tragedy’, and ‘A Tragedy of a Yorkshire Gentlewoman and her sonne’, were entered as his in the S. R. by Humphrey Moseley on 29 June 1660 (Eyre, ii. 271). They appear, without Chapman’s name, in Warburton’s list of burnt plays (W. W. Greg in 3 Library, ii. 231). The improbable ascriptions to Chapman of The Ball (1639) and Revenge for Honour (1654) on their t.ps. and of Two Wise Men and All the Rest Fools (1619) by Kirkman in 1661 do not inspire confidence in this late entry, and even if they were Chapman’s, the plays were not necessarily of our period. But it has been suggested that Fatal Love may be the anonymous Charlemagne (q.v.). J. M. Robertson assigns to Chapman A Lover’s Complaint, accepts the conjecture of Minto and Acheson that he was the ‘rival poet’ of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, believes him to be criticized in the Holophernes of L. L. L. and regards him as the second hand of Timon of Athens, and with varying degrees of assurance as Shakespeare’s predecessor, collaborator or reviser, in Per., T. C., Tp., Ham., Cymb., J. C., T. of S., Hen. VI, Hen. V, C. of E., 2 Gent., All’s Well, M. W., K. J., Hen. VIII. These are issues which cannot be discussed here. The records do not suggest any association between Chapman and the Chamberlain’s or King’s men, except possibly in Caroline days.

For other ascriptions to Chapman, see in ch. xxiv, Alphonsus, Fedele and Fortunio, Sir Giles Goosecap, Histriomastix, and Second Maiden’s Tragedy.

MASK

Middle Temple and Lincoln’s Inn Mask. 15 Feb. 1613

S. R. 1613, 27 Feb. (Nidd). ‘A booke called the [description] of the maske performed before the kinge by the gent. of the Myddle temple and Lincolns Inne with the maske of Grayes Inne and the Inner Temple.’ George Norton (Arber, iii. 516).

N.D. The Memorable Maske of the two Honorable Houses or Inns of Court; the Middle Temple, and Lyncolnes Inne. As it was performed before the King, at White-Hall on Shroue Munday at night; being the 15. of February 1613. At the princely Celebration of the most Royall Nuptialls of the Palsgraue, and his thrice gratious Princesse Elizabeth, &c. With a description of their whole show; in the manner of their march on horse-backe to the Court from the Maister of the Rolls his house: with all their right Noble consorts, and most showfull attendants. Inuented, and fashioned, with the ground, and speciall structure of the whole worke, By our Kingdomes most Artfull and Ingenious Architect Innigo Iones. Supplied, Aplied, Digested, and Written, By Geo. Chapman. G. Eld for George Norton. [Epistle by Chapman to Sir Edward Philips, Master of the Rolls, naming him and Sir Henry Hobart, the Attorney-General, as furtherers of the mask; after text, A Hymne to Hymen. R. B. McKerrow, Bibl. Evidence (Bibl. Soc. Trans. xii. 267), shows the priority of this edition. Parts of the description are separated from the speeches to which they belong, with an explanation that Chapman was ‘prevented by the unexpected haste of the printer, which he never let me know, and never sending me a proofe till he had past their speeches, I had no reason to imagine hee could have been so forward’.]

N.D. F. K. for George Norton.

Edition in Nichols, James (1828), ii. 566.

The maskers, in cloth of silver embroidered with gold, olive-coloured vizards, and feathers on their heads, were Princes of Virginia; the torchbearers also Virginians; the musicians Phoebades or Priests of Virginia; the antimaskers a ‘mocke-maske’ of Baboons; the presenters Plutus, Capriccio a Man of Wit, Honour, Eunomia her Priest, and Phemis her Herald.

The locality was the Hall at Whitehall, whither the maskers rode from the house of the Master of the Rolls, with their musicians and presenters in chariots, Moors to attend their horses, and a large escort of gentlemen and halberdiers. They dismounted in the tiltyard, where the King and lords beheld them from a gallery. The scene represented a high rock, which cracked to emit Capriccio, and had the Temple of Honour on one side, and a hollow tree, ‘the bare receptacle of the baboonerie’, on the other. After ‘the presentment’ and the ‘anticke’ dance of the ‘ante-maske’, the top of the rock opened to disclose the maskers and torchbearers in a mine of gold under the setting sun. They descended by steps within the rock. First the torchbearers ‘performed another ante-maske, dancing with torches lighted at both ends’. Then the maskers danced two dances, followed by others with the ladies, and finally a ‘dance, that brought them off’ to the Temple of Honour.

For general notices of the wedding masks, see ch. xxiv and the account of Campion’s Lords’ mask. The German Beschreibung (1613) gives a long abstract of Chapman’s (extract in Sh.-Jahrbuch, xxix. 172), but this is clearly paraphrased from the author’s own description. It was perhaps natural for Sir Edward Philips to write to Carleton on 25 Feb. (S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxii. 46) that this particular mask was ‘praised above all others’. But Chamberlain is no less laudatory (Birch, i. 226):

‘On Monday night, was the Middle Temple and Lincoln’s Inn mask prepared in the hall at court, whereas the Lords’ was in the banqueting room. It went from the Rolls, all up Fleet Street and the Strand, and made such a gallant and glorious show, that it is highly commended. They had forty gentlemen of best choice out of both houses, and the twelve maskers, with their torchbearers and pages, rode likewise upon horses exceedingly well trapped and furnished, besides a dozen little boys, dressed like baboons, that served for an antimask, and, they say, performed it exceedingly well when they came to it; and three open chariots, drawn with four horses apiece, that carried their musicians and other personages that had parts to speak. All which, together with their trumpeters and other attendants, were so well set out, that it is generally held for the best show that hath been seen many a day. The King stood in the gallery to behold them, and made them ride about the Tilt-yard, and then they were received into St. James’ Park, and so out, all along the galleries, into the hall, where themselves and their devices, which they say were excellent, made such a glittering show, that the King and all the company were exceedingly pleased, and especially with their dancing, which was beyond all that hath been seen yet. The King made the masters [? maskers] kiss his hand on parting, and gave them many thanks, saying, he never saw so many proper men together, and himself accompanied them at the banquet, and took care it should be well ordered, and speaks much of them behind their backs, and strokes the Master of the Rolls and Dick Martin, who were chief doers and undertakers.’

Chamberlain wrote more briefly, but with equal commendation, to Winwood (iii. 435), while the Venetian ambassador reported that the mask was danced ‘with such finish that it left nothing to be desired’ (V. P. xii. 532).

The mask is but briefly noticed in the published records of the Middle Temple (Hopwood, 40, 42); more fully in those of Lincoln’s Inn (Walker, ii. 150–6, 163, 170, 198, 255, 271). The Inn’s share of the cost was £1,086 8_s._ 11_d._ and presumably that of the Middle Temple as much. A levy was made of from £1 10_s._ to £4, according to status, and some of the benchers and others advanced funds. A dispute about the repayment of an advance by Lord Chief Justice Richardson was still unsettled in 1634. An account of Christopher Brooke as ‘Expenditour for the maske’ includes £100 to Inigo Jones for works for the hall and street, £45 to Robert Johnson for music and songs, £2 to Richard Ansell, matlayer, £1 to the King’s Ushers of the Hall, and payments for a pair of stockings and other apparel to ‘Heminge’s boy’, and for the services of John and Robert Dowland, Philip Rosseter and Thomas Ford as musicians. The attitude of the young lawyer may be illustrated from a letter of Sir S. Radcliffe on 1 Feb. (Letters, 78), although I do not know his Inn: ‘I have taken up 30^s of James Singleton, which or y^e greater part thereof is to be paid toward y^e great mask at y^e marriage at Shrovetide. It is a duty for y^e honour of our Inn, and unto which I could not refuse to contribute with any credit.’

A letter by Chapman, partly printed by B. Dobell in Ath. (1901), i. 466, is a complaint to an unnamed paymaster about his reward for a mask given in the royal presence at a date later than Prince Henry’s death. While others of his faculty got 100 marks or £50, he is ‘put with taylors and shoomakers, and such snipperados, to be paid by a bill of particulars’. Dobell does not seem to think that this was the wedding mask, but I see no clear reason why it should not have been.

HENRY CHEKE (c. 1561).

If the translator, as stated in D. N. B., was Henry the son of Sir John Cheke and was born c. 1548, he must have been a precocious scholar.

Free Will > 1561

S. R. 1561, May 11. ‘ij. bokes, the one called ... and the other of Frewill.’ John Tysdayle (Arber, i. 156).

N.D. A certayne Tragedie wrytten fyrst in Italian, by F. N. B. entituled, Freewyl, and translated into Englishe, by Henry Cheeke. John Tisdale. [Epistles to Lady Cheyne, signed H. C., and to the Reader. Cheyne arms on v^o of t.p.]

The translation is from the Tragedia del Libero Arbitrio (1546) of Francesco Nigri de Bassano. It is presumably distinct from that which Sir Thomas Hoby in his Travaile and Life (Camden Misc. x. 63) says he made at Augsburg in Aug.–Nov. 1550, and dedicated to the Marquis of Northampton.

HENRY CHETTLE (c. 1560–> 1607).

Chettle was apprenticed, as the son of Robert Chettle of London, dyer, to Thomas East, printer, on 29 Sept. 1577, and took up the freedom of the Stationers’ Company on 6 Oct. 1584. During 1589–91 he was in partnership as a printer with John Danter and William Hoskins. The partnership was then dissolved, and Chettle’s imprint is not found on any book of later date (McKerrow, Dictionary, 68, 84, 144). But evidently his connexion with the press and with Danter continued, for in 1596 Nashe inserted into Have With You to Saffron Walden (Works, iii. 131) a letter from him offering to set up the book and signed ‘Your old Compositer, Henry Chettle’. Nashe’s Strange News (1592) and Terrors of the Night (1594) had come, like Have With You to Saffron Walden itself, from Danter’s press. The object of the letter was to defend Nashe against a charge in Gabriel Harvey’s Pierce’s Supererogation (1593) of having abused Chettle. He had in fact in Pierce Penilesse (1592) called Greenes Groats-worth of Wit ‘a scald triuial lying pamphlet’, and none of his doing. And of the Groats-worth Chettle had acted as editor, as he himself explains in the Epistle to his Kind Hearts Dream (cf. App. C, No. xlix), in which, however, he exculpates Nashe from any share in the book. By 1595 he was married and had lost a daughter Mary, who was buried at St. John’s, Windsor (E. Ashmole, Antiquities of Berkshire, iii. 75). By 1598 he had taken to writing for the stage, and in his Palladis Tamia of that year Meres includes him in ‘the best for Comedy amongst vs’. Of all Henslowe’s band of needy writers for the Admiral’s and Worcester’s from 1598 to 1603, he was the most prolific and one of the neediest. Of the forty-eight plays in which he had a hand during this period, no more than five, or possibly six, survive. His personal loans from Henslowe were numerous and often very small. Some were on account of the Admiral’s; others on a private account noted in the margin of Henslowe’s diary. On 16 Sept. 1598 he owed the Admiral’s £8 9_s._ in balance, ‘al his boockes & recknynges payd’. In Nov. 1598 he had loans ‘for to areste one with Lord Lester’. In Jan. 1599 he was in the Marshalsea, and in May borrowed to avoid arrest by one Ingrome. On 25 Mar. 1602 he was driven, apparently in view of a payment of £3, to seal a bond to write for the Admiral’s. This did not prevent him from also writing for Worcester’s in the autumn. More than once his manuscript had to be redeemed from pawn (Greg, Henslowe, ii. 250). His England’s Mourning Garment, a eulogy of Elizabeth, is reprinted in C. M. Ingleby, Shakespere Allusion-Books, Part i (N. S. S. 1874), 77. Herein he speaks of himself as ‘courting it now and than’, when he was ‘yong, almost thirtie yeeres agoe’, and calls on a number of poets under fanciful names to sing the dead queen’s praise. They are Daniel, Warner, Chapman (Coryn), Jonson (our English Horace), Shakespeare (Melicert), Drayton (Coridon), Lodge (Musidore), Dekker (Antihorace), Marston (Moelibee), and Petowe (?). Chettle was therefore alive in 1603, but he is spoken of as dead in Dekker’s Knight’s Conjuring (1607).

PLAYS

The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon. 1598

The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon. 1598

For Chettle’s relation to these two plays, see s.v. Munday.

Patient Grissel. 1600

With Dekker (q.v.) and Haughton.

1 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green. 1600

With Day (q.v.).

Sir Thomas Wyatt. 1602

With Dekker (q.v.), Heywood, Smith, and Webster, as Lady Jane, or The Overthrow of Rebels, but whether anything of Chettle’s survives in the extant text is doubtful.

Hoffman or A Revenge for a Father. 1602 <

S. R. 1630, Feb. 26 (Herbert). ‘A play called Hoffman the Revengfull ffather.’ John Grove (Arber, iv. 229).

1631. The Tragedy of Hoffman or A Reuenge for a Father, As it hath bin diuers times acted with great applause, at the Phenix in Druery-lane. I. N. for Hugh Perry. [Epistle to Richard Kiluert, signed ‘Hvgh Perry’.]

Editions by H. B. L[eonard] (1852), R. Ackermann (1894), and J. S. Farmer (1913, S. F. T.).--Dissertations: N. Delius, _C.’s H. und Shakespeare’s Hamlet_ (1874, Jahrbuch, ix. 166); A. H. Thorndike, The Relations of Hamlet to Contemporary Revenge Plays (1902, _M. L. A._ xvii. 125).

Henslowe paid Chettle, on behalf of the Admiral’s, £1 in earnest of ‘a Danyshe tragedy’ on 7 July 1602, and 5_s._ in part payment for a tragedy of ‘Howghman’ on 29 Dec. It seems natural to take the latter, and perhaps also the former, entry as relating to this play, although it does not bear Chettle’s name on the title-page. But its completion was presumably later than the termination of Henslowe’s record in 1603. Greg (Henslowe, ii. 226) rightly repudiates the suggestion of Fleay, i. 70, 291, that we are justified in regarding Hoffman the unnamed tragedy of Chettle and Heywood in Jan. 1603, for which a blank can of course afford no evidence. But ‘the Prince of the burning crowne’ is referred to in Kempe’s Nine Daies Wonder, 22, not as a ‘play’, but as a suggested theme for a ballad writer.

Doubtful and Lost Plays

Chettle’s hand has been suggested in the anonymous Trial of Chivalry (vide infra) and The Weakest Goeth to the Wall.

The following is a complete list of the plays, wholly or partly by Chettle, recorded in Henslowe’s diary.

(a) Plays for the Admiral’s, 1598–1603

(i), (ii) 1, 2 Robin Hood.

With Munday (q.v.), Feb.–Mar. and Nov. 1598.

(iii) The Famous Wars of Henry I and the Prince of Wales.

With Dekker (q.v.) and Drayton, Mar. 1598.

(iv), (v) 1, 2 Earl Godwin and His Three Sons.

With Dekker, Drayton, and Wilson, March-June 1598.

(vi) Pierce of Exton.

With Dekker, Drayton, and Wilson, April 1598, but apparently not finished.

(vii), (viii) 1, 2 Black Bateman of the North.

With Wilson, and for Part 1, Dekker and Drayton, May–July 1598.

(ix) The Funeral of Richard Cœur-de-Lion.

With Drayton, Munday, and Wilson, June 1598.

(x) A Woman’s Tragedy.

July 1598, but apparently unfinished.

(xi) Hot Anger Soon Cold.

With Jonson and Porter, Aug. 1598.

(xii) Chance Medley.

By Chettle or Dekker, Drayton, Munday, and Wilson, Aug. 1598.

(xiii) Catiline’s Conspiracy.

With Wilson, Aug. 1598, but apparently not finished.

(xiv) Vayvode.

Apparently an old play revised by Chettle, Aug. 1598.

(xv) 2 Brute.

Sept.–Oct. 1598.

(xvi) ’Tis no Deceit to Deceive the Deceiver.

Nov. 1598, but apparently not finished.

(xvii) Polyphemus, or Troy’s Revenge.

Feb. 1599.

(xviii) The Spencers.

With Porter, March 1599.

(xix) Troilus and Cressida.

With Dekker (q.v.), April 1599.

(xx) Agamemnon, or Orestes Furious.

With Dekker, May 1599.

(xxi) The Stepmother’s Tragedy.

With Dekker, Aug.–Oct. 1599.

(xxii) Robert II or The Scot’s Tragedy.

With Dekker, Jonson, and possibly Marston (q.v.), Sept. 1599.

(xxiii) Patient Grissell.

With Dekker (q.v.) and Haughton, Oct.–Dec. 1599.

(xxiv) The Orphan’s Tragedy.

Nov. 1599–Sept. 1601, but apparently not finished, unless Greg rightly traces it in Yarington’s Two Lamentable Tragedies (q.v.).

(xxv) The Arcadian Virgin.

With Haughton, Dec. 1599, but apparently not finished.

(xxvi) Damon and Pythias.

Feb.–May 1600.

(xxvii) The Seven Wise Masters.

With Day, Dekker, and Haughton, March 1600.

(xxviii) The Golden Ass, or Cupid and Psyche.

With Day and Dekker, April-May 1600; on possible borrowings from this, cf. s.v. Heywood, Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas.

(xxix) The Wooing of Death.

May 1600, but apparently not finished.

(xxx) 1 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green.

With Day (q.v.), May 1600.

(xxxi) All Is Not Gold That Glisters.

March-April 1601.

(xxxii) King Sebastian of Portingale.

With Dekker, April-May 1601.

(xxxiii), (xxxiv) 1, 2 Cardinal Wolsey.

Apparently Chettle wrote a play on The Life of Cardinal Wolsey in June–Aug. 1601, to which was afterwards prefixed a play on The Rising of Cardinal Wolsey, by Chettle, Drayton, Munday, and Smith, written in Aug.–Nov. 1601 (cf. Greg, Henslowe, ii. 218). Chettle was ‘mendynge’ The Life in May–June 1602, and on 25 July Richard Hadsor wrote to Sir R. Cecil of the attainder of the Earl of Kildare’s grandfather ‘by the policy of Cardinal Wolsey, as it is set forth and played now upon the stage in London’ (Hatfield MSS. xii. 248).

(xxxv) Too Good To Be True.

With Hathway and Smith, Nov. 1601–Jan. 1602; the alternative title ‘or Northern Man’ in one of Henslowe’s entries is a forgery by Collier (cf. Greg, Henslowe, i. xliii).

(xxxvi) Friar Rush and the Proud Women of Antwerp.

Written by Day and Haughton in 1601 and mended by Chettle in Jan. 1602.

(xxxvii) Love Parts Friendship.

With Smith, May 1602; identified by Bullen with the anonymous Trial of Chivalry (q.v.).

(xxxviii) Tobias.

May–June 1602.

(xxxix) Hoffman.

July–Dec. 1602, but apparently not finished. Vide supra.

(xl) Felmelanco.

With Robensone (q.v.), Sept. 1602.

(xli), (xlii) 1, 2 The London Florentine.

Part 1 with Heywood, Dec. 1602–Jan. 1603; one payment had been made to Chettle for Part 2 before the diary entries stopped.

(xliii) [Unnamed play].

‘for a prologe & a epyloge for the corte’, 29 Dec. 1602.

(b) Plays for Worcester’s, 1602–3

(xliv) [Unnamed play. Collier’s Robin Goodfellow is forged].

A tragedy, Aug. 1602, but perhaps not finished, unless identical, as suggested by Greg (Henslowe, ii. 229), with the anonymous Byron.

(xlv) 1 Lady Jane, or The Overthrow of Rebels.

With Dekker (q.v.), Heywood, Smith, and Webster, Oct. 1602.

(xlvi) Christmas Comes but Once a Year.

With Dekker, Heywood, and Webster, Nov. 1602.

(xlvii) [Unnamed play. Collier’s Like Quits Like is forged].

With Heywood, Jan. 1603, but apparently not finished, or possibly identical, as suggested by Greg (Henslowe, ii. 235), with (xlviii).

(xlviii) Shore.

With Day, May 1603, but not finished before the diary ended.

THOMAS CHURCHYARD (1520?-1604).

The best account of Churchyard is that by H. W. Adnitt in Shropshire Arch. Soc. Trans. iii (1880), 1, with a bibliography of his numerous poems. For his share in the devices of the Bristol entertainment (1574) and the Suffolk and Norfolk progress (1578), of both of which he published descriptions, cf. ch. xxiv. He was also engaged by the Shrewsbury corporation to prepare a show for an expected but abandoned royal visit in 1575 (Mediaeval Stage, ii. 255). His A Handful of Gladsome Verses given to the Queenes Maiesty at Woodstocke this Prograce (1592) is reprinted in H. Huth and W. C. Hazlitt, Fugitive Tracts (1875), i. It is not mimetic. His own account of his work in Churchyard’s Challenge (1593) suggests that he took a considerable part in Elizabethan pageantry. He says that he wrote:

‘The deuises of warre and a play at Awsterley. Her Highnes being at Sir Thomas Greshams’,

and

‘The deuises and speeches that men and boyes shewed within many prograces’.

And amongst ‘Workes ... gotten from me of some such noble friends as I am loath to offend’ he includes:

‘A book of a sumptuous shew in Shrouetide, by Sir Walter Rawley, Sir Robart Carey, M. Chidley, and M. Arthur Gorge, in which book was the whole seruice of my L. of Lester mencioned that he and his traine did in Flaunders, and the gentlemen Pencioners proued to be a great peece of honor to the Court: all which book was in as good verse as euer I made: an honorable knight, dwelling in the Black-Friers, can witness the same, because I read it vnto him.’

The natural date for this ‘shew’ is Shrovetide 1587. I do not know why Nichols, Eliz. ii. 279, dates the Osterley device 1579. Elizabeth was often there, but I find no evidence of a visit in 1579. Lowndes speaks of the work as in print, but I doubt whether he has any authority beyond Churchyard’s own notice, which does not prove publication.

ANTHONY CHUTE (ob. c. 1595).

Nashe in his Have With You to Saffron Walden (1596, Works, iii. 107), attacking Chute as a friend of Gabriel Harvey, says, ‘he hath kneaded and daub’d vp a Commedie, called The transformation of the King of Trinidadoes two Daughters, Madame Panachaea and the Nymphe Tobacco; and, to approue his Heraldrie, scutchend out the honorable Armes of the smoakie Societie’. I hesitate to take this literally.

GEORGE CLIFFORD (1558–1605).

George Clifford was born 8 Aug. 1558, succeeded as third Earl of Cumberland 8 Jan. 1570, and died 30 Oct. 1605. A recent biography is G. C. Williamson, George, Third Earl of Cumberland (1920). He married Margaret Russell, daughter of Francis, second Earl of Bedford, on 24 June 1577. His daughter, Anne Clifford, who left an interesting autobiography, married firstly Richard, third Earl of Dorset, and secondly Philip, fourth Earl of Pembroke. Cumberland was prominent in Elizabethan naval adventure and shone in the tilt. He is recorded as appearing on 17 Nov. 1587 (Gawdy, 25) and 26 Aug. 1588 (Sp. P. iv. 419). On 17 Nov. 1590 he succeeded Sir Henry Lee (q.v.) as Knight of the Crown. Thereafter he was the regular challenger for the Queen’s Day tilt, often with the assistance of the Earl of Essex. On 17 Nov. 1592 they came together armed into the privy chamber, and issued a challenge to maintain against all comers on the following 26 Feb. ‘that ther M. is most worthyest and most fayrest Amadis de Gaule’ (Gawdy, 67). Cumberland’s tiltyard speeches, as Knight of Pendragon Castle, in 1591 (misdated 1592) and 1593 are printed by Williamson, 108, 121, from manuscripts at Appleby Castle.

His appearance as Knight of the Crown on 17 Nov. 1595 is noted in Peele’s (q.v.) Anglorum Feriae. In F. Davison’s Poetical Rhapsody (1602, ed. Bullen, ii. 128) is an ode Of Cynthia, with the note ‘This Song was sung before her sacred Maiestie at a shew on horse-backe, wherwith the right Honorable the Earle of Cumberland presented her Highnesse on Maie day last’. This is reprinted by R. W. Bond (Lyly, i. 414) with alternative ascriptions to Lyly and to Sir John Davies. But Cumberland himself wrote verses. I do not know why Bullen and Bond assume that the show was on 1 May 1600. The Cumberland MSS. at Bolton, Yorkshire, once contained a prose speech, now lost, in the character of a melancholy knight, headed ‘A Copie of my Lord of Combrlandes Speeche to y^e Queene, upon y^e 17 day of November, 1600’. This was printed by T. D. Whitaker, History of Craven (1805, ed. Morant, 1878, p. 355), and reprinted by Nichols, Eliz. iii. 522, and by Bond, Lyly, i. 415, with a conjectural attribution to Lyly. In 1601 Cumberland conveyed to Sir John Davies a suggestion from Sir R. Cecil that he should write a ‘speech for introduction of the barriers’ (Hatfield MSS. xi. 544), and in letters of 1602 he promised Cecil to appear at the tilt on Queen’s Day, but later tried to excuse himself on the ground that a damaged arm would not let him carry a staff (Hatfield MSS. xii. 438, 459, 574). Anne Clifford records ‘speeches and delicate presents’ at Grafton when James and Anne visited the Earl there on 27 June 1603 (Wiffen, ii. 71).

JO. COOKE (c. 1612).

Beyond his play, practically nothing is known of Cooke. It is not even clear whether ‘Jo.’ stands for John, or for Joshua; the latter is suggested by the manuscript ascription on a copy of the anonymous How a Man may Choose a Good Wife from a Bad (q.v.). Can Cooke be identical with the I. Cocke who contributed to Stephens’s Characters in 1615 (cf. App. C, No. lx)? Collier, iii. 408, conjectures that he was a brother John named, probably as dead, in the will (3 Jan. 1614) of Alexander Cooke the actor (cf. ch. xv). There is an entry in S. R. on 22 May 1604 of a lost ‘Fyftie epigrams written by J. Cooke Gent’, and a ‘I. Cooke’ wrote commendatory verses to Drayton’s Legend of Cromwell (1607).

Greenes Tu Quoque or The City Gallant. 1611

1614. Greene’s Tu quoque, or, The Cittie Gallant. As it hath beene diuers times acted by the Queenes Maiesties Seruants. Written by Io. Cooke, Gent. For John Trundle. [Epistle to the Reader, signed ‘Thomas Heywood’, and a couplet ‘Upon the Death of Thomas Greene’, signed ‘W. R.’]

1622. For Thomas Dewe.

N.D. M. Flesher.

Editions in Dodsley^{1–4} (1744–1875) and by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. ii) and J. S. Farmer (1913, S. F. T.).

Heywood writes ‘to gratulate the love and memory of my worthy friend the author, and my entirely beloved fellow the actor’, both of whom were evidently dead. Satire of Coryat’s Crudities gives a date between its publication in 1611 and the performances of the play by the Queen’s men at Court on 27 Dec. 1611 and 2 Feb. 1612 (cf. App. B). In Aug. 1612 died Thomas Greene, who had evidently played Bubble at the Red Bull (ed. Dodsley, p. 240):

Geraldine. Why, then, we’ll go to the Red Bull: they say Green’s a good clown.

Bubble. Green! Green’s an ass.

Scattergood. Wherefore do you say so?

Bubble. Indeed I ha’ no reason; for they say he is as like me as ever he can look.

Chetwood’s assertion of a 1599 print is negligible. The Queen of Bohemia’s men revived the play at Court on 6 Jan. 1625 (Variorum, iii. 228).

AQUILA CRUSO (c. 1610).

Author of the academic Euribates Pseudomagus (cf. App. K).

ROBERT DABORNE (?-1628).

Daborne claimed to be of ‘generous’ descent, and it has been conjectured that he belonged to a family at Guildford, Surrey. Nothing is known of him until he appears with Rosseter and others as a patentee for the Queen’s Revels in 1610. Presumably he wrote for this company, and when they amalgamated with the Lady Elizabeth’s in 1613 came into relations with Henslowe, who acted as paymaster for the combination. The Dulwich collection contains between thirty and forty letters, bonds, and receipts bearing upon these relations. A few are undated; the rest extend from 17 April 1613 to 4 July 1615. Most of them were printed by Malone (Variorum, iii. 336), Collier (Alleyn Papers, 56), and Swaen (Anglia, xx. 155), and all, with a stray fragment from Egerton MS. 2623, f. 24, are in Greg, Henslowe Papers, 65, 126. There and in Henslowe, ii. 141, Dr. Greg attempts an arrangement of them and of the plays to which they relate, which seems to me substantially sound. They show Daborne, during the twelve months from April 1613, to which they mainly belong, writing regularly for the Lady Elizabeth’s, but prepared at any moment to sell a play to the King’s if he can get a better bargain. Lawsuits and general poverty made him constantly desirous of obtaining small advances from Henslowe, and on one occasion he was in the Clink. In the course of the year he was at work on at least five plays (vide infra), alone or in co-operation now with Tourneur, now with Field, Massinger, and Fletcher. Modern conjectures have assigned him some share in plays of the Beaumont and Fletcher series which there is no external evidence to connect with his name. However this may be, it is clear that, unless his activity in 1613–14 was abnormal, he must have written much of which we know nothing. He is still traceable in connexion with the stage up to 1616, giving a joint bond with Massinger in Aug. 1615, receiving an acquittance of debts through his wife Francisce from Henslowe on his death-bed in Jan. 1616 (Henslowe, ii. 20), and witnessing the agreement between Alleyn and Meade and Prince Charles’s men on the following 20 March. But he must have taken orders by 1618, when he published a sermon, and he became Chancellor of Waterford in 1619, Prebendary of Lismore in 1620, and Dean of Lismore in 1621. On 23 March 1628 he ‘died amphibious by the ministry’ according to The Time Poets (Choice Drollery, 1656, sig. B).

Collection

1898–9. A. E. H. Swaen in Anglia, xx. 153; xxi. 373.

Dissertation: R. Boyle, D.’s Share in the Beaumont and Fletcher Plays (1899, E. S. xxvi. 352).

A Christian Turned Turk. 1609 < > 12

S. R. 1612, Feb. 1 (Buck). ‘A booke called A Christian turned Turke, or the tragicall lyffes and deathes of the 2 famous pyrates Ward and Danseker, as it hath bene publiquely acted written by Robert Daborn gent.’ William Barrenger (Arber, iii. 476).

1612. A Christian turn’d Turke: or, The Tragicall Liues and Deaths of the two Famous Pyrates, Ward and Dansiker. As it hath beene publickly Acted. Written by Robert Daborn, Gentleman. For William Barrenger. [Epistle by Daborne to the Reader, Prologue and Epilogue.]

This may, as Fleay, i. 83, says, be a Queen’s Revels play, but he gives no definite proof, and if it is the ‘unwilling error’ apologized for in the epilogue to Mucedorus (1610), it is more likely to proceed from the King’s men. It appears to be indebted to pamphlets on the career of its heroes, printed in 1609. The Epistle explains the publishing of ‘this oppressed and much martird Tragedy, not that I promise to my selfe any reputation hereby, or affect to see my name in Print, vsherd with new praises, for feare the Reader should call in question their iudgements that giue applause in the action; for had this wind moued me, I had preuented others shame in subscribing some of my former labors, or let them gone out in the diuels name alone; which since impudence will not suffer, I am content they passe together; it is then to publish my innocence concerning the wrong of worthy personages, together with doing some right to the much-suffering Actors that hath caused my name to cast it selfe in the common rack of censure’. I do not know why the play should have been ‘martir’d’, but incidentally Daborne seems to be claiming a share in Dekker’s If It be not Good, the Devil is in It (1612).

The Poor Man’s Comfort, c. 1617 (?)

[MS.] Egerton MS. 1994, f. 268.

[Scribal signature ‘By P. Massam’ at end.]

S. R. 1655, June 20. ‘A booke called The Poore Mans comfort, a Tragicomedie written by Robert Dawborne, M^r of Arts.’ John Sweeting (Eyre, i. 486).

1655. The Poor-Mans Comfort. A Tragi-Comedy, As it was diuers times Acted at the Cockpit in Drury Lane with great applause. Written by Robert Dauborne Master of Arts. For Rob: Pollard and John Sweeting. [Prologue, signed ‘Per E. M.’]

The stage-direction to l. 186 is ‘Enter 2 Lords, Sands, Ellis’. Perhaps we have here the names of two actors, Ellis Worth, who was with Anne’s men at the Cockpit in 1617–19, and Gregory Sanderson, who joined the same company before May, 1619. But there is also a James Sands, traceable as a boy of the King’s in 1605. The performances named on the title-page are not necessarily the original ones and the play may have been produced by the Queen’s at the Red Bull, but 1617 is as likely a date as another, and when a courtier says of a poor man’s suit (l. 877) that it is ‘some suit from porters hall, belike not worth begging’, there may conceivably be an allusion to attempts to preserve the Porter’s Hall theatre from destruction in the latter year. In any case, Daborne is not likely to have written the play after he took orders.

Doubtful and Lost Plays

The Henslowe correspondence appears to show Daborne as engaged between 17 April 1613 and 2 April 1614 on the following plays:

(a) Machiavel and the Devil (17 April-c. 25 June 1613), possibly, according to Fleay and Greg, Henslowe, ii. 152, based on the old Machiavel revived by Strange’s men in 1592.

(b) The Arraignment of London, probably identical with The Bellman of London (5 June–9 Dec. 1613), with Cyril Tourneur, possibly, as Greg, Henslowe Papers, 75, suggests, based on Dekker’s tract, The Bellman of London (1608).

(c) An unnamed play with Field, Massinger, and Fletcher, the subject of undated correspondence (Henslowe Papers, 65 and possibly 70, 84) and possibly also of dated letters of July 1613 (H. P. 74).

(d) The Owl (9 Dec. 1613–28 March 1614). A comedy of this name is in Archer’s list of 1656, but Greg, Masques, xcv, thinks that Jonson’s Mask of Owls may be meant.

(e) The She Saint (2 April 1614).

Daborne has been suggested as a contributor to the Cupid’s Revenge, Faithful Friends, Honest Man’s Fortune, Thierry and Theodoret, and later plays of the Beaumont (q.v.) and Fletcher series, and attempts have been made to identify more than one of these with (c) above.

SAMUEL DANIEL (c. 1563–1619).

Daniel was born in Somerset, probably near Taunton, about 1563. His father is said to have been John Daniel, a musician; he certainly had a brother John, of the same profession. In 1579 he entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford, but took no degree. He visited France about January 1585 and sent an account of political affairs from the Rue St. Jacques to Walsingham in the following March (S. P. F. xix. 388). His first work was a translation of the Imprese of Paulus Jovius (1585). In 1586 he served Sir Edward Stafford, the English ambassador in Paris, and as a young man visited Italy. He was domesticated at Wilton, and under the patronage of Mary, Lady Pembroke, wrote his sonnets to Delia, the publication of which, partial in 1591 and complete in 1592, gave him a considerable reputation as a poet. The attempt of Fleay, i. 86, to identify Delia with Elizabeth Carey, daughter of Sir George Carey, afterwards Lord Hunsdon, breaks down. Nashe in The Terrors of the Night (1594, ed. McKerrow, i. 342) calls her a ‘second Delia’, and obviously the first was not, as Fleay suggests, Queen Elizabeth, but the heroine of the sonnets. Delia dwelt on an Avon, but the fact that in 1602 Lord Hunsdon took the waters at Bath does not give him a seat on the Avon there. Lady Pembroke’s Octavia (q.v.) inspired Daniel’s book-drama Cleopatra (1594). Other poems, notably The History of the Civil Wars (1595), followed. Tradition makes Daniel poet laureate after Spenser’s death in 1599. There was probably no such post, but it is clear from verses prefixed to a single copy (B.M.C. 21, 2, 17) of the Works of 1601, which are clearly addressed to Elizabeth, and not, as Grosart, i. 2, says, Anne, that he had some allowance at Court:

I, who by that most blessed hand sustain’d, In quietnes, do eate the bread of rest. (Grosart, i. 9.)

Possibly, however, this grant was a little later than 1599. Daniel acted as tutor to Anne Clifford, daughter of the Earl of Cumberland, at Skipton Castle, probably by 1599, when he published his Poetical Essays, which include an Epistle to Lady Cumberland. It might have been either Herbert or Clifford influence which brought him into favour with Lady Bedford and led to his selection as poet for the first Queen’s mask at the Christmas of 1603. No doubt this preference aroused jealousies, and to about this date one may reasonably assign Jonson’s verse-letter to Lady Rutland (The Forest, xii) in which he speaks of his devotion to Lady Bedford:

though she have a better verser got, (Or Poet, in the court-account), than I, And who doth me, though I not him envy.

In 1619 Jonson told Drummond that he had answered Daniel’s Defence of Ryme (?1603), that ‘Samuel Daniel was a good honest man, had no children; but no poet’, and that ‘Daniel was at jealousies with him’ (Laing, 1, 2, 10). All this suggests to me a rivalry at the Jacobean, rather than the Elizabethan Court, and I concur in the criticisms of Small, 181, upon the elaborate attempts of Fleay, i. 84, 359, to trace attacks on Daniel in Jonson’s earlier comedies. Fleay makes Daniel Fastidious Brisk in Every Man Out of his Humour, Hedon in Cynthia’s Revels, and alternatively Hermogenes Tigellius and Tibullus in The Poetaster, as well as Emulo in the Patient Grissel of Dekker and others. In most of these equations he is followed by others, notably Penniman, who adds (Poetaster, xxxvii) Matheo in Every Man In his Humour and Gullio in the anonymous 1 Return from Parnassus. For all this the only basis is that Brisk, Matheo, and Gullio imitate or parody Daniel’s poetry. What other poetry, then, would affected young men at the end of the sixteenth century be likely to imitate? Some indirect literary criticism on Daniel may be implied, but this does not constitute the imitators portraits of Daniel. Fleay’s further identifications of Daniel with Littlewit in Bartholomew Fair and Dacus in the Epigrams of Sir John Davies are equally unsatisfactory. To return to biography. In 1604 Daniel, for the first time so far as is known, became connected with the stage, through his appointment as licenser for the Queen’s Revels by their patent of 4 Feb. Collier, New Facts, 47, prints, as preserved at Bridgewater House, two undated letters from Daniel to Sir Thomas Egerton. One, intended to suggest that Shakespeare was a rival candidate for the post in the Queen’s Revels, is a forgery, and this makes it impossible to attach much credit to the other, in which the writer mentions the ‘preferment of my brother’ and that he himself has ‘bene constrayned to live with children’. Moreover, the manuscript was not forthcoming in 1861 (Ingleby, 247, 307). Daniel evidently took a part in the management of the Revels company; the indiscretion of his Philotas did not prevent him from acting as payee for their plays of 1604–5. But his connexion with them probably ceased when Eastward Ho! led, later in 1605, to the withdrawal of Anne’s patronage. The irrepressible Mr. Fleay (i. 110) thinks that they then satirized him as Damoetas in Day’s Isle of Gulls (1606). Daniel wrote one more mask and two pastorals, all for Court performances. By 1607 he was Groom of Anne’s Privy Chamber, and by 1613 Gentleman Extraordinary of the same Chamber. In 1615 his brother John obtained through his influence a patent for the Children of the Queen’s Chamber of Bristol (cf. ch. xii). He is said to have had a wife Justina, who was probably the sister of John Florio, whom he called ‘brother’ in 1611. The suggestion of Bolton Corney (3 N. Q. viii. 4, 40, 52) that this only meant fellow servant of the Queen is not plausible; this relation would have been expressed by ‘fellow’. He had a house in Old Street, but kept up his Somerset connexion, and was buried at Beckington, where he had a farm named Ridge, in Oct. 1619.

Collections

1599. The Poeticall Essayes of Sam. Danyel. Newly corrected and augmented. P. Short for Simon Waterson. [Includes Cleopatra.]

1601. The Works of Samuel Daniel Newly Augmented. For Simon Waterson. [Cleopatra.]

1602. [Reissue of 1601 with fresh t.p.]

1605. Certaine Small Poems Lately Printed: with the Tragedie of Philotas. Written by Samuel Daniel. G. Eld for Simon Waterson. [Cleopatra, Philotas.]

1607. Certain Small Workes Heretofore Divulged by Samuel Daniel one of the Groomes of the Queenes Maiesties priuie Chamber, and now againe by him corrected and augmented. I. W. for Simon Waterson. [Two issues. Cleopatra, Philotas, The Queen’s Arcadia.]

1611. Certain Small Workes.... I. L. for Simon Waterson. [Two issues. Cleopatra, Philotas, The Queen’s Arcadia.]

1623. The Whole Workes of Samuel Daniel Esquire in Poetrie. Nicholas Okes for Simon Waterson. [Cleopatra, Philotas, The Queen’s Arcadia, Hymen’s Triumph, The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses. This was edited by John Daniel.]

1635. Drammaticke Poems, written by Samuel Danniell Esquire, one of the Groomes of the most Honorable Privie Chamber to Queene Anne. T. Cotes for John Waterson. [Reissue of 1623 with fresh t.p.]

1718. For R. G. Gosling, W. Mears, J. Browne.

1885–96. The Complete Works in Verse and Prose of Samuel Daniel. Edited by A. B. Grosart. 5 vols. [Vol. iii (1885) contains the plays and masks.]

PLAYS

Cleopatra > 1593

S. R. 1593, Oct. 19. ‘A booke intituled The Tragedye of Cleopatra.’ Symond Waterson (Arber, ii. 638).

1594. Delia and Rosamond augmented. Cleopatra. By Samuel Daniel. James Roberts and Edward Allde for Simon Waterson. [Two editions. Verse Epistle to Lady Pembroke.]

1595. James Roberts and Edward Allde for Simon Waterson.

1598. Peter Short for Simon Waterson.

Also in Colls. 1599–1635.

Edition by M. Lederer (1911, Materialien, xxxi).

The play is in the classical manner, with choruses. The Epistle speaks of the play as motived by Lady Pembroke’s ‘well grac’d Antony’; the Apology to Philotas shows that it was not acted. In 1607 it is described as ‘newly altered’, and is in fact largely rewritten, perhaps under the stimulus of the production of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. The 1607 text is repeated in 1611, and the Epistle to Lady Pembroke is rewritten. But the text of 1623 is the earlier version again.

Philotas. 1604

S. R. 1604, Nov. 29 (Pasfield). ‘A Booke called the tragedie of Philotus wrytten by Samuel Daniell.’ Waterson and Edward Blunt (Arber, iii. 277).

1605. [Part of Coll. 1605. Verse Epistle to Prince Henry, signed ‘Sam. Dan.’; Apology.]

1607. The Tragedie of Philotas. By Sam. Daniel. Melch. Bradwood for Edward Blount. [Shortened version of Epistle to Henry.]

Also in Colls. 1607–35.

The play is in the classical manner, with choruses. From the Apology, motived by ‘the wrong application and misconceiving’ of it, I extract:

‘Above eight yeares since [1596], meeting with my deare friend D. Lateware, (whose memory I reverence) in his Lords Chamber and mine, I told him the purpose I had for Philotas: who sayd that himselfe had written the same argument, and caused it to be presented in St. John’s Colledge in Oxford; where as I after heard, it was worthily and with great applause performed.... And living in the Country, about foure yeares since, and neere halfe a yeare before the late Tragedy of ours (whereunto this is now most ignorantly resembled) unfortunately fell out heere in England [Sept., 1600], I began the same, and wrote three Acts thereof,--as many to whom I then shewed it can witnesse,--purposing to have had it presented in Bath by certaine Gentlemens sonnes, as a private recreation for the Christmas, before the Shrovetide of that unhappy disorder [Feb. 1601]. But by reason of some occasion then falling out, and being called upon by my Printer for a new impression of my workes, with some additions to the Civill Warres, I intermitted this other subject. Which now lying by mee, and driven by necessity to make use of my pen, and the Stage to bee the mouth of my lines, which before were never heard to speake but in silence, I thought the representing so true a History, in the ancient forme of a Tragedy, could not but have had an unreproveable passage with the time, and the better sort of men; seeing with what idle fictions, and grosse follies, the Stage at this day abused mens recreations.... And for any resemblance, that thorough the ignorance of the History may be applied to the late Earle of Essex, it can hold in no proportion but only in his weaknesses, which I would wish all that love his memory not to revive. And for mine owne part, having beene perticularly beholding to his bounty, I would to God his errors and disobedience to his Sovereigne might be so deepe buried underneath the earth, and in so low a tombe from his other parts, that hee might never be remembered among the examples of disloyalty in this Kingdome, or paraleld with Forreine Conspirators.’

The Apology is fixed by its own data to the autumn of 1604, and the performance was pretty clearly by the Queen’s Revels in the same year. Daniel was called before the Privy Council on account of the play, and used the name of the Earl of Devonshire in his defence. The earl was displeased and a letter of excuse from Daniel is extant (Grosart, i. xxii, from S. P. D. Jac. I, 1603–10, p. 18) in which, after asserting that he had satisfied Lord Cranborne [Robert Cecil], he says:

‘First I tolde the Lordes I had written 3 Acts of this tragedie the Christmas before my L. of Essex troubles, as diuers in the cittie could witnes. I saide the maister of the Revells had pervsed it. I said I had read some parte of it to your honour, and this I said having none els of powre to grace mee now in Corte & hoping that you out of your knowledg of bookes, or fauour of letters & mee, might answere that there is nothing in it disagreeing nor any thing, as I protest there is not, but out of the vniuersall notions of ambition and envie, the perpetuall argumentes of books or tragedies. I did not say you incouraged me vnto the presenting of it; yf I should I had beene a villayne, for that when I shewd it to your honour I was not resolud to haue had it acted, nor should it haue bene had not my necessities ouermaistred mee.’

The Queen’s Arcadia. 1605

S. R. 1605, Nov. 26 (Pasfield). ‘A book called The Quenes Arcadia. Presented by the university of Oxon in Christchurch.’ Waterson (Arber, iii. 305).

1606. The Queenes Arcadia. A Pastorall Trage-comedie presented to her Maiestie and her Ladies, by the Vniuersitie of Oxford in Christs Church, In August last. G. Eld for Simon Waterson. [Dedicatory verses to the Queen.]

See Collections.

The performance was by Christ Church men on 30 Aug. 1605 during the royal visit to Oxford (cf. ch. iv). The original title appears to have been Arcadia Reformed. Chamberlain told Winwood (ii. 140) that the other plays were dull, but Daniel’s ‘made amends for all; being indeed very excelent, and some parts exactly acted’.

Hymen’s Triumph. 1614

[MS.] Drummond MS. in Edinburgh Univ. Library. [Sonnet to Lady Roxborough, signed ‘Samuel Danyel’. The manuscript given to the library by William Drummond of Hawthornden, a kinsman of Lady Roxborough, in 1627, is fully described by W. W. Greg in M. L. Q. vi. 59. It is partly holograph, and represents an earlier state of the text than the quarto of 1615. A letter of 1621 from Drummond to Sir Robert Ker, afterwards Earl of Ancrum, amongst the Lothian MSS. (Hist. MSS. i. 116), expresses an intention of printing what appears to have been the same manuscript.]

S. R. 1615, Jan. 13 (Buck). ‘A play called Hymens triumphes.’ Francis Constable (iii. 561), [The clerk first wrote ‘Hymens pastoralls’.]

1615. Hymens Triumph. A Pastorall Tragicomaedie. Presented at the Queenes Court in the Strand at her Maiesties magnificent intertainement of the Kings most excellent Maiestie, being at the Nuptials of the Lord Roxborough. By Samuel Daniel. For Francis Constable. [Dedicatory verses to the Queen, signed ‘Sam. Daniel’, and Prologue.]

See Collections.

Robert Ker, Lord Roxborough, was married to Jean Drummond, daughter of Patrick, third Lord Drummond, and long a lady of Anne’s household. The wedding was originally fixed for 6 Jan. 1614, and the Queen meant to celebrate it with ‘a masque of maids, if they may be found’ (Birch, i. 279). It was, however, put off until Candlemas, doubtless to avoid competition with Somerset’s wedding, and appears from the dedication also to have served for a house-warming, to which Anne invited James on the completion of some alterations to Somerset House. Finett (Philoxenis, 16), who describes the complications caused by an invitation to the French ambassador, gives the date as 2 Feb., which is in itself the more probable; but John Chamberlain gives 3 Feb., unless there is an error in the dating of the two letters to Carleton, cited by Greg from Addl. MS. 4173, ff. 368, 371, as of 3 and 10 Feb. In the first he writes, ‘This day the Lord of Roxburgh marries M^{rs}. Jane Drummond at Somerset House, whither the King is invited to lie this night; & shall be entertained with shews & devices, specially a Pastoral, that shall be represented in a little square paved Court’; and in the second, ‘This day sevennight the Lord of Roxburgh married M^{rs}. Jane Drummond at Somerset House or Queen’s Court (as it must now be called). The King tarried there till Saturday after dinner. The Entertainment was great, & cost the Queen, as she says, above 3000£. The Pastoral made by Samuel Daniel was solemn & dull; but perhaps better to be read than represented.’ Gawdy, 175, also mentions the ‘pastoral’. There is nothing to show who were the performers.

Doubtful Play

Daniel has been suggested as the author of the anonymous Maid’s Metamorphosis.

MASKS

The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses. 8 Jan. 1604

1604. The true discription of a Royall Masque. Presented at Hampton Court, vpon Sunday night, being the eight of Ianuary, 1604. And Personated by the Queenes most Excellent Majestie, attended by Eleuen Ladies of Honour. Edward Allde.

1604. The Vision of the 12. Goddesses, presented in a Maske the 8 of Ianuary, at Hampton Court: By the Queenes most Excellent Maiestie, and her Ladies. T. C. for Simon Waterson. [A preface to Lucy, Countess of Bedford, is signed by Daniel, who states that the publication was motived by ‘the unmannerly presumption of an indiscreet Printer, who without warrant hath divulged the late shewe ... and the same very disorderly set forth’. Lady Bedford had ‘preferred’ Daniel to the Queen ‘in this imployment’.]

See Collections.

Editions by Nichols, James, i. 305 (1828), E. Law (1880), and H. A. Evans (1897, English Masques).

The maskers, in various colours and with appropriate emblems, were twelve Goddesses, and were attended by torchbearers (cf. Carleton, infra); the presenters, ‘for the introducing this show’, Night, Sleep, Iris, Sibylla, and the Graces; the cornets, Satyrs.

The locality was the Hall at Hampton Court. At the lower end was a mountain, from which the maskers descended, and in which the cornets played; at the upper end the cave of Sleep and, on the left (Carleton), a temple of Peace, in the cupola of which was ‘the consort music’, while viols and lutes were ‘on one side of the hall’.

The maskers presented their emblems, which Sibylla laid upon the altar of the temple. They danced ‘their own measures’, then took out the lords for ‘certain measures, galliards, and corantoes’, and after a ‘short departing dance’ reascended the mountain.

This was a Queen’s mask, danced, according to manuscript notes in a copy of the Allde edition (B.M. 161, a. 41) thought by Mr. Law to be ‘in a hand very like Lord Worcester’s’ (vide infra), and possibly identical with the ‘original MS. of this mask’ from which the same names are given in Collier, i. 347, by the Queen (Pallas), the Countesses of Suffolk (Juno), Hertford (Diana), Bedford (Vesta), Derby (Proserpine), and Nottingham (Concordia), and the Ladies Rich (Venus), Hatton (Macaria), Walsingham (Astraea), Susan Vere (Flora), Dorothy Hastings (Ceres), and Elizabeth Howard (Tethys).

Anticipations of masks at Court during the winter of 1603–4 are to be found in letters to Lord Shrewsbury from Arabella Stuart on 18 Dec. (Bradley, ii. 193), ‘The Queene intendeth to make a Mask this Christmas, to which end my Lady of Suffolk and my Lady Walsingham hath warrants to take of the late Queenes best apparell out of the Tower at theyr discretion. Certain Noblemen (whom I may not yet name to you, because some of them have made me of theyr counsell) intend another. Certain gentlemen of good sort another’; from Cecil on 23 Dec. (Lodge, iii. 81), ‘masks and much more’; and from Sir Thomas Edmondes on 23 Dec. (Lodge, iii. 83):

‘Both the King’s and Queen’s Majesty have a humour to have some masks this Christmas time, and therefore, for that purpose, both the young lords and chief gentlemen of one part, and the Queen and her ladies of the other part, do severally undertake the accomplishment and furnishing thereof; and, because there is use of invention therein, special choice is made of Mr. Sanford to direct the order and course for the ladies’;

also in the letters of Carleton to Chamberlain on 27 Nov. (Birch, i. 24; Hardwicke Papers, i. 383), ‘many plays and shows are bespoken, to give entertainment to our ambassadors’, and 22 Dec. (S. P. D. Jac. I, v. 20; Law, 9):

‘We shall have a merry Christmas at Hampton Court, for both male and female maskes are all ready bespoken, whereof the Duke [of Lennox] is rector chori of th’ one side and the La: Bedford of the other.’

I suppose Mr. Sanford to be Henry Sanford, who, like Daniel, had been of the Wilton household (cf. Aubrey, i. 311) and may well have lent him his aid.

The masks of lords on 1 Jan. and of Scots on 6 Jan. are not preserved. The latter is perhaps most memorable because Ben Jonson and his friend Sir John Roe were thrust out from it by the Lord Chamberlain (cf. ch. vi). Arabella Stuart briefly told Shrewsbury on 10 Jan. that there were three masks (Bradley, ii. 199). Wilbraham’s Journal (Camden Misc. x), 66, records:

‘manie plaies and daunces with swordes: one mask by English and Scottish lords: another by the Queen’s Maiestie and eleven more ladies of her chamber presenting giftes as goddesses. These maskes, especialli the laste, costes 2000 or 3000^l, the aparells: rare musick, fine songes: and in jewels most riche 20000^l, the lest to my judgment: and her Maiestie 100,000^l. After Christmas was running at the ring by the King and 8 or 9 lordes for the honour of those goddesses and then they all feasted together privatelie.’

But the fullest description was given by Carleton to Chamberlain on 15 Jan. (S. P. D. Jac. I, vi. 21, printed by Law, 33, 45; Sullivan, 192).

‘On New yeares night we had a play of Robin goode-fellow and a maske brought in by a magicien of China. There was a heaven built at the lower end of the hall, owt of which our magicien came downe and after he had made a long sleepy speech to the King of the nature of the cuntry from whence he came comparing it with owrs for strength and plenty, he sayde he had broughte in cloudes certain Indian and China Knights to see the magnificency of this court. And theruppon a trauers was drawne and the maskers seen sitting in a voulty place with theyr torchbearers and other lights which was no vnpleasing spectacle. The maskers were brought in by two boyes and two musitiens who began with a song and whilst that went forward they presented themselves to the King. The first gave the King an Impresa in a shield with a sonet in a paper to exprese his deuice and presented a jewell of 40,000£ valew which the King is to buy of Peter Van Lore, but that is more than euery man knew and it made a faire shew to the French Ambassadors eye whose master would have bin well pleased with such a maskers present but not at that prise. The rest in theyr order deliuered theyr scutchins with letters and there was no great stay at any of them saue only at one who was putt to the interpretacion of his deuise. It was a faire horse colt in a faire greene field which he meant to be a colt of Busephalus race and had this virtu of his sire that none could mount him but one as great at lest as Alexander. The King made himself merry with threatening to send this colt to the stable and he could not breake loose till he promised to dance as well as Bankes his horse. The first measure was full of changes and seemed confused but was well gone through with all, and for the ordinary measures they tooke out the Queen, the ladies of Derby, Harford, Suffolke, Bedford, Susan Vere, Suthwell th’ elder and Rich. In the corantoes they ran over some other of the young ladies, and so ended as they began with a song; and that done, the magicien dissolved his enchantment, and made the maskers appear in theyr likenes to be th’ Erle of Pembroke, the Duke, Mons^r. d’Aubigny, yong Somerset, Philip Harbert the young Bucephal, James Hayes, Richard Preston, and Sir Henry Godier. Theyr attire was rich but somewhat too heavy and cumbersome for dancers which putt them besides ther galliardes. They had loose robes of crimsen sattin embrodered with gold and bordered with brood siluer laces, dublets and bases of cloth of siluer; buskins, swordes and hatts alike and in theyr hats ech of them an Indian bird for a fether with some jewells. The twelfe-day the French Ambassador was feasted publikely; and at night there was a play in the Queens presence with a masquerado of certaine Scotchmen who came in with a sword dance not vnlike a matachin, and performed it clenly.... The Sunday following was the great day of the Queenes maske.’

This Carleton describes at length; I only note points which supplement Daniel’s description.

‘The Hale was so much lessened by the workes that were in it, so as none could be admitted but men of apparance, the one end was made into a rock and in several places the waightes placed; in attire like savages. Through the midst from the top came a winding stayre of breadth for three to march; and so descended the maskers by three and three; which being all seene on the stayres at once was the best presentacion I have at any time seene. Theyre attire was alike, loose mantles and petticotes but of different colors, the stuffs embrodered sattins and cloth of gold and silver, for which they were beholding to Queen Elizabeth’s wardrobe.... Only Pallas had a trick by herself for her clothes were not so much below the knee, but that we might see a woman had both feete and legs which I never knew before.’

He describes the torchbearers as pages in white satin loose gowns, although Daniel says they were ‘in the like several colours’ to the maskers. The temple was ‘on the left side of the hall towards the upper end’. For the ‘common measures’ the lords taken out were Pembroke, Lennox, Suffolk, Henry Howard, Southampton, Devonshire, Sidney, Nottingham, Monteagle, Northumberland, Knollys, and Worcester.

‘For galliardes and corantoes they went by discretion, and the yong Prince was tost from hand to hand like a tennis bal. The Lady Bedford and Lady Susan tooke owt the two ambassadors; and they bestirred themselfe very liuely: speceally the Spaniard for the Spanish galliard shewed himself a lusty old reueller.... But of all for goode grace and goode footmanship Pallas bare the bell away.’

The dancers unmasked about midnight, and then came a banquet in the presence-chamber, ‘which was dispatched with the accustomed confusion’.

Carleton also mentions the trouble between the Spanish and French ambassadors, which is also referred to in a letter of O. Renzo to G. A. Frederico (S. P. D. Jac. I, vi. 37; cf. Sullivan, 195), and is the subject of several dispatches by and to the Comte de Beaumont (King’s MSS. cxxiv, ff. 328, 359^v, 363, 373, 381, 383^v, 389; cf. Reyher, 519, Sullivan, 193–5). was the object of the Court not to invite both ambassadors together, as this would entail an awkward decision as to precedence. Beaumont was asked first, to the mask on 1 Jan. He hesitated to accept, expressing a fear that it was intended to ask De Taxis to the Queen’s mask on Twelfth Night, ‘dernier jour des festes de Noël selon la facon d’Angleterre et le plus honnorable de tout pour la cérémonie qui s’y obserue de tout temps publiquement’. After some negotiation he extracted a promise from James that, if the Spaniard was present at all, it would be in a private capacity, and he then dropped the point, and accepted his own invitation, threatening to kill De Taxis in the presence if he dared to dispute precedence with him. On 5 Jan. he learnt that Anne had refused to dance if De Taxis was not present, and that the promise would be broken. He protested, and his protest was met by an invitation for the Twelfth Night to which he had attached such importance. But the Queen’s mask was put off until 8 Jan., a Scottish mask substituted on 6 Jan., and on 8 Jan. De Taxis was present, revelling it in red, while Anne paid him the compliment of wearing a red favour on her costume.

Reyher, 519, cites references to the Queen’s mask in the accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber and of the Office of Works. E. Law (Hist. of Hampton Court, ii. 10) gives, presumably from one of these, ‘making readie the lower ende with certain roomes of the hall at Hampton Court for the Queenes Maiestie and ladies against their mask by the space of three dayes’.

Allde’s edition must have been quickly printed. On 2 Feb. Lord Worcester wrote to Lord Shrewsbury (Lodge, iii. 87): ‘Whereas your Lordship saith you were never particularly advertised of the mask, I have been at sixpence charge with you to send you the book, which will inform you better than I can, having noted the names of the ladies applied to each goddess; and for the other, I would likewise have sent you the ballet, if I could have got it for money, but these books, as I hear, are all called in, and in truth I will not take upon me to set that down which wiser than myself do not understand.’

Tethys’ Festival. 5 June 1610

1610. Tethys Festiual: or the Queenes Wake. Celebrated at Whitehall, the fifth day of June 1610. Deuised by Samuel Daniel, one of the Groomes of her Maiesties most Honourable priuie Chamber. For John Budge. [Annexed with separate title-page to The Creation of Henry Prince of Wales (q.v.). A Preface to the Reader criticizes, though not by name, Ben Jonson’s descriptions of his masks.]

Edition in Nichols, James (1828), ii. 346.

The maskers, in sky-blue and cloth of silver, were Tethys and thirteen Nymphs of as many English Rivers; the antimaskers, in light robes adorned with flowers, eight Naiads; the presenters Zephyrus and two Tritons, whom with the Naiads Daniel calls ‘the Ante-maske or first shew’, and Mercury. Torchbearers were dispensed with, for ‘they would have pestered the roome, which the season would not well permit’.

The locality was probably the Banqueting Room at Whitehall. The scene was supplemented by a Tree of Victory on a mount to the right of ‘the state’. A ‘travers’ representing a cloud served for a curtain, and was drawn to discover, within a framework borne on pilasters, in front of which stood Neptune and Nereus on pedestals, a haven, whence the ‘Ante-maske’ issued. They presented on behalf of Tethys a trident to the King, and a sword and scarf to Henry, and the Naiads danced round Zephyrus. The scene was then changed, under cover of three circles of moving lights and glasses, to show five niches, of which the central one represented a throne for Tethys, with Thames at her feet, and the others four caverns, each containing three Nymphs.

The maskers marched to the Tree of Victory, at which they offered their flowers, and under which Tethys reposed between the dances. Of these they gave two; then took out the Lords for ‘measures, corantos, and galliardes’; and then gave their ‘retyring daunce’. Apparently as an innovation, ‘to avoid the confusion which usually attendeth the desolve of these shewes’, the presenters stayed the dissolve, and Mercury sent the Duke of York and six young noblemen to conduct the Queen and ladies back ‘in their owne forme’.

This was a Queen’s mask, and Daniel notes ‘that there were none of inferior sort mixed among these great personages of state and honour (as usually there have been); but all was performed by themselves with a due reservation of their dignity. The maskers were the Queen (Tethys), the Lady Elizabeth (Thames), Lady Arabella Stuart (Trent), the Countesses of Arundel (Arun), Derby (Darwent), Essex (Lee), Dorset (Air), and Montgomery (Severn), Viscountess Haddington (Rother), and the Ladies Elizabeth Gray (Medway), Elizabeth Guilford (Dulesse), Katherine Petre (Olwy), Winter (Wye), and Windsor (Usk). The antimaskers were ‘eight little Ladies’. The Duke of York played Zephyrus, and two gentlemen ‘of good worth and respect’ the Tritons. ‘The artificiall part’, says Daniel, ‘only speakes Master Inago Jones.’

On 13 Jan. 1610 Chamberlain wrote to Winwood (iii. 117, misdated ‘February’) that ‘the Queen would likewise have a mask against Candlemas or Shrovetide’. Doubtless it was deferred to the Creation, for which on 24 May the same writer (Winwood, iii. 175) mentions Anne as preparing and practising a mask. Winwood’s papers (iii. 179) also contain a description, unsigned, but believed by their editor to be written by John Finett, as follows:

‘The next day was graced with a most glorious Maske, which was double. In the first, came first in the little Duke of Yorke between two great Sea Slaves, the cheefest of Neptune’s servants, attended upon by twelve [eight] little Ladies, all of them the daughters of Earls or Barons. By one of these men a speech was made unto the King and Prince, expressing the conceipt of the maske; by the other a sword worth 20,000 crowns at the least was put into the Duke of York’s hands, who presented the same unto the Prince his brother from the first of those ladies which were to follow in the next maske. This done, the Duke returned into his former place in midst of the stage, and the little ladies performed their dance to the amazement of all the beholders, considering the tenderness of their years and the many intricate changes of the dance; which was so disposed, that which way soever the changes went the little Duke was still found to be in the midst of these little dancers. These light skirmishers having done their devoir, in came the Princesses; first the Queen, next the Lady Elizabeth’s Grace, then the Lady Arbella, the Countesses of Arundell, Derby, Essex, Dorset, and Montgomery, the Lady Hadington, the Lady Elizabeth Grey, the Lady Windsor, the Lady Katherine Peter, the Lady Elizabeth Guilford, and the Lady Mary [Anne] Wintour. By that time these had done, it was high time to go to bed, for it was within half an hour of the sun’s, not setting, but rising. Howbeit, a farther time was to be spent in viewing and scrambling at one of the most magnificent banquets that I have seen. The ambassadors of Spaine, of Venice, and of the Low Countries were present at this and all the rest of these glorious sights, and in truth so they were.’

Brief notices in Stowe’s Annales (902, paged 907 in error) and in letters by Carleton to Sir Thomas Edmondes (Birch, i. 114) and by John Noies to his wife (Hist. MSS. Various Colls. iii. 261) add nothing to Finett’s account. There were no very serious ambassadorial complications, as the death of Henri IV put an invitation to the French ambassador out of the question (cf. Sullivan, 59). Correr notes with satisfaction that, as ambassador from Venice, he had as good a box as that of the Spanish ambassador, while, to please Spanish susceptibilities, that of the Dutch ambassador was less good (V. P. xi. 507).

The mask was ‘excessively costly’ (V. P. xii. 86). Several financial documents relating to it are on record (Reyher, 507, 521; Devon, 105, 127; Sullivan, 219, 221; S. P. D. Jac. I, liii. 4, 74; lix. 12), including a warrant of 4 March, which recites the Queen’s pleasure that the Lord Chamberlain and Master of the Horse ‘shall take some paines to look into the emptions and provisions of all things necessarie’, another of 25 May for an imprest to Inigo Jones, an embroiderer’s bill for £55, and a silkman’s for £1,071 5_s._, with an endorsement by Lord Knyvet, referring the prices to the Privy Council, and counter-signatures by the Lord Chamberlain and the Master of the Horse. In this case the dresses of the maskers seem to have been provided for them. An allusion in a letter of Donne to Sir Henry Goodyere (Letters, i. 240) makes a sportive suggestion for a source of revenue ‘if Mr. Inago Jones be not satisfied for his last masque (because I hear say it cannot come to much)’.

JOHN DAVIDSON (1549?-1603).

A Regent of St. Leonard’s College, St. Andrew’s, and afterwards minister of Liberton and a bitter satirist on behalf of the extreme Kirk party in Scotland.

The Siege of Edinburgh Castle. 1571

James Melville writes s.a. 1571: ‘This yeir in the monethe of July, Mr. Jhone Davidsone an of our Regents maid a play at the mariage of Mr. Jhone Coluin, quhilk I saw playit in Mr. Knox presence, wherin, according to Mr. Knox doctrine, the castell of Edinbruche was besiged, takin, and the Captan, with an or two with him, hangit in effigie.’[656]

This was in intelligent anticipation of events. Edinburgh Castle was held by Kirkcaldy of Grange for Mary in 1571. On 28 May 1573 it was taken by the English on behalf of the party of James VI, and Kirkcaldy was hanged.

Melville also records plays at the ‘Bachelor Act’ of 1573 at St. Andrews.

SIR JOHN DAVIES (1569–1626).

Davies was a Winchester and Queen’s College, Oxford, man, who entered the Middle Temple on 3 Feb. 1588, served successively as Solicitor-General (1603–6) and Attorney-General (1606–19) in Ireland, and was Speaker of the Irish Parliament in 1613. His principal poems are Orchestra (1594) and Nosce Teipsum (1599). He was invited by the Earl of Cumberland (q.v.) to write verses for ‘barriers’ in 1601, and contributed to the entertainments of Elizabeth by Sir Thomas Egerton (cf. ch. xxiv) and Sir Robert Cecil (q.v.) in 1602.

Collections

Works by A. B. Grosart (1869–76, Fuller Worthies Library. 3 vols.).

Poems by A. B. Grosart (1876, Early English Poets. 2 vols.).

Dissertation: M. Seemann, Sir J. D., sein Leben und seine Werke (1913, Wiener Beiträge, xli).

R. DAVIES (c. 1610).

Contributor to Chester’s Triumph (cf. ch. xxiv, C).

FRANCIS DAVISON (c. 1575–c. 1619).

He was son of William Davison, Secretary of State, and compiler of A Poetical Rapsody (1602), of which the best edition is that of A. H. Bullen (1890–1). He entered Gray’s Inn in 1593: for his contribution to the Gray’s Inn mask of 1595, see s.v. ANON. Gesta Grayorum.

JOHN DAY (c. 1574–c. 1640).

Day was described as son of Walter Dey, husbandman, of Cawston, Norfolk, when at the age of eighteen he became a sizar of Gonville and Caius, Cambridge, on 24 Oct. 1592; on 4 May 1593 he was expelled for stealing a book (Venn, Caius, i. 146). He next appears in Henslowe’s diary, first as selling an old play for the Admiral’s in July 1598, and then as writing busily for that company in 1599–1603 and for Worcester’s in 1602–3. Most of this work was in collaboration, occasionally with Dekker, frequently with Chettle, Hathway, Haughton, or Smith. From this period little or nothing survives except The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green. Greg, Henslowe Papers, 126, doubts whether an acrostic on Thomas Downton signed ‘John Daye’, contributed by J. F. Herbert to Sh. Soc. Papers, i. 19, and now at Dulwich, is to be ascribed to the dramatist. Day’s independent plays, written about 1604–8, and his Parliament of Bees are of finer literary quality than this early record would suggest. But Ben Jonson classed him to Drummond in 1619 amongst the ‘rogues’ and ‘base fellows’ who were ‘not of the number of the faithfull, i.e. Poets’ (Laing, 4, 11). He must have lived long, as John Tatham, who included an elegy on him as his ‘loving friend’ in his Fancies Theater (1640), was then only about twenty-eight. He appears to have been still writing plays in 1623, but there is no trace of any substantial body of work after 1608. Fleay, i. 115, suggests from the tone of his manuscript pamphlet Peregrinatio Scholastica that he took orders.

Collection

1881. A. H. Bullen, The Works of John Day.

The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green. 1600

S. R. 1657, Sept. 14. ‘A booke called The pleasant history of the blind beggar of Bednall Greene, declaring his life and death &c.’ Francis Grove (Eyre, ii. 145).

1659. The Blind Beggar of Bednal-Green, with The merry humor of Tom Strowd the Norfolk Yeoman, as it was divers times publickly acted by the Princes Servants. Written by John Day. For R. Pollard and Tho. Dring.

Editions by W. Bang (1902, Materialien, i) and J. S. Farmer (1914, S. F. T.).

The Prince’s men of the title are probably the later Prince Charles’s (1631–41), but these were the ultimate successors of Prince Henry’s, formerly the Admiral’s, who produced, between May 1600 and Sept. 1601, three parts of a play called indifferently by Henslowe The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green and Thomas Strowd. Payments were made for the first part to Day and Chettle and for the other two to Day and Haughton. On the assumption that the extant play is Part i, Bullen, Introd. 8 and Fleay, i. 107, make divergent suggestions as to the division of responsibility between Day and Chettle. At l. 2177 is the s.d. ‘Enter Captain Westford, Sill Clark’; probably the performance in which this actor took part was a Caroline one.

Law Tricks, or Who Would Have Thought It. 1604

S. R. 1608, March 28 (Buck). ‘A booke called A most wytty and merry conceited comedie called who would a thought it or Lawetrykes.’ Richard Moore (Arber, iii. 372).

1608. Law-Trickes or, who would have Thought it. As it hath bene diuers times Acted by the Children of the Reuels. Written by John Day. For Richard More. [Epistle by the Book to the Reader; Epilogue.]

The name given to the company suggests that the play was on the stage in 1605–6. But I think the original production must have been in 1604, as the dispute between Westminster and Winchester for ‘terms’, in which Winchester is said to have been successful, ‘on Saint Lukes day, coming shalbe a twelue-month’ (ed. Bullen, p. 61) can only refer to the term held at Winchester in 1603. An inundation in July is also mentioned (p. 61), and Stowe, Annales (1615), 844, has a corresponding record for 1604, but gives the day as 3 Aug.

The Isle of Gulls. 1606

1606. The Ile of Guls. As it hath been often playd in the blacke Fryars, by the Children of the Reuels. Written by Iohn Day. Sold by John Hodgets. [Induction and Prologue.]

1606. For John Trundle, sold by John Hodgets.

1633. For William Sheares.

The play is thus referred to by Sir Edward Hoby in a letter of 7 March 1606 to Sir Thomas Edmondes (Birch, i. 59): ‘At this time (c. 15 Feb.) was much speech of a play in the Black Friars, where, in the “Isle of Gulls”, from the highest to the lowest, all men’s parts were acted of two divers nations: as I understand sundry were committed to Bridewell.’ A passage in iv. 4 (Bullen, p. 91), probably written with Eastward Ho! in mind, refers to the ‘libelling’ ascribed to poets by ‘some Dor’ and ‘false informers’; and the Induction defends the play itself against the charge that a ‘great mans life’ is ‘charactred’ in Damoetas. Nevertheless, Damoetas, the royal favourite, ‘a little hillock made great with others ruines’ (p. 13) inevitably suggests Sir Robert Carr, and Fleay, i. 109, points out that the ‘Duke’ and ‘Duchess’ of the dramatis personae have been substituted for a ‘King’ and ‘Queen’. It may not be possible now to verify all the men whose ‘parts’ were acted; evidently the Arcadians and Lacedaemonians stand for the two ‘nations’ of English and Scotch. I do not see any ground for Fleay’s attempt to treat the play, not as a political, but as a literary satire, identifying Damoetas with Daniel, and tracing allusions to Jonson, Marston, and Chapman in the Induction. Hoby’s indication of date is confirmed by references to the ‘Eastward, Westward or Northward hoe’ (p. 3; cf. s.vv. Chapman, Dekker), to the quartering for treason on 30 Jan. 1606 (pp. 3, 51), and conceivably to Jonson’s Volpone of 1605 or early 1606 (p. 88, ‘you wil ha my humor brought ath stage for a vserer’).

The Travels of Three English Brothers. 1607

S. R. 1607, June 29 (Buck). ‘A playe called the trauailles of the Three Englishe brothers as yt was played at the Curten.’ John Wright (Arber, iii. 354).

1607. The Travailes of The three English Brothers.

Sir Thomas } Sir Anthony } Shirley. Mr. Robert }

As it is now play’d by her Maiesties Seruants. For John Wright. [Epistle to the Family of the Sherleys, signed ‘Iohn Day, William Rowley, George Wilkins’, Prologue and Epilogue.]

The source was a pamphlet on the Sherleys by A. Nixon (S. R. 8 June 1607) and the play seems to have been still on the stage when it was printed. Some suggestions as to the division of authorship are in Fleay, ii. 277, Bullen, Introd. 19, and C. W. Stork, William Rowley, 57. A scene at Venice (Bullen, p. 55) introduces Will Kempe, who mentions Vennar’s England’s Joy (1602), and prepares to play an ‘extemporall merriment’ with an Italian Harlaken. He has come from England with a boy. The Epilogue refers to ‘some that fill up this round circumference’.

Humour out of Breath. 1607–8

S. R. 1608, April 12 (Buck). ‘A booke called Humour out of breathe.’ John Helme (Arber, iii. 374).

1608. Humour out of breath. A Comedie Diuers times latelie acted, By the Children Of The Kings Reuells. Written by Iohn Day. For John Helme. [Epistle to Signior Nobody, signed ‘Iohn Daye’.]

Editions by J. O. Halliwell (1860), A. Symons in Nero and Other Plays (1888, Mermaid Series).

The date must be taken as 1607–8, since the King’s Revels are not traceable before 1607. Fleay, i. 111, notes a reference in iii. 4 to the ‘great frost’ of that Christmas. The Epistle speaks of the play as ‘sufficiently featur’d too, had it been all of one man’s getting’, which may be a hint of divided authorship.

The Parliament of Bees. 1608 < > 16

[MS.] Lansdowne MS. 725, with title. ‘An olde manuscript conteyning the Parliament of Bees, found in a Hollow Tree in a garden at Hibla, in a Strange Languadge, And now faithfully Translated into Easie English Verse by John Daye, Cantabridg.’ [Epistles to William Augustine, signed ‘John Day, Cant.’ and to the Reader, signed ‘Jo: Daye’.]

S. R. 1641, March 23 (Hansley). ‘A booke called The Parliam^t of Bees, &c., by John Day.’ Will Ley (Eyre, i. 17).

1641. The Parliament of Bees, With their proper Characters. Or A Bee-hive furnisht with twelve Honycombes, as Pleasant as Profitable. Being an Allegoricall description of the actions of good and bad men in these our daies. By John Daye, Sometimes Student of Caius Colledge in Cambridge. For William Lee. [Epistle to George Butler, signed ‘John Day’, The Author’s Commission to his Bees, similarly signed, and The Book to the Reader. The text varies considerably from that of the manuscript.]

Edition by A. Symons in Nero and Other Plays (1888, Mermaid Series).

This is neither a play nor a mask, but a set of twelve short ‘Characters’ or ‘Colloquies’ in dialogue. The existence of an edition of 1607 is asserted in Gildon’s abridgement (1699) of Langbaine, but cannot be verified, and is most improbable, since the manuscript Epistle refers to an earlier work already dedicated by Day, as ‘an unknowing venturer’, to Augustine, and this must surely be the allegorical treatise Peregrinatio Scholastica printed by Bullen (Introd. 35) from Sloane MS. 3150 with an Epistle by Day to William Austin, who may reasonably be identified with Augustine. But the Peregrinatio, although Day’s first venture in dedication, was not a very early work, for Day admits that ‘I boast not that gaudie spring of credit and youthfull florish of opinion as some other filde in the same rancke with me’. Moreover, it describes (p. 50) an ‘ante-maske’, and this term, so far as we know, first came into use about 1608 (cf. ch. vi). The Bees therefore must be later still. On the other hand, it can hardly be later than about 1616, when died Philip Henslowe, whom it is impossible to resist seeing with Fleay, i. 115, in the Fenerator or Usuring Bee (p. 63). Like Henslowe he is a ‘broaker’ and ‘takes up’ clothes; and

Most of the timber that his state repairs, He hew’s out o’ the bones of foundred players: They feed on Poets braines, he eats their breath.

Now of the twelve Characters of the Bees, five (2, 3, 7, 8, 9) are reproduced, in many parts verbatim, subject to an alteration of names, in The Wonder of a Kingdom, printed as Dekker’s (q.v.) in 1636, but probably identical with Come See a Wonder, licensed by Herbert as Day’s in 1623. Two others (4, 5) are similarly reproduced in The Noble Soldier, printed in 1634 under the initials ‘S. R.’, probably indicating Samuel Rowley, but possibly also containing work by Dekker. The precise relation of Day to these plays is indeterminate, but the scenes more obviously ‘belong’ to the Bees than to the plays, and if the Bees was written but not printed in 1608–16, the chances are that Day used it as a quarry of material when he was called upon to work, as reviser or collaborator, on the plays. Meanwhile, Austin, if he was the Southwark and Lincoln’s Inn writer of that name (D. N. B.), died in 1634, and when the Bees was ultimately printed in 1641 a new dedicatee had to be found.

Lost and Doubtful Plays

For the Admiral’s, 1598–1603.

Day appears to have sold the company an old play 1 The Conquest of Brute in July 1598, and to have subsequently written or collaborated in the following plays:

1599–1600: Cox of Collumpton, with Haughton; Thomas Merry, or Beech’s Tragedy, with Haughton; The Seven Wise Masters, with Chettle, Dekker, and Haughton; Cupid and Psyche, with Chettle and Dekker; 1 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, with Chettle; and the unfinished Spanish Moor’s Tragedy, with Dekker and Haughton.

1600–1: 2 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, with Haughton; Six Yeomen of the West, with Haughton.

1601–2: The Conquest of the West Indies, with Haughton and Smith; 3 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, with Haughton; _Friar Rush and The Proud Woman of Antwerp_, with Chettle and Haughton; _The Bristol Tragedy_; and the unfinished 2 Tom Dough, with Haughton.

1602–3: Merry as May Be, with Hathway and Smith; The Boss of Billingsgate, with Hathway and another.

For Worcester’s men.

1602–3: 1 and 2 The Black Dog of Newgate, with Hathway, Smith, and another; The Unfortunate General, with Hathway, Smith, and a third; and the unfinished Shore, with Chettle.

Of the above only The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green and a note of Cox of Collumpton (cf. ch. xiii, s.v. Admiral’s) survive; for speculations as to others see Heywood, Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas (Cupid and Psyche), Marlowe, Lust’s Dominion (Spanish Moor’s Tragedy), Yarington, Two Lamentable Tragedies (Thomas Merry), and the anonymous Edward IV (Shore) and Fair Maid of Bristol (Bristow Tragedy).

Henslowe’s correspondence (Henslowe Papers, 56, 127) contains notes from Day and others about some of the Admiral’s plays and a few lines which may be from The Conquest of the Indies.

Day’s Mad Pranks of Merry Mall of the Bankside (S. R. 7 Aug. 1610) was probably a pamphlet (cf. Dekker, The Roaring Girl). Bullen, Introd. 11, thinks the Guy Earl of Warwick (1661), printed as ‘by B. J.’, too bad to be Day and Dekker’s Life and Death of Guy of Warwick (S. R. 15 Jan. 1620). On 30 July 1623 Herbert licensed a Bellman of Paris by Day and Dekker for the Prince’s (Herbert, 24). The Maiden’s Holiday by Marlowe (q.v.) and Day (S. R. 8 April 1654) appears in Warburton’s list of burnt plays (3 Library, ii. 231) as Marlowe’s.

For other ascriptions to Day see The Maid’s Metamorphosis and Parnassus in ch. xxiv.

THOMAS DEKKER (c. 1572–c. 1632).

Thomas Dekker was of London origin, but though the name occurs in Southwark, Cripplegate, and Bishopsgate records, neither his parentage nor his marriage, if he was married, can be definitely traced. He was not unlettered, but nothing is known of his education, and the conjecture that he trailed a pike in the Netherlands is merely based on his acquaintance with war and with Dutch. The Epistle to his English Villanies, with its reference to ‘my three score years’, first appeared in the edition of 1632; he was therefore born about 1572. He first emerges, in Henslowe’s diary, as a playwright for the Admiral’s in 1598, and may very well have been working for them during 1594–8, a period for which Henslowe records plays only and not authors. The further conjecture of Fleay, i. 119, that this employment went as far back as 1588–91 is hazardous, and in fact led Fleay to put his birth-date as far back as 1567. It was based on the fact that the German repertories of 1620 and 1626 contain traces of his work, and on Fleay’s erroneous belief (cf. ch. xiv) that all the plays in these repertories were taken to Germany by Robert Browne as early as 1592. But it is smiled upon by Greg (Henslowe, ii. 256) as regards The Virgin Martyr alone. Between 1598 and 1602 Dekker wrote busily, and as a rule in collaboration, first for the Admiral’s at the Rose and Fortune, and afterwards for Worcester’s at the Rose. He had a hand in some forty-four plays, of which, in anything like their original form, only half a dozen survive. Satiromastix, written for the Chamberlain’s men and the Paul’s boys in 1601, shows that his activities were not limited to the Henslowe companies. This intervention in the Poetomachia led Jonson to portray him as Demetrius Fannius ‘the dresser of plays’ in The Poetaster; that he is also Thersites in Troilus and Cressida is a not very plausible conjecture. Long after, in 1619, Jonson classed him among the ‘rogues’ (Laing, 4). In 1604, however, he shared with Jonson the responsibility for the London devices at James’s coronation entry. About this time began his career as a writer of popular pamphlets, in which he proved the most effective successor of Thomas Nashe. These, and in particular The Gull’s Hornbook (1609), are full of touches drawn from his experience as a dramatist. Nor did he wholly desert the stage, collaborating with Middleton for the Prince’s and with Webster for Paul’s, and writing also, apparently alone, for the Queen’s. In 1612 he devised the Lord Mayor’s pageant. In 1613 he fell upon evil days. He had always been impecunious, and Henslowe (i. 83, 101, 161) had lent him money to discharge him from the Counter in 1598 and from an arrest by the Chamberlain’s in 1599. Now he fell into the King’s Bench for debt, and apparently lay there until 1619. The relationship of his later work to that of Ford, Massinger, Day, and others, lies rather beyond the scope of this inquiry, but in view of the persistent attempts to find early elements in all his plays, I have made my list comprehensive. He is not traceable after 1632, and is probably the Thomas Decker, householder, buried at St. James’s, Clerkenwell, on 25 Aug. 1632. A Clerkenwell recusant of this name is recorded in 1626 and 1628 (Middlesex County Records, iii. 12, 19).

Collections

1873. [R. H. Shepherd], The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker. 4 vols. (Pearson Reprints). [Contains 15 plays and 4 Entertainments.]

1884–6. A. B. Grosart, The Non-Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker. 5 vols. (Huth Library). [Contains nearly all the pamphlets, with Patient Grissell. A better edition of The Gull’s Hornbook is that by R. B. McKerrow (1904); a chapter is in App. H.]

1887. E. Rhys, Thomas Dekker (Mermaid Series). [Contains The Shoemaker’s Holiday, 1, 2 The Honest Whore, Old Fortunatus, The Witch of Edmonton.]

Dissertations: M. L. Hunt, Thomas Dekker: A Study (1911, Columbia Studies in English); W. Bang, Dekker-Studien (1900, E. S. xxviii. 208); F. E. Pierce, The Collaboration of Webster with Dekker (1909, Yale Studies, xxxvii) and The Collaboration of Dekker and Ford (1912, Anglia, xxxvi, 141, 289); E. E. Stoll, John Webster (1905), ch. ii, and The Influence of Jonson on Dekker (1906, M. L. N. xxi. 20); R. Brooke, John Webster and the Elizabethan Drama (1916); F. P. Wilson, Three Notes on Thomas Dekker (1920, M. L. R. xv. 82).

PLAYS

Old Fortunatus. 1599

S. R. 1600, Feb. 20. ‘A commedie called old Fortunatus in his newe lyuerie.’ William Aspley (Arber, iii. 156).

1600. The Pleasant Comedie of Old Fortunatus. As it was plaied before the Queenes Maiestie this Christmas, by the Right Honourable the Earle of Nottingham, Lord high Admirall of England his Seruants. S. S. for William Aspley. [Prologue at Court, another Prologue, and Epilogue at Court; signed at end Tho. Dekker.]

Editions by Dilke (1814, O. E. P. iii), H. Scherer (1901, Münchener Beiträge, xxi), O. Smeaton (1904, T. D.).

The Admiral’s revived, from 3 Feb. to 26 May 1596, ‘the 1 parte of Forteunatus’. Nothing is heard of a second part, but during 9–30 Nov. 1599 Dekker received £6 on account of the Admiral’s for ‘the hole history of Fortunatus’, followed on 1 Dec. by £1 for altering the book and on 12 Dec. £2 ‘for the eande of Fortewnatus for the corte’. The company were at Court on 27 Dec. 1599 and 1 Jan. 1600. The Shoemaker’s Holiday was played on 1 Jan.; Fortunatus therefore on 27 Dec. The Prologue (l. 21) makes it ‘a iust yeere’ since the speaker saw the Queen, presumably on 27 Dec. 1598. The S. R. entry suggests that the 1599 play was a revision of the 1596 one. Probably Dekker boiled the old two parts down into one play; the juncture may, as suggested by Fleay, i. 126, and Greg (Henslowe, ii. 179), come about l. 1315. The Court additions clearly include, besides the Prologue and the Epilogue with its reference to Elizabeth’s forty-second regnal year (1599–1600), the compliment of ll. 2799–834 at the ‘eande’ of the play. The ‘small circumference’ of the theatrical prologue was doubtless the Rose. Dekker may or may not have been the original author of the two-part play; probably he was not, if Fleay is right in assigning it to c. 1590 on the strength of the allusions to the Marprelate controversy left in the 1600 text, e.g. l. 59. I should not wonder if Greene, who called his son Fortunatus, were the original author. A Fortunatus play is traceable in German repertories of 1608 and 1626 and an extant version in the collection of 1620 owes something to Dekker’s (Herz, 97; cf. P. Harms, Die deutschen Fortunatus-Dramen in Theatergeschichtliche Forschungen, v). But Dekker’s own source, directly or indirectly, was a German folk-tale, which had been dramatized by Hans Sachs as early as 1553.

The Shoemaker’s Holiday. 1599

S. R. 1610, April 19. Transfer from Simmes to J. Wright of ‘A booke called the shoomakers holyday or the gentle crafte’ subject to an agreement for Simmes to ‘haue the workmanshipp of the printinge thereof for the vse of the sayd John Wrighte duringe his lyfe, yf he haue a printinge house of his owne’ (Arber, iii. 431).

1600. The Shomakers Holiday. Or The Gentle Craft. With the humorous life of Simon Eyre, shoomaker, and Lord Maior of London. As it was acted before the Queenes most excellent Maiestie on New yeares day at night last, by the right honourable the Earle of Notingham, Lord high Admirall of England, his seruants. Valentine Simmes. [Epistle to Professors of the Gentle Craft and Prologue before the Queen.]

1610, 1618, 1624, 1631, 1657.

Editions by E. Fritsche (1862), K. Warnke and E. Proescholdt (1886), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.), and A. F. Lange (1914, R. E. C. iii).

Henslowe advanced £3 ‘to bye a boocke called the gentle Craft of Thomas Dickers’ on 15 July 1599. Probably the hiatus in the Diary conceals other payments for the play, and there is nothing in the form of the entry to justify the suspicions of Fleay, i. 124, that it was not new and was not by Dekker himself. Moreover, the source was a prose tract of The Gentle Craft by T. D[eloney], published in 1598. The Admiral’s were at Court on 1 Jan. 1600, but not on 1 Jan. 1601. A writer signing himself Dramaticus, in Sh. Soc. Papers, iv. 110, describes a copy in which a contemporary hand has written the names ‘T. Dekker, R. Wilson’ at the end of the Epistle, together with the names of the actors in the margin of the text. A few of these are not otherwise traceable in the Admiral’s. Fleay and Greg (Henslowe, ii. 203) unite in condemning this communication as an obvious forgery; but I rather wish they had given their reasons.

Patient Grissell. 1600

With Chettle and Haughton.

S. R. 1600, March 28. ‘The Plaie of Patient Grissell.’ Cuthbert Burby (Arber, iii. 158).

1603. The Pleasant Comodie of Patient Grissill. As it hath beene sundrie times lately plaid by the right honorable the Earle of Nottingham (Lord high Admirall) his seruants. For Henry Rocket.

Editions by J. P. Collier (1841, Sh. Soc.), A. B. Grosart (1886, Dekker, v. 109), G. Hübsch (1893, Erlanger Beiträge, xv), J. S. Farmer (1911, T. F. T.).--Dissertations by A. E. H. Swaen in E. S. xxii. 451, Fr. v. Westenholz, Die Griseldis-Sage in der Literaturgeschichte (1888).

Henslowe paid £10 10_s._ to Dekker, Chettle, and Haughton for the play between 16 Oct. and 29 Dec. 1599, also £1 for Grissell’s gown on 26 Jan. 1600 and £2 ‘to staye the printing’ on 18 March 1600. The text refers to ‘wonders of 1599’ (l. 2220) and to ‘this yeare’ as ‘leap yeare’ (l. 157). The production was doubtless c. Feb.–March 1600. Fleay, i. 271, attempts to divide the work amongst the three contributors; cf. Hunt, 60. I see nothing to commend the theory of W. Bang (E. S. xxviii. 208) that the play was written by Chettle c. 1590–4 and revised with Dekker, Haughton, and Jonson. No doubt the dandy’s duel, in which clothes alone suffer, of Emulo-Sir Owen resembles that of Brisk-Luculento in Every Man Out of his Humour, but this may be due to a common origin in fact (cf. Fleay, i. 361; Penniman, War, 70; Small, 43). Fleay, followed by Penniman, identifies Emulo with Samuel Daniel, but Small, 42, 184, satisfactorily disposes of this suggestion. There seems no reason to regard Patient Grissell as part of the Poetomachia. A ‘Comoedia von der Crysella’ is in the German repertory of 1626; the theme had, however, already been dealt with in a play of Griseldis by Hans Sachs (Herz, 66, 78).

Satiromastix. 1601

With Marston?

S. R. 1601, Nov. 11. ‘Vppon condicon that yt be lycensed to be printed, A booke called the vntrussinge of the humorous poetes by Thomas Decker.’ John Barnes (Arber, iii. 195).

1602. Satiromastix. Or The vntrussing of the Humorous Poet. As it hath bin presented publikely, by the Right Honorable, the Lord Chamberlaine his Seruants; and priuately, by the Children of Paules. By Thomas Dekker. For Edward White. [Epistle to the World, note Ad Lectorem of errata, and Epilogue. Scherer, xiv, distinguishes two editions, but T. M. Parrott’s review in M. L. R. vi. 398 regards these as only variant states of one edition.]

Editions by T. Hawkins (1773, O. E. D. iii), H. Scherer (1907, Materialien, xx), J. H. Penniman (1913, B. L.).

The Epistle refers to the Poetomachia between ‘Horace’ and ‘a band of leane-witted Poetasters’, and on the place of Satiromastix in this fray there is little to be added to Small, 119. Jonson is satirized as Horace. Asinius Bubo is some unknown satellite of his, probably the same who appears as Simplicius Faber in Marston’s What You Will (q.v.). Crispinus, Demetrius, and Tucca are taken over from Jonson’s Poetaster (q.v.). The satirical matter is engrafted on to a play with a tragic plot and comic sub-plot, both wholly unconcerned with the Poetomachia. Jonson must have known that the attack was in preparation, when he made Tucca abuse Histrio for threatening to ‘play’ him, and Histrio say that he had hired Demetrius [Dekker] ‘to abuse Horace, and bring him in, in a play’ (Poetaster, III. iv. 212, 339). But obviously Dekker cannot have done much of his satire until he had seen Poetaster, to many details of which it retorts. It is perhaps rather fantastic to hold that, as he chaffs Jonson for the boast that he wrote Poetaster in fifteen weeks (Satiromastix, 641), he must himself have taken less. In any case a date of production between that of Poetaster in the spring of 1601 and the S. R. entry on 11 Nov. 1601 is indicated. The argument of Scherer, x, for a date about Christmas 1601, and therefore after the S. R. entry, is rebutted by Parrott. It is generally held that Marston helped Dekker with the play, in spite of the single name on the title-page. No doubt Tucca in Poetaster, III. iv. 352, suggests to Histrio that Crispinus shall help Demetrius, and the plural is used in Satiromastix (Epistle, 12, and Epilogue, 2700) and in Jonson’s own Apologetical Dialogue to Poetaster (l. 141) of the ‘poetasters’ who were Jonson’s ‘untrussers’. Small, 122, finds Marston in the plot and characterization, but not in the style.

Sir Thomas Wyatt. 1602

With Webster, and possibly Chettle, Heywood, and Smith.

1607. The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyat. With the Coronation of Queen Mary, and the coming in of King Philip. As it was plaied by the Queens Maiesties Seruants. Written by Thomas Dickers and Iohn Webster. E. A. for Thomas Archer.

1612. For Thomas Archer.

Editions by J. Blew (1876), and J. S. Farmer (1914, S. F. T.) and with Works of Webster (q.v.).

Henslowe, on behalf of Worcester’s men, paid Chettle, Dekker, Heywood, Smith, and Webster, for 1 Lady Jane in Oct. 1602. He then bought properties for The Overthrow of Rebels, almost certainly the same play, and began to pay Dekker for a 2 Lady Jane, which apparently remained unfinished, at any rate at the time. One or both of these plays, or possibly only the shares of Dekker and Webster in one or both of them, may reasonably be taken to survive in Sir Thomas Wyatt. Stoll, 49, thinks the play, as we have it, is practically Dekker’s and that there is ‘no one thing’ that can be claimed ‘with any degree of assurance’ for Webster. But this is not the general view. Fleay, ii. 269, followed in the main by Hunt, 76, gives Webster scc. i-ix, Greg (Henslowe, ii. 233) scc. i-x and xvi (with hesitation as to iii-v), Pierce, after a careful application of a number of ‘tests’ bearing both on style and on matter, scc. ii, v, vi, x, xiv, xvi; but he thinks that some or all of these were retouched by Dekker. Brooke inclines to trace Webster in scc. ii, xvi, Heywood in scc. vi, x, and a good deal of Dekker. Hunt thinks the planning due to Chettle.

The Honest Whore. 1604, c. 1605

With Middleton.

S. R. 1604, Nov. 9 (Pasfield). ‘A Booke called The humors of the patient man, The longinge wyfe and the honest whore.’ Thomas Man the younger (Arber, iii. 275).

1608, April 29 (Buck). ‘A booke called the second parte of the conuerted Courtisan or honest Whore.’ Thomas Man Junior (Arber, iii. 376). [No fee entered.]

1630, June 29 (Herbert). ‘The second parte of the Honest Hoore by Thomas Dekker.’ Butter (Arber, iv. 238).

1604. The Honest Whore, With, The Humours of the Patient Man, and the Longing Wife. Tho: Dekker. V. S. for John Hodgets. [Part i.]

1605, 1615, 1616, N.D. [All Part i.]

1630. The Second Part of the Honest Whore, With the Humors of the Patient Man, the Impatient Wife: the Honest Whore, perswaded by strong Arguments to turne Curtizan againe: her braue refuting those Arguments. And lastly, the Comicall Passages of an Italian Bridewell, where the Scaene ends. Written by Thomas Dekker. Elizabeth Allde for Nathaniel Butter. [Part ii.]

1635. The Honest Whore, With, The Humours of the Patient Man, and the Longing Wife, Written by Thomas Dekker, As it hath beene Acted by her Maiesties Servants with great Applause. N. Okes, sold by Richard Collins. [Part i.]

Editions by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. i) and W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).

Henslowe made a payment to Dekker and Middleton for ‘the pasyent man & the onest hore’ between 1 Jan. and 14 March 1604, on account of the Prince’s men, and the mention of Towne in a stage-direction to Part i (ed. Pearson, ii. 78) shows that it was in fact acted by this company. Fleay, i. 132, and Hunt, 94, cite some allusions in Part ii suggesting a date soon after that of Part i, and this would be consistent with Henslowian methods. There is more difference of opinion about the partition of the work. Of Part i Fleay gives scc. i, iii, and xiii-xv alone to Dekker, and Hunt finds the influence of Middleton in the theme and plot of both Parts. Bullen, however (Middleton, i. xxv), thinks Middleton’s share ‘inconsiderable’, giving him only I. v and III. i, with a hand in II. i and in a few comic scenes of Part ii. Ward, ii. 462, holds a similar view.

Westward Ho! 1604

With Webster.

S. R. 1605, March 2. ‘A commodie called westward Hoe presented by the Children of Paules provided yat he get further authoritie before yt be printed.’ Henry Rocket (Arber, iii. 283). [Entry crossed out and marked ‘vacat’.]

1607. Westward Hoe. As it hath beene diuers times Acted by the Children of Paules. Written by Tho: Decker, and Iohn Webster. _Sold by John Hodgets._

Editions with Works of Webster (q.v.).

The allusions cited by Fleay, ii. 269, Stoll, 14, Hunt, 101, agree with a date of production at the end of 1604. Fleay assigns Acts I-III and a part of IV. ii to Webster; the rest of Acts IV, V to Dekker. But Stoll, 79, thinks that Webster only had ‘some slight, undetermined part in the more colourless and stereotyped portions ... under the shaping and guiding hand of Dekker’, and Pierce, 131, after an elaborate application of tests, can only give him all or most of I. i and III. iii and a small part of I. ii and III. ii. Brooke finds traces of Webster in I. i and III. iii and Dekker in II. i, ii and V. iii, and has some useful criticism of the ‘tests’ employed by Pierce.

Northward Ho! 1605

With Webster.

S. R. 1607, Aug. 6 (Buck). ‘A booke Called Northward Ho.’ George Elde (Arber, iii. 358).

1607. North-Ward Hoe. Sundry times Acted by the Children of Paules. By Thomas Decker, and Iohn Webster. G. Eld.

Editions by J. S. Farmer (1914, S. F. T.) and in Works of Webster (q.v.).

The play is a reply to Eastward Ho! which was itself a reply to Westward Ho! and was on the stage before May 1605, and it is referred to with the other two plays in Day’s Isle of Gulls, which was on the stage in Feb. 1606. This pretty well fixes its date to the end of 1605. I do not think that Stoll, 16, is justified in his argument for a date later than Jan. 1606, since, even if the comparison of the life of a gallant to a squib is a borrowing from Marston’s Fawn, it seems probable that the Fawn itself was originally written by 1604, although possibly touched up early in 1606. Fleay, ii. 270, identifies Bellamont with Chapman, one of the authors of Eastward Ho! and Stoll, 65, argues in support of this. It is plausible, but does not carry with it Fleay’s identification of Jenkins with Drayton. Fleay gives Webster I. ii, II. i, III. i, and IV. i, but Stoll finds as little of him as in Westward Ho! and Pierce, 131, only gives him all or most of I. i, II. ii, and the beginning of v and a small part of III. i. Brooke traces Webster in I. i and III. i and Dekker in IV. i.

The Whore of Babylon 1605 < > 7

S. R. 1607, April 20 (Buck). ‘A booke called the Whore of Babilon.’ Nathanael Butter and John Trundell (Arber, iii. 347).

1607. The Whore of Babylon. As it was Acted by the Princes Seruants. Written by Thomas Dekker. For N. Butter. [Epistle to the Reader and Prologue.]

Fleay, i. 133, and Greg (Henslowe, ii. 210) regard the play as a revision of Truth’s Supplication to Candlelight, for which Henslowe, on behalf of the Admiral’s, was paying Dekker in Jan. 1600 and buying a robe for Time in April 1600. Truth and Time, but not Candlelight, are characters in the play, which deals with Catholic intrigues against Elizabeth, represented as Titania, and her suitors. I do not feel sure that it would have been allowed to be staged in Elizabeth’s lifetime. In any case it must have been revised c. 1605–7, in view of the references, not only to the death of Essex (ed. Pearson, p. 246) and the reign of James (p. 234), but to the Isle of Gulls of 1605 (p. 214). The Cockpit, alluded to (p. 214) as a place where follies are shown in apes, is of course that in the palace, where Henry saw plays. The Epistle and Prologue have clear references to a production in ‘Fortune’s dial’ and the ‘square’ of the Fortune, and the former criticizes players; but hardly proves the definite breach with the Prince’s suggested by Fleay and Greg.

The Roaring Girl. c. 1610

With Middleton.

1611. The Roaring Girle. Or Moll Cut-Purse, As it hath lately beene Acted on the Fortune-stage by the Prince his Players. Written by T. Middleton and T. Dekkar. For Thomas Archer. [Epistle to the Comic Play-Readers, signed ‘Thomas Middleton’, Prologue and Epilogue.]

Editions by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. ii), A. H. Bullen (1885, Middleton, iv. 1), and J. S. Farmer (1914, S. F. T.).

Fleay, i, 132, thinks the play written about 1604–5, but not produced until 1610. This is fantastic and Bullen points out that Mary Frith, the heroine, born not earlier than c. 1584–5, had hardly won her notoriety by 1604. By 1610 she certainly had, and the ‘foule’ book of her ‘base trickes’ referred to in the Epilogue was probably John Day’s Mad Pranks of Merry Mall of the Bankside, entered on S. R. 7 Aug. 1610, but not extant. The Epilogue also tells the audience that, if they are dissatisfied,

The Roring Girle her selfe some few dayes hence, Shall on this Stage, give larger recompence.

I think this can only refer to a contemplated personal appearance of Mary Frith on the stage; it has been interpreted as referring to another forthcoming play. Moll Cutpurse appears in Field’s Amends for Ladies, but this was not a Fortune play. Bullen (Middleton, i. xxxv) regards the play as an example of collaboration, and gives Dekker I. II. ii, and V; Middleton, with occasional hesitation, the rest. Fleay, i. 132, only gives Middleton II. ii, IV. i, V. ii.

If It be not Good, the Devil is in It. 1610 < > 12

1612. If It Be Not Good, the Diuel is in it. A New Play, As it hath bin lately Acted, with great applause, by the Queenes Maiesties Seruants: At the Red Bull. Written by Thomas Dekker. For I. T. sold by Edward Marchant. [Epistle to the Queen’s men signed Tho: Dekker, Prologue, and Epilogue. The running title is ‘If this be not a good Play, the Diuell is in it’.]

The Epistle tells us that after ‘Fortune’ (the Admiral’s) had ‘set her foote vpon’ the play, the Queen’s had ‘raised it up ... the Frontispice onely a little more garnished’. Fleay, i. 133, attempts to fix the play to 1610, but hardly proves more than that it cannot be earlier than 14 May 1610, as the murder on that day of Henri IV is referred to (ed. Pearson, p. 354). The Epistle also refers to a coming new play by Dekker’s ‘worthy friend’, perhaps Webster (q.v.). In the opening scene the devil Lurchall is addressed as Grumball, which suggests the actor Armin (cf. ch. xv). Daborne (q.v.) in the Epistle to his Christian Turned Turk seems to claim a share in this play.

Match Me in London (?)

S. R. 1630, 8 Nov. (Herbert). ‘A Play called Mach mee in London by Thomas Decker.’ Seile (Arber, iv. 242).

1631. A Tragi-Comedy: Called, Match mee in London. As it hath beene often presented; First, at the Bull in St. Iohns-street; And lately, at the Priuate-House in Drury Lane, called the Phoenix. Written by Tho: Dekker. B. Alsop and T. Fawcet for H. Seile. [Epistle to Lodowick Carlell signed ‘Tho: Dekker’.]

Herbert’s diary contains the entry on 21 Aug. 1623, ‘For the L. Elizabeth’s servants of the Cockpit. An old play called Match me in London which had been formerly allowed by Sir G. Bucke.’ On this, some rather slight evidence from allusions, and a general theory that Dekker did not write plays during his imprisonment of 1613–19, Fleay, i. 134, puts the original production by Queen Anne’s men c. 1611 and Hunt, 160, in 1612–13. As there are some allusions to cards and the game of maw, Fleay thinks the play a revision of The Set at Maw produced by the Admiral’s on 15 Dec. 1594. Greg (Henslowe, ii. 172) points out the weakness of the evidence, but finds some possible traces of revision in the text.

The Virgin Martyr. c. 1620

With Massinger.

S. R. 1621, 7 Dec. (Buck). ‘A Tragedy called The Virgin Martir.’ Thomas Jones (Arber, iv. 62).

1622. The Virgin Martir, A Tragedie, as it hath bin divers times publickely Acted with great Applause, By the seruants of his Maiesties Reuels. Written by Phillip Messenger and Thomas Deker. B. A. for Thomas Jones.

1631, 1651, 1661.

The play is said to have been ‘reformed’ and licensed by Buck for the Red Bull on 6 Oct. 1620 (Herbert, 29). An additional scene, licensed on 7 July 1624 (Var. i. 424), did not find its way into print. Fleay, i. 135, 212, asserts that the 1620 play was a refashioning by Massinger of a play by Dekker for the Queen’s about 1611, itself a recast of Diocletian, produced by the Admiral’s on 16 Nov. 1594, but ‘dating from 1591 at the latest’. He considers II. i, iii, III. iii, and IV. ii of the 1620 version to be still Dekker’s. Ward, iii. 12, and Hunt, 156, give most of the play to Dekker. But all these views are impressionistic, and there is no special reason to suppose that Massinger revised, rather than collaborated with, Dekker, or to assume a version of c. 1611. As for an earlier version still, Fleay’s evidence is trivial. In any case 1591 is out of the question, as Henslowe marked the Diocletian of 1594 ‘n.e.’ Nor does he say it was by Dekker. A play on Dorothea the Martyr had made its way into Germany by 1626, but later German repertories disclose that there was also a distinct play on Diocletian (Herz, 66, 103; Greg, Henslowe, ii. 172). Greg, however, finds parts of The Virgin Martyr, ‘presumably Dekker’s’, to be ‘undoubtedly early’. Oliphant (E. S. xvi. 191) makes the alternative suggestion that Diocletian was the basis of Fletcher’s Prophetess, in which he believes the latter part of IV. i and V. i to be by an older hand, which he cannot identify. All this is very indefinite.

The Witch of Edmonton. 1621

With Ford and W. Rowley.

S. R. 1658, May 21. ‘A booke called The witch of Edmonton, a Tragicomedy by Will: Rowley, &c.’ Edward Blackmore (Eyre, ii. 178).

1658. The Witch of Edmonton, A known true Story. Composed into a Tragi-Comedy By divers well-esteemed Poets; William Rowley, Thomas Dekker, John Ford, &c. Acted by the Princes Servants; often at the Cock-Pit in Drury Lane, once at Court, with singular Applause. Never printed till now. J. Cottrel for Edward Blackmore. [Prologue signed ‘Master Bird’.]

Editions with Works of John Ford, by H. Weber (1811), W. Gifford (1827), H. Coleridge (1840, 1848, 1851), A. Dyce (1869), A. H. Bullen (1895).

I include this for the sake of completeness, but it is based upon a pamphlet published in 1621 and was played at Court by the Prince’s men on 29 Dec. 1621 (Murray, ii. 193). It is generally regarded as written in collaboration. Views as to its division amongst the writers are summarized by Hunt, 178, and Pierce (Anglia, xxxvi. 289). The latter finds Dekker in nearly all the scenes, Ford in four, Rowley perhaps in five.

The Wonder of a Kingdom. 1623

Possibly with Day.

S. R. 1631, May 16 (Herbert). ‘A Comedy called The Wonder of a Kingdome by Thomas Decker.’ John Jackman (Arber, iv. 253).

1636, Feb. 24. ‘Vnder the hands of Sir Henry Herbert and Master Kingston Warden (dated the 7th of May 1631) a Play called The Wonder of a Kingdome by Thomas Decker.’ Nicholas Vavasour (Arber, iv. 355).

1636. The Wonder of a Kingdome. Written by Thomas Dekker. Robert Raworth for Nicholas Vavasour.

Herbert’s diary for 18 Sept. 1623 has the entry: ‘For a company of strangers. A new comedy called Come see a wonder, written by John Daye. It was acted at the Red Bull and licensed without my hand to it because they were none of the 4 companies.’ As The Wonder of a Kingdom contains scenes which are obviously from Day’s Parliament of Bees (1608–16) it is possible either to adopt the simple theory of a collaboration between Day and Dekker in 1623, or to hold with Fleay, i. 136, and Greg, Henslowe, ii. 174, that Day’s ‘new’ play of 1623 was a revision of an earlier one by Dekker. The mention of cards in the closing lines seems an inadequate ground for Fleay’s further theory, apparently approved by Greg, that the original play was The Mack, produced by the Admiral’s on 21 Feb. 1595.

The Sun’s Darling. 1624

With Ford.

1656. The Sun’s-Darling: A Moral Masque: As it hath been often presented at Whitehall, by their Majesties Servants; and after at the Cockpit in Drury Lane, with great Applause. Written by John Foard and Tho. Decker Gent. J. Bell for Andrew Penneycuicke.

1657. Reissue with same imprint.

1657. Reissue with same imprint.... ‘As it hath been often presented by their Majesties Servants; at the Cockpit in Drury Lane’....

Editions with Works of John Ford, by H. Weber (1811), W. Gifford (1827), H. Coleridge (1840, 1848, 1851), A. Dyce (1869), A. H. Bullen (1895).

The play was licensed by Herbert for the Lady Elizabeth’s at the Cockpit on 3 March 1624 (Chalmers, S. A. 217; Herbert, 27) and included in a list of Cockpit plays in 1639 (Variorum, iii. 159). Fleay, i. 232, Ward, ii. 470, and Pierce (Anglia, xxxvi. 141) regard it as a revision by Ford of earlier work by Dekker, and the latter regards the last page of Act I, Acts II and III, and the prose of Acts IV and V as substantially Dekker’s. It is perhaps a step from this to the theory of Fleay and Greg (Henslowe, ii. 190) that the play represents the Phaethon, which Dekker wrote for the Admiral’s in Jan. 1598 and afterwards altered for a Court performance at Christmas 1600. There are allusions to ‘humours’ and to ‘pampered jades of Asia’ (ed. Pearson, pp. 316, 318) which look early, but Phaethon is not a character, nor is the story his. A priest of the Sun appears in Act I: I am surprised that Fleay did not identify him, though he is not mad, with the ‘mad priest of the sun’ referred to in Greene’s (q.v.) Epistle to Perimedes. The play is not a ‘masque’ in the ordinary sense.

The Noble Soldier > 1631

With Day and S. Rowley?

S. R. 1631, May 16 (Herbert). ‘A Tragedy called The noble Spanish Souldier by Thomas Deckar.’ John Jackman (Arber, iv. 253).

1633, Dec. 9. ‘Entred for his Copy vnder the handes of Sir Henry Herbert and Master Kingston warden Anno Domini 1631. a Tragedy called The Noble Spanish soldior written by master Decker.’ Nicholas Vavasour (Arber, iv. 310).

1634. The Noble Souldier, Or, A Contract Broken, justly reveng’d. A Tragedy. Written by S. R. For Nicholas Vavasour.

Editions by A. H. Bullen (1882, O. E. P. i) and J. S. Farmer (1913, S. F. T.).

The printer tells us that the author was dead in 1634.

The initials may indicate Samuel Rowley of the Admiral’s and Prince Henry’s. Bullen and Hunt, 187, think that Dekker revised work by Rowley. But probably Day also contributed, for II. i, ii; III. ii; IV. i; V. i, ii, and parts of I. ii and V. iv are drawn like scenes in The Wonder of a Kingdom from his Parliament of Bees (1608–16). Fleay, i. 128, identifies the play with The Spanish Fig for which Henslowe made a payment on behalf of the Admiral’s in Jan. 1602. This Greg (Henslowe, ii. 220) thinks ‘plausible’, regarding the play as ‘certainly an old play of about 1600, presumably by Dekker and Rowley with later additions by Day’. He notes that the King is not, as Fleay alleged, poisoned with a Spanish fig, but a Spanish fig is mentioned, ‘and it is quite possible that such may have been the mode of poisoning in the original piece’. Henslowe does not name the payee for The Spanish Fig, and it was apparently not finished at the time.

Lost and Doubtful Plays

It will be convenient to set out all the certain or conjectured work by Dekker mentioned in Henslowe’s Diary.

(a) Conjectural anonymous Work before 1598

(i) Philipo and Hippolito.

Produced as a new play by the Admiral’s on 9 July 1594. The ascription to Dekker, confident in Fleay, i. 213, and regarded as possible by Greg (Henslowe, ii. 165), appears to be due to the entry of a Philenzo and Hypollita by Massinger, who revised other early work of Dekker, in the S. R. on 29 June 1660, to the entry of a Philenzo and Hipolito by Massinger in Warburton’s list of burnt plays (3 Library, ii. 231), and to the appearance of a Julio and Hyppolita in the German collection of 1620. A copy of Massinger’s play is said (Collier, Henslowe, xxxi) to be amongst the Conway MSS.

(ii) The Jew of Venice.

Entered as a play by Dekker in the S. R. on 9 Sept. 1653 (3 Library, ii. 241). It has been suggested (Fleay, i. 121, and Sh. 30, 197; Greg in Henslowe, ii. 170) that it was the source of a German play printed from a Vienna MS. by Meissner, 131 (cf. Herz, 84). In this a personage disguises himself as a French doctor, which leads to the conjectural identification of its English original both with The Venetian Comedy produced by the Admiral’s on 27 Aug. 1594 and with The French Doctor performed by the same men on 19 Oct. 1594 and later dates and bought by them from Alleyn in 1602. The weakest point in all this guesswork is the appearance of common themes in the German play and in The Merchant of Venice, which Fleay explains to his own satisfaction by the assumption that Shakespeare based The Merchant of Venice on Dekker’s work.

(iii) Dr. Faustus.

Revived by the Admiral’s on 30 Sept. 1594. On the possibility that the 1604 text contains comic scenes written by Dekker for this revival, cf. s.v. Marlowe.

(iv) Diocletian.

Produced by the Admiral’s, 16 Nov. 1599; cf. s.v. The Virgin Martyr (supra).

(v) The Set at Maw.

Produced by the Admiral’s on 14 Dec. 1594; cf. s.v. Match Me in London (supra).

(vi) Antony and Valia.

Revived by the Admiral’s, 4 Jan. 1595, and ascribed by Fleay, i. 213, with some encouragement from Greg in Henslowe, ii. 174, to Dekker, on the ground of entries in the S. R. on 29 June 1660 and in Warburton’s list of burnt plays (3 Library, ii. 231) of an Antonio and Vallia by Massinger, who revised other early work by Dekker.

(vii) The Mack.

Produced by the Admiral’s on 21 Feb. 1595; cf. s.v. The Wonder of a Kingdom (supra).

(viii) 1 Fortunatus.

Revived by the Admiral’s on 3 Feb. 1596; cf. s.v. Old Fortunatus (supra).

(ix) Stukeley.

Produced by the Admiral’s on 11 Dec. 1596. On Fleay’s ascription to Dekker, cf. s.v. Captain Thomas Stukeley (Anon.).

(x) Prologue to Tamberlaine.

This rests on a forged entry in Henslowe’s Diary for 20 Dec. 1597; cf. s.v. Marlowe.

(b) Work for Admiral’s, 1598–1602

(i) Phaethon.

Payments in Jan. 1598 and for alterations for the Court in Dec. 1600; cf. s.v. The Sun’s Darling (supra).

(ii) The Triplicity or Triangle of Cuckolds.

Payment in March 1598.

(iii) The Wars of Henry I or The Welshman’s Prize.

Payment, with Chettle and Drayton, March 1598. Greg (Henslowe, ii. 192) speculates on possible relations of the plays to others on a Welshman and on Henry I.

(iv) 1 Earl Godwin.

Payment, with Chettle, Drayton, and Wilson, March 1598.

(v) Pierce of Exton.

Payment, with Chettle, Drayton, and Wilson, April 1598. Apparently the play was not finished.

(vi) 1 Black Bateman of the North.

Payments, with Chettle, Drayton, and Wilson, May 1598.

(vii) 2 Earl Godwin.

Payments, with Chettle, Drayton, and Wilson, May–June 1598.

(viii) The Madman’s Morris.

Payments, with Drayton and Wilson, July 1598.

(ix) Hannibal and Hermes.

Payments, with Drayton and Wilson, July 1598.

(x) 2 Hannibal and Hermes.

Greg (Henslowe, ii. 195) gives this name to (xiii).

(xi) Pierce of Winchester.

Payments, with Drayton and Wilson, July–Aug. 1598.

(xii) Chance Medley.

Payments to Dekker (or Chettle), with Munday, Drayton, and Wilson, Aug. 1598.

(xiii) Worse Afeared than Hurt.

Payments, with Drayton, Aug.–Sept. 1598.

(xiv) 1 Civil Wars of France.

Payment, with Drayton, Sept. 1598.

(xv) Connan Prince of Cornwall.

Payments, with Drayton, Oct. 1598.

(xvi) 2 Civil Wars of France.

Payment, with Drayton, Nov. 1598.

(xvii) 3 Civil Wars of France.

Payments, with Drayton, Nov.–Dec. 1598.

(xviii) Introduction to Civil Wars of France.

Payments, Jan. 1599.

(xix) Troilus and Cressida.

Payments, with Chettle, April 1599. A fragmentary ‘plot’ (cf. ch. xxiv) may belong to this play.

(xx) Agamemnon or Orestes Furious.

Payments, with Chettle, May 1599.

(xxi) The Gentle Craft.

Payment, July 1599; cf. The Shoemaker’s Holiday (supra).

(xxii) The Stepmother’s Tragedy.

Payments, with Chettle, Aug.–Oct. 1599.

(xxiii) Bear a Brain.

Payment, Aug. 1599; cf. s.vv. The Shoemaker’s Holiday (supra) and Look About You (Anon.).

(xxiv) Page of Plymouth.

Payments, with Jonson, Aug.–Sept. 1599.

(xxv) Robert II or The Scot’s Tragedy.

Payments, with Chettle, Jonson, ‘& other Jentellman’ (? Marston, q.v.), Sept. 1599.

(xxvi) Patient Grissell.

Payments, with Chettle and Haughton, Oct.–Dec. 1599; cf. supra.

(xxvii) Fortunatus.

Payments, Nov.–Dec. 1599; cf. s.v. Old Fortunatus (supra).

(xxviii) Truth’s Supplication to Candlelight.

Payments, Jan. 1600. Apparently the play was not finished; cf. s.v. The Whore of Babylon (supra).

(xxix) The Spanish Moor’s Tragedy.

Payment, with Day and Haughton, Feb. 1600. Apparently the play was not finished; cf. s.v. Lust’s Dominion (Marlowe).

(xxx) The Seven Wise Masters.

Payments, with Chettle, Day, and Haughton, March 1600.

(xxxi) The Golden Ass or Cupid and Psyche.

Payments, with Chettle and Day, April-May 1600; on borrowings from this, cf. s.v. Heywood, Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas.

(xxxii) 1 Fair Constance of Rome.

Payments, with Drayton, Hathway, Munday, and Wilson (q.v.), June 1600.

(xxxiii) [1] Fortune’s Tennis.

Payment, Sept. 1600. A fragmentary plot (cf. ch. xxiv) is perhaps less likely to belong to this than to Munday’s Set at Tennis.

(xxxiv) King Sebastian of Portugal.

Payments, with Chettle, April-May 1601.

(xxxv) The Spanish Fig.

Payment, Jan. 1602. The payee is unnamed; cf. The Noble Soldier (supra).

(xxxvi) Prologue and Epilogue to Pontius Pilate.

Payment, Jan. 1602.

(xxxvii) Alterations to Tasso’s Melancholy.

Payments, Jan.–Dec. 1602.

(xxxviii) Jephthah.

Payments, with Munday, May 1602.

(xxxix) Caesar’s Fall, or The Two Shapes.

Payments, with Drayton, Middleton, Munday, and Webster, May 1602.

(c) Work for Worcester’s, 1602

(i) A Medicine for a Curst Wife.

Payments, July–Sept. 1602. The play was begun for the Admiral’s and transferred to Worcester’s.

(ii) Additions to Sir John Oldcastle.

Payments, Aug.–Sept. 1602; cf. s.v. Drayton.

(iii) 1 Lady Jane, or The Overthrow of Rebels.

Payments, with Chettle, Heywood, Smith, and Webster, Oct. 1602; cf. s.v. Sir Thomas Wyatt (supra).

(iv) 2 Lady Jane.

Payment, Oct. 1602. Apparently the play was not finished; cf. s.v. Sir Thomas Wyatt (supra).

(v) Christmas Comes but Once a Year.

Payments, with Chettle, Heywood, and Webster, Nov. 1602.

(d) Work for Prince’s, 1604

The Patient Man and the Honest Whore.

Payments, with Middleton, Jan.–March 1602; cf. s.v. The Honest Whore (supra).

The following plays are assigned to Dekker in S. R. but are now lost:

The Life and Death of Guy of Warwick, with Day (S. R. 15 Jan. 1620).

Gustavus King of Swethland (S. R. 29 June 1660).

The Tale of Ioconda and Astolso, a Comedy (S. R. 29 June 1660).

The two latter are also in Warburton’s list of burnt plays (3 Library, ii. 231).

The following are assigned to Dekker in Herbert’s licence entries:

A French Tragedy of The Bellman of Paris, by Dekker and Day, for the Prince’s, on 30 July 1623.

The Fairy Knight, by Dekker and Ford, for the Prince’s, on 11 June 1624.

The Bristow Merchant, by Dekker and Ford, for the Palsgrave’s, on 22 Oct. 1624.

Fleay, i. 232, seems to have nothing but the names to go upon in suggesting identifications of the two latter with the Huon of Bordeaux, revived by Sussex’s on 28 Dec. 1593, and Day’s Bristol Tragedy (q.v.) respectively.

For other ascriptions to Dekker see Capt. T. Stukeley, Charlemagne, London Prodigal, Sir Thomas More, The Weakest Goeth to the Wall in ch. xxiv. He has also been conjectured to be the author of the songs in the 1632 edition of Lyly’s plays.

ENTERTAINMENTS

Coronation Entertainment. 1604

See ch. xxiv, C.

Troia Nova Triumphans. 29 Oct. 1612

S. R. 1612, Oct. 21. ‘To be prynted when yt is further Aucthorised, A Booke called Troia Nova triumphans. London triumphinge. or the solemne receauinge of Sir John Swynerton knight into the citye at his Retourne from Westminster after the taking his oathe written by Thomas Decker.’ Nicholas Okes (Arber, iii. 500).

1612. Troia-Noua Triumphans. London Triumphing, or, The Solemne, Magnificent, and Memorable Receiuing of that worthy Gentleman, Sir Iohn Swinerton Knight, into the Citty of London, after his Returne from taking the Oath of Maioralty at Westminster, on the Morrow next after Simon and Iudes day, being the 29. of October, 1612. All the Showes, Pageants, Chariots of Triumph, with other Deuices (both on the Water and Land) here fully expressed. By Thomas Dekker. Nicholas Okes, sold by John Wright.

Edition in Fairholt (1844), ii. 7.

The opening of the description refers to ‘our best-to-be-beloved friends, the noblest strangers’. John Chamberlain (Birch, i. 202) says that the Palsgrave was present and Henry kept away by his illness, that the show was ‘somewhat extraordinary’ and the water procession wrecked by ‘great winds’. At Paul’s Chain the Mayor was met by the ‘first triumph’, a sea-chariot, bearing Neptune and Luna, with a ship of wine. Neptune made a speech. At Paul’s Churchyard came ‘the second land-triumph’, the throne or chariot of Virtue, drawn by four horses on which sat Time, Mercury, Desire, and Industry. Virtue made a speech, and both pageants preceded the Mayor down Cheapside. At the little Conduit in Cheapside was the Castle of Envy, between whom and Virtue there was a dialogue, followed by fireworks from the castle. At the Cross in Cheapside was another ‘triumph’, the House of Fame, with representations of famous Merchant Tailors, ‘a perticular roome being reserved for one that represents the person of Henry, the now Prince of Wales’. After a speech by Fame, the pageant joined the procession, and from it was heard a song on the way to the Guildhall. On the way to Paul’s after dinner, Virtue and Envy were again beheld, and at the Mayor’s door a speech was made by Justice.

THOMAS DELONEY (c. 1543–c. 1600).

A ballad writer and pamphleteer, who wrote a ballad on the visit to Tilbury in 1588. See ch. xxiv, C.

ROBERT DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX (1566–1601).

It is possible that Essex, who sometimes dabbled in literature, had himself a hand in the device of Love and Self-Love, with which he entertained Elizabeth on 17 Nov. 1595, and of which some of the speeches are generally credited to Bacon (q.v.).

WILLIAM DODD (c. 1597–1602).

A Scholar and Fellow of St. John’s, Cambridge, and a conjectured author of Parnassus (cf. ch. xxiv).

MICHAEL DRAYTON (c. 1563–1631).

Drayton was born at Hartshill in Warwickshire, and brought up in the household of Sir Henry Goodyere of Polesworth, whose daughter Anne, afterwards Lady Rainsford, is the Idea of his pastorals and sonnets. With The Harmony of the Church (1591) began a life-long series of ambitious poems, in all the characteristic Elizabethan manners, for which Drayton found many patrons, notably Lucy Lady Bedford, Sir Walter Aston of Tixall, Prince Henry and Prince Charles, and Edward Earl of Dorset. The guerdons of his pen were not sufficient to keep him from having recourse to the stage. Meres classed him in 1598 among the ‘best for tragedy’, and Henslowe’s diary shows him a busy writer for the Admiral’s men, almost invariably in collaboration with Dekker and others, from Dec. 1597 to Jan. 1599, and a more occasional one from Oct. 1599 to May 1602. At a later date he may possibly have written for Queen Anne’s men, since commendatory verses by T. Greene are prefixed to his Poems of 1605. In 1608 he belonged to the King’s Revels syndicate at Whitefriars. No later connexion with the stage can be traced, and he took no steps to print his plays with his other works. His Elegy to Henry Reynolds of Poets and Poesie (C. Brett, Drayton’s Minor Poems, 108) does honour to Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, and Beaumont, and tradition makes him a partaker in the drinking-bout that led to Shakespeare’s end. Jonson wrote commendatory verses for him in 1627, but in 1619 had told Drummond (Laing, 10) that ‘Drayton feared him; and he esteemed not of him’. The irresponsible Fleay, i. 361; ii. 271, 323, identifies him with Luculento of E. M. O., Captain Jenkins of Dekker and Webster’s Northward Ho!, and the eponym of the anonymous Sir Giles Goosecap; Small, 98, with the Decius criticized in the anonymous Jack Drum’s Entertainment, who may also be Dekker.

The collections of Drayton’s Poems do not include his plays.--Dissertations: O. Elton, M. D. (1895, Spenser Soc., 1905); L. Whitaker, M. D. as a Dramatist (1903, M. L. A. xviii. 378).

Sir John Oldcastle. 1599

With Hathaway, Munday, and Wilson.

S. R. 1600, Aug. 11 (Vicars). ‘The first parte of the history of the life of Sir John Oldcastell lord Cobham. Item the second and last parte of the history of Sir John Oldcastell lord Cobham with his martyrdom,’ Thomas Pavier (Arber, iii. 169).

1600. The first part Of the true and honorable historie, of the life of Sir John Oldcastle, the good Lord Cobham. As it hath been lately acted by the right honorable the Earle of Notingham Lord high Admirall of England his seruants. V. S. for Thomas Pavier. [Prologue.]

1600.... Written by William Shakespeare. For T. P. [Probably a forgery of later date than that given in the imprint; cf. p. 479.]

1664. In Third Folio Shakespeare.

1685. In Fourth Folio Shakespeare.

Editions in collections of the Shakespeare Apocrypha, and by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. i), P. Simpson (1908, M. S. R.), J. S. Farmer (1911, T. F. T.).

Henslowe advanced £10 to the Admiral’s as payment to Munday, Drayton, Wilson, and Hathway for the first part of ‘the lyfe of S^r Jhon Ouldcasstell’ and in earnest for the second part on 16 Oct. 1599, and an additional 10_s._ for the poets ‘at the playnge of S^r John Oldcastell the ferste tyme as a gefte’ between 1 and 8 Nov. 1599. Drayton had £4 for the second part between 19 and 26 Dec. 1599, and properties were being bought for it in March 1600. It is not preserved. By Aug. 1602 the play had been transferred to Worcester’s men. More properties were bought, doubtless for a revival, and Dekker had £2 10_s._ for ‘new a dicyons’. Fleay, ii. 116, attempts to disentangle the work of the collaborators. Clearly the play was an answer to Henry IV, in which Sir John Falstaff was originally Sir John Oldcastle, and this is made clear in the prologue:

It is no pampered glutton we present, Nor aged Councellour to youthfull sinne.

Doubtful and Lost Plays

For ascriptions see Edward IV, London Prodigal, Merry Devil of Edmonton, Sir T. More, and Thomas Lord Cromwell in ch. xxiv.

The complete series of his work for the Admiral’s during 1597–1602 is as follows:

(i) Mother Redcap.

Payments, with Munday, Dec. 1597–Jan. 1598.

(ii) The Welshman’s Prize, or The Famous Wars of Henry I and the Prince of Wales.

Payments, with Chettle and Dekker, March 1598. Greg (Henslowe, ii. 192) thinks that the play may have had some relation to Davenport’s Henry I of 1624 entered as by Shakespeare and Davenport in S. R. on 9 Sept. 1653.

(iii) 1 Earl Godwin and his Three Sons.

Payments, with Chettle, Dekker, and Wilson, March 1598.

(iv) 2 Earl Godwin and his Three Sons.

Payments, with Chettle, Dekker, and Wilson, May to June 1598.

(v) Pierce of Exton.

Payment of £2, with Chettle, Dekker, and Wilson, April 1598; but apparently not finished.

(vi) 1 Black Bateman of the North.

Payments, with Chettle, Dekker, and Wilson, May 1598.

(vii) Funeral of Richard Cœur-de-lion.

Payments, with Chettle, Munday, and Wilson, June 1598.

(viii) The Madman’s Morris.

Payments, with Dekker and Wilson, July 1598.

(ix) Hannibal and Hermes.

Payments, with Dekker and Wilson, July 1598.

(x) Pierce of Winchester.

Payments, with Dekker and Wilson, July–Aug. 1598.

(xi) Chance Medley.

Payments, with Chettle or Dekker, Munday, and Wilson, Aug. 1598.

(xii) Worse Afeared than Hurt.

Payments, with Dekker, Aug.–Sept. 1598.

(xiii-xv) 1, 2, 3 The Civil Wars of France.

Payments, with Dekker, Sept.–Dec. 1598. Greg (Henslowe, ii. 198) suggests some relation with Chapman’s Bussy D’Ambois (q.v.).

(xvi) Connan Prince of Cornwall.

Payments, with Dekker, Oct. 1598.

(xvii) William Longsword.

Apparently Drayton’s only unaided play and unfinished. His autograph receipt for a payment in Jan. 1599 is in Henslowe, i. 59.

[There is now a break in Drayton’s dramatic activities, but not in his relations with Henslowe, for whom he acted as a witness on 8 July 1599. On 9 Aug. 1598 he had stood security for the delivery of a play by Munday (Henslowe, i. 60, 93).]

(xviii-xix) 1, 2 Sir John Oldcastle.

See above.

(xx) Owen Tudor.

Payments, with Hathway, Munday, and Wilson, Jan. 1600; but apparently not finished.

(xxi) 1 Fair Constance of Rome.

Payments, with Dekker, Hathway, Munday, and Wilson (q.v.), June 1600.

(xxii) The Rising of Cardinal Wolsey.

Payments, with Chettle (q.v.), Munday, and Smith, Aug.–Nov. 1601.

(xxiii) Caesar’s Fall, or The Two Shapes.

Payments, with Dekker, Middleton, Munday, and Webster, May 1602.

GILBERT DUGDALE (c. 1604).

Author of Time Triumphant, an account of the entry and coronation of James I (cf. ch. xxiv, C).

JOHN DUTTON (c. 1598–1602).

Perhaps only a ‘ghost-name’, but conceivably the author of Parnassus (cf. ch. xxiv).

JOHN DYMMOCKE (c. 1601).

Possibly the translator of Pastor Fido (cf. ch. xxiv).

RICHARD EDES (1555–1604).

Edes, or Eedes, entered Christ Church, Oxford, from Westminster in 1571, took his B.A. in 1574, his M.A. in 1578, and was University Proctor in 1583. He took orders, became Chaplain to the Queen, and was appointed Canon of Christ Church in 1586 and Dean of Worcester in 1597. Some of his verse, both in English and Latin, has survived, and Meres includes him in 1598 amongst ‘our best for Tragedie’. The Epilogue, in Latin prose, of a play called Caesar Interfectus, which was both written and spoken by him, is given by F. Peck in A Collection of Curious Historical Pieces, appended to his Memoirs of Cromwell (1740), and by Boas, 163, from Bodl. MS. Top. Oxon. e. 5, f. 359. A later hand has added the date 1582, from which Boas infers that Caesar Interfectus, of which Edes was probably the author, was one of three tragedies recorded in the Christ Church accounts for Feb.–March 1582. Edes appears to have written or contributed to Sir Henry Lee’s (q.v.) Woodstock Entertainment of 1592.

RICHARD EDWARDES (c. 1523–1566).

Edwardes was a Somersetshire man. He entered Corpus Christi College, Oxford, on 11 May 1540, and became Senior Student of Christ Church in 1547. Before the end of Edward’s reign he was seeking his fortune at Court and had a fee or annuity of £6 13_s._ 4_d._ (Stopes, Hunnis, 147). He must not be identified with the George Edwardes of Chapel lists, c. 1553 (ibid. 23; Shakespeare’s Environment, 238; Rimbault, x), but was of the Chapel by 1 Jan. 1557 (Nichols, Eliz. i. xxxv; Illustrations, App. 14), when he made a New Year’s gift of ‘certeigne verses’, and was confirmed in office by an Elizabethan patent of 27 May 1560. He succeeded Bower as Master of the Children, receiving his patent of appointment on 27 Oct. 1561 and a commission to take up children on 4 Dec. 1561 (Wallace, i. 106; ii. 65; cf. ch. xii). Barnabe Googe in his Eglogs, Epytaphes and Sonettes (15 March 1563) puts his ‘doyngs’ above those of Plautus and Terence. In addition to plays at Court, he took his boys on 2 Feb. 1565 and 2 Feb. 1566 to Lincoln’s Inn (cf. ch. vii), of which he had become a member on 25 Nov. 1564 (L. I. Admission Register, i. 72). He appeared at Court as a ‘post’ on behalf of the challengers for a tilt in Nov. 1565 (cf. ch. iv). In 1566 he helped in the entertainment of Elizabeth at Oxford, and on Oct. 31 of that year he died. His reputation as poet and dramatist is testified to in verses by Barnabe Googe, George Turberville, Thomas Twine, and others and proved enduring. The author [Richard Puttenham?] of The Arte of English Poesie (1589) couples him with the Earl of Oxford as deserving the highest price for comedy and enterlude, and Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia (1598) includes him amongst those ‘best for comedy’. Several of his poems are in The Paradise of Dainty Devices (1576). Warton, iv. 218, says that William Collins (the poet) had a volume of prose stories printed in 1570, ‘sett forth by maister Richard Edwardes mayster of her maiesties revels’. One of these contained a version of the jest used in the Induction of The Taming of the Shrew (q.v.). There is nothing else to connect Edwardes with the Revels office, and probably ‘revels’ in Warton’s account is a mistake for ‘children’ or ‘chapel’.

Dissertations: W. Y. Durand, Notes on R. E. (1902, J. G. P. iv. 348), Some Errors concerning R. E. (1908, M. L. N. xxiii. 129).

Damon and Pythias. 1565

S. R. 1567–8. ‘A boke intituled ye tragecall comodye of Damonde and Pethyas.’ Rycharde Jonnes (Arber, i. 354).

Warton, iv. 214, describes an edition, not now known, as printed by William How in Fleet Street. The Tragical comedie of Damon and Pythias, newly imprinted as the same was playde before the queenes maiestie by the children of her grace’s chapple. Made by Mayster Edwards, then being master of the children. William How. [Only known through the description of Warton, iv. 214.]

1571. The excellent Comedie of two the moste faithfullest Freendes, Damon and Pithias. Newly Imprinted, as the same was shewed before the Queenes Maiestie, by the Children of her Graces Chappell, except the Prologue that is somewhat altered for the proper vse of them that hereafter shall haue occasion to plaie it, either in Priuate, or open Audience. Made by Maister Edwards, then beynge Maister of the Children. Richard Jones.

1582. Richard Jones.

Editions in Dodsley^4, iv (1874), and by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. i) and J. S. Farmer (1908, T. F. T.).--Dissertation: W. Y. Durand, A Local Hit in E.’s D. and P. (M. L. N. xxii. 236).

The play is not divided into acts or scenes; the characters include Carisophus a parasite, and Grim the Collier. The prologue [not that used at Court] warns the audience that they will be ‘frustrate quite of toying plays’ and that the author’s muse that ‘masked in delight’ and to some ‘seemed too much in young desires to range’ will leave such sports and write a ‘tragical comedy ... mixed with mirth and care’. Edwardes adds (cf. App. C, No. ix):

Wherein, talking of courtly toys, we do protest this flat, We talk of Dionysius court, we mean no court but that.

A song at the end wishes Elizabeth joy and describes her as ‘void of all sickness, in most perfect health’. Durand uses this reference to date the play in the early months of 1565, since a letter of De Silva (Sp. P. i. 400) records that Elizabeth had a feverish cold since 8 Dec. 1564, but was better by 2 Jan. 1565. He identifies the play with the ‘Edwardes tragedy’ of the Revels Accounts for 1564–5 (cf. App. B), and points out that there is an entry in those accounts for ‘rugge bumbayst and cottone for hosse’, and that in Damon and Pythias (Dodsley, iv. 71) the boys have stuffed breeches with ‘seven ells of rug’ to one hose. A proclamation of 6 May 1562 (Procl. 562) had forbidden the use of more than a yard and three-quarters of stuff in the ‘stockes’ of hose, and an enforcing proclamation (Procl. 619) was required on 12 Feb. 1566. Boas, 157, notes a revival at Merton in 1568.

Fleay, 60, thinks that the play contains attacks on the Paul’s boys in return for satire of Edwardes as Ralph Roister in Ulpian Fulwell’s Like Will to Like (q.v.).

Lost Play

Palamon and Arcite. 1566

This play was acted in two parts on 2 and 4 Sept. 1566, before Elizabeth in the Hall of Christ Church, Oxford (cf. ch. iv). The first night was made memorable by the fall of part of the staircase wall, by which three persons were killed. The Queen was sorry, but the play went on. She gave Edwardes great thanks for his pains. The play was in English. Several contemporary writers assign it to Edwardes, and Nicholas Robinson adds that he and other Christ Church men translated it out of Latin, and that he remained two months in Oxford working at it. Bereblock gives a long analysis of the action, which shows that, even if there is no error as to the intervening Latin version, the original source was clearly Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale. W. Y. Durand, Journ. Germ. Phil. iv. 356, argues that Edwardes’s play was not a source of Two Noble Kinsmen, on the ground of the divergence between that and Bereblock’s summary.

There is no evidence of any edition of the play, although Plummer, xxi, says that it ‘has been several times printed’.

Doubtful Plays

Fleay, ii. 295, assigns to Edwardes Godly Queen Hester, a play of which he had only seen a few lines, and which W. W. Greg, in his edition in Materialien, v, has shown with great probability to date from about 1525–9. His hand has also been sought in R. B.’s Apius and Virginia and in Misogonus (cf. ch. xxiv).

ELIZABETH (1533–1603).

H. H. E. Craster (E. H. R. xxix. 722) includes in a list of Elizabeth’s English translations a chorus from Act II of the pseudo-Senecan Hercules Oetaeus, extant in Bodl. MS. e Museo, 55, f. 48, and printed in H. Walpole, Royal and Noble Authors (ed. Park, 1806), i. 102. It probably dates later than 1561. But he can find no evidence for a Latin version of a play of Euripides referred to by Walpole, i. 85.

RICHARD FARRANT (?-1580).

Farrant’s career as Master of the Children of Windsor and Deputy Master of the Children of the Chapel and founder of the first Blackfriars theatre has been described in chh. xii and xvii. It is not improbable that he wrote plays for the boys, and W. J. Lawrence, The Earliest Private Theatre Play (T. L. S., 11 Aug. 1921), thinks that one of these was Wars of Cyrus (cf. ch. xxiv), probably based on W. Barker’s translation (1567) of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, and that the song of Panthea ascribed to Farrant in a Christ Church manuscript (cf. vol. ii, p. 63) has dropped out from the extant text of this. Farrant’s song, ‘O Jove from stately throne’, mentioning Altages, may be from another play. I think that Wars of Cyrus, as it stands, is clearly post-Tamburlaine, and although there are indications of lost songs at ll. 985, 1628, there is none pointing to a lament of Panthea. But conceivably the play was based on one by Farrant.

GEORGE FEREBE (c. 1573–1613 <)

A musician and Vicar of Bishop’s Cannings, Wilts.

The Shepherd’s Song. 1613

S. R. 1613, June 16. ‘A thinge called The Shepeherdes songe before Queene Anne in 4. partes complete Musical vpon the playnes of Salisbury &c.’ Walter Dight (Arber, iii. 526).

Aubrey, i. 251, says ‘when queen Anne came to Bathe, her way lay to traverse the famous Wensdyke, which runnes through his parish. He made severall of his neighbours good musitians, to play with him in consort, and to sing. Against her majesties comeing, he made a pleasant pastorall, and gave her an entertaynment with his fellow songsters in shepherds’ weeds and bagpipes, he himself like an old bard. After that wind musique was over, they sang their pastorall eglogues (which I have, to insert into Liber B).’ Wood’s similar account in Fasti (1815), i. 270, is probably based on Aubrey’s. He dates the entertainment June 11 (cf. ch. iv. and App. A, s. ann. 1613), and gives the opening of the song as

Shine, O thou sacred Shepherds Star, On silly shepherd swaines.

Aubrey has a shorter notice in another manuscript and adds, ‘He gave another entertaynment in Cote-field to King James, with carters singing, with whipps in their hands; and afterwards, a footeball play’.

GEORGE FERRERS (c. 1500–79).

A Lincoln’s Inn lawyer, son of Thomas Ferrers of St. Albans, who was Page of the Chamber to Henry VIII, and acted as Lord of Misrule to Edward VI at the Christmases of 1551–2 and 1552–3 (Mediaeval Stage, i. 405; Feuillerat, Edw. and M. 56, 77, 90). He sat in Parliaments of both Mary and Elizabeth, and wrote some of the poems in The Mirror for Magistrates (1559–78). He contributed verses to the Kenilworth entertainment of 1575, must then have been a very old man, and died in 1579. Puttenham says of Edward VI’s time, ‘Maister Edward Ferrys ... wrate for the most part to the stage, in Tragedie and sometimes in Comedie or Enterlude’, and again, ‘For Tragedie, the Lord of Buckhurst & Maister Edward Ferrys, for such doings as I haue sene of theirs, do deserue the hyest price’; and is followed by Meres, who places ‘Master Edward Ferris, the author of the Mirror for Magistrates’ amongst ‘our best for Tragedie’ (cf. App. C, Nos. xli, lii). Obviously George Ferrers is meant, but Anthony Wood hunted out an Edward Ferrers, belonging to another family, of Baddesley Clinton, in Warwickshire, and took him for the dramatist. He died in 1564 and had a son Henry, amongst whose papers were found verses belonging to certain entertainments, mostly of the early ‘nineties, which an indiscreet editor thereupon ascribed to George Ferrers (cf. s.v. Sir H. Lee).

NATHAN FIELD (1587–?).

For life vide supra Actors (ch. xv).

A Woman is a Weathercock. 1609 (?)

S. R. 1611, Nov. 23 (Buck). ‘A booke called, A woman is a weather-cocke, beinge a Comedye.’ John Budge (Arber, iii. 471).

1612. A Woman is a Weather-cocke. A New Comedy, As it was acted before the King in White-Hall. And diuers times Priuately at the White-Friers, By the Children of her Maiesties Reuels. Written by Nat: Field. For John Budge. [Epistles to Any Woman that hath been no Weathercock and to the Reader, both signed ‘N. F.’, and Commendatory verses ‘To his loved son, Nat. Field, and his Weathercock Woman’, signed ‘George Chapman’.]

Editions in O. E. D. (1830, ii), by J. P. Collier (1833, Five Old Plays), in Dodsley^4 (1875, xi), and by A. W. Verity in Nero and Other Plays (1888, Mermaid Series).

This must, I suppose, have been one of the five plays given at Court by the Children of the Whitefriars in the winter of 1609–10. Fleay, i. 185, notes that I. ii refers to the Cleve wars, which began in 1609. The Revels children were not at Court in 1610–11. In his verses to The Faithful Shepherdess (1609–10) Field hopes for his ‘muse in swathing clouts’, to ‘perfect such a work as’ Fletcher’s. The first Epistle promises that when his next play is printed, any woman ‘shall see what amends I have made to her and all the sex’; the second ends, ‘If thou hast anything to say to me, thou know’st where to hear of me for a year or two, and no more, I assure thee’, as if Field did not mean to spend his life as a player.

Amends for Ladies. > 1611

1618. Amends for Ladies. A Comedie. As it was acted at the Blacke-Fryers, both by the Princes Seruants, and the Lady Elizabeths. By Nat. Field. G. Eld for Math. Walbancke.

1639.... With the merry prankes of Moll Cut-Purse: Or, the humour of roaring A Comedy full of honest mirth and wit.... Io. Okes for Math. Walbancke.

Editions, with A W. is a W. (q.v.).

The title-page points to performances in Porter’s Hall (c. 1615–16) by the combined companies of the Prince and Princess; but the Epistle to A W. is a W. (q.v.) makes it clear that the play was at least planned, and probably written, by the end of 1611. Collier, iii. 434, and Fleay, i. 201, confirm this from an allusion to the play in A. Stafford’s Admonition to a Discontented Romanist, appended to his Niobe Dissolved into a Nilus (S. R. 10 Oct. 1611). Fleay is less happy in fixing an inferior limit of date by the publication of the version of the Curious Impertinent story in Shelton’s Don Quixote (1612), since that story was certainly available in Baudouin’s French translation as early as 1608. The introduction of Moll Cutpurse suggests rivalry with Dekker and Middleton’s Roaring Girl (also c. 1610–11) at the Fortune, which theatre is chaffed in ii. 1 and iii. 4.

Later Play

The Fatal Dowry (1632), a King’s men’s play, assigned on the title-page to P. M. and N. F., probably dates from 1616–19. C. Beck, Philip Massinger, The Fatall Dowry, Einleitung zu einer neuen Ausgabe (1906, Erlangen diss.), assigns the prose of II. ii and IV. i to Field. There is an edition by C. L. Lockert (1918).

Doubtful Plays

Attempts have been made to trace Field’s hand in Bonduca, Cupid’s Revenge, Faithful Friends, Honest Man’s Fortune, Thierry and Theodoret, and Four Plays in One, all belonging to the Beaumont (q.v.) and Fletcher series, and in Charlemagne (cf. ch. xxiv).

JOHN FLETCHER (1579–1625).

Fletcher was born in Dec. 1579 at Rye, Sussex, the living of his father Richard Fletcher, who became Bishop of Bristol, Worcester, and in 1594 London. His cousins, Giles and Phineas, are known as poets. He seems too young for the John Fletcher of London who entered Corpus Christi, Cambridge, in 1591. After his father’s death in 1596, nothing is heard of him until his emergence as a dramatist, and of this the date cannot be precisely fixed. Davenant says that ‘full twenty yeares, he wore the bayes’, which would give 1605, but this is in a prologue to The Woman Hater, which Davenant apparently thought Fletcher’s, although it is Beaumont’s; and Oliphant’s attempt to find his hand, on metrical grounds, in Captain Thomas Stukeley (1605) rests only on one not very conclusive scene. But he had almost certainly written for the Queen’s Revels before the beginning, about 1608, of his collaboration with Beaumont, under whom his later career is outlined. It is possible that he is the John Fletcher who married Joan Herring on 3 Nov. 1612 at St. Saviour’s, Southwark, and had a son John about Feb. 1620 in St. Bartholomew’s the Great (Dyce, i. lxxiii), and if so one may put the fact with Aubrey’s gossip (cf. s.v. Beaumont), and with Oldwit’s speech in Shadwell’s Bury-Fair (1689): ‘I knew Fletcher, my friend Fletcher, and his maid Joan; well, I shall never forget him: I have supped with him at his house on the Bankside; he loved a fat loin of pork of all things in the world; and Joan his maid had her beer-glass of sack; and we all kissed her, i’ faith, and were as merry as passed.’ I have sometimes wondered whether Jonson is chaffing Beaumont and Fletcher in Bartholomew Fair (1614), V. iii, iv, as Damon and Pythias, ‘two faithfull friends o’ the Bankside’, that ‘have both but one drabbe’, and enter with a gammon of bacon under their cloaks. I do not think this can refer to Francis Bacon. Fletcher died in Aug. 1625 and was buried in St. Saviour’s (Athenaeum, 1886, ii. 252).

For Plays vide s.v. Beaumont, and for the ascribed lost play of Cardenio, s.v. Shakespeare.

PHINEAS FLETCHER (1582–1650).

Phineas Fletcher, son of Giles, a diplomatist and poet, brother of Giles, a poet, and first cousin of John (q.v.), was baptized at Cranbrook, Kent, on 8 April 1582. From Eton he passed to King’s College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. in 1604, his M.A. in 1608, and became a Fellow in 1611. He was Chaplain to Sir Henry Willoughby of Risley from 1616 to 1621, and thereafter Rector of Hilgay, Norfolk, to his death in 1650. He wrote much Spenserian poetry, but his dramatic work was purely academic. In addition to Sicelides, he may have written an English comedy, for which a payment was made to him by King’s about Easter 1607 (Boas, i. xx).

Collections

1869. A. B. Grosart, The Poems of P. F. 4 vols. (Fuller Worthies Library).

1908–9. F. S. Boas, The Poetical Works of Giles Fletcher and P. F. 2 vols. (Cambridge English Classics).

Sicelides. 1615

[MSS.] Bodl. Rawl. Poet. MS. 214.

Addl. MS. 4453. ‘Sicelides: a Piscatorie made by Phinees Fletcher and acted in Kings Colledge in Cambridge.’ [A shorter version than that of Q. and the Rawl. MS.]

S. R. 1631, April 25 (Herbert). ‘A play called Scicelides, acted at Cambridge.’ William Sheeres (Arber, iv. 251).

1631. Sicelides A Piscatory, As it hath been Acted in Kings Colledge, in Cambridge. I. N. for William Sheares. [Prologue and Epilogue.]

A reference (III. iv) to the shoes hung up by Thomas Coryat in Odcombe church indicates a date of composition not earlier than 1612. The play was intended for performance before James at Cambridge, but was actually given before the University after his visit, on 13 March 1615 (cf. ch. iv).

FRANCIS FLOWER (c. 1588).

A Gray’s Inn lawyer, one of the devisers of dumb-shows and directors for the Misfortunes of Arthur of Thomas Hughes (q.v.) in 1588, for which he also wrote two choruses.

JOHN FORD (1586–1639 <).

Ford’s dramatic career, including whatever share he may have had with Dekker (q.v.) in Sun’s Darling and Witch of Edmonton, falls substantially outside my period. But amongst plays entered as his by Humphrey Moseley on 29 June 1660 (Eyre, ii. 271) are:

‘An ill begining has A good end, and a bad begining may have a good end, a Comedy.’

‘The London Merchant, a Comedy.’

These ascriptions recur in Warburton’s list of lost plays (3 Library, ii. 231), where the first play has the title ‘A good beginning may have A good end’. It is possible, therefore, that Ford either wrote or revised the play of ‘A badd beginininge makes a good endinge’, which was performed by the King’s men at Court during 1612–13 (cf. App. B). One may suspect the London Merchant to be a mistake for the Bristow Merchant of Ford and Dekker (q.v.) in 1624. The offer of the title in K. B. P. ind. 11 hardly proves that there was really a play of The London Merchant. Ford’s Honor Triumphant: or The Peeres Challenge, by Armes defensible at Tilt, Turney, and Barriers (1606; ed. Sh. Soc. 1843) is a thesis motived by the jousts in honour of Christian of Denmark (cf. ch. iv). It has an Epistle to the Countesses of Pembroke and Montgomery, and contains four arguments in defence of amorous propositions addressed respectively to the Duke of Lennox and the Earls of Arundel, Pembroke, and Montgomery.

EDWARD FORSETT (c. 1553–c. 1630).

A political writer (D. N. B.) and probable author of the academic Pedantius (cf. App. K).

ABRAHAM FRAUNCE (c. 1558–1633 <).

Fraunce was a native of Shrewsbury, and passed from the school of that place, where he obtained the friendship of Philip Sidney, to St. John’s, Cambridge, in 1576. He took his B.A. in 1580, played in Legge’s academic Richardus Tertius and in Hymenaeus (Boas, 394), which he may conceivably have written (cf. App. K), became Fellow of the college in 1581, and took his M.A. in 1583. He became a Gray’s Inn man, dedicated various treatises on logic and experiments in English hexameters to members of the Sidney and Herbert families during 1583–92, and appears to have obtained through their influence some office under the Presidency of Wales. He dropped almost entirely out of letters, but seems to have been still alive in 1633.

Latin Play

Victoria. 1580 < > 3

[MS.] In possession of Lord De L’Isle and Dudley at Penshurst, headed ‘Victoria’. [Lines ‘Philippo Sidneio’, signed ‘Abrahamus Fransus’. Prologue.]

Edition by G. C. Moore Smith (1906, Materialien, xiv).

The play is an adaptation of Il Fedele (1575) by Luigi Pasqualigo, which is also the foundation of the anonymous Two Italian Gentlemen (q.v.). As Sidney was knighted on 13 Jan. 1583, the play was probably written, perhaps for performance at St. John’s, Cambridge, before that date and after Fraunce took his B.A. in 1580.

Translation

Phillis and Amyntas. 1591

S. R. 1591, Feb. 9 (Bp. of London). ‘A book intituled The Countesse of Pembrookes Ivye churche, and Emanuel.’ William Ponsonby (Arber, ii. 575).

1591. The Countesse of Pembrokes Yuychurch. Containing the affectionate life, and vnfortunate death of Phillis and Amyntas: That in a Pastorall; This in a Funerall; both in English Hexameters. By Abraham Fraunce. Thomas Orwin for William Ponsonby.

Dissertation: E. Köppel, Die englischen Tasso-Übersetzungen des 16. Jahrhunderts (1889, Anglia, xi).

This consists of a slightly altered translation of the Aminta (1573) of Torquato Tasso, followed by a reprint of Fraunce’s English version (1587) of Thomas Watson’s Amyntas (1585), which is not a play, but a collection of Latin eclogues. There is nothing to show that Fraunce’s version of Aminta was ever acted.

WILLIAM FULBECK (1560–1603?).

He entered Gray’s Inn in 1584, contributed two speeches to the Misfortunes of Arthur of Thomas Hughes (q.v.) in 1588, and wrote various legal and historical books.

ULPIAN FULWELL (c. 1568).

Fulwell was born in Somersetshire and educated at St. Mary’s Hall, Oxford. On 14 April 1577 he was of the parish of Naunton, Gloucestershire, and married Mary Whorewood of Lapworth, Warwickshire.[657]

Like Will to Like. c. 1568

S. R. 1568–9. ‘A play lyke Wyll to lyke quod the Devell to the Collyer.’ John Alde (Arber, i. 379).

1568. An Enterlude Intituled Like wil to like quod the Deuel to the Colier, very godly and ful of pleasant mirth.... Made by Vlpian Fulwell. John Allde.

1587. Edward Allde.

Editions in Dodsley^4, iii (1874), and by J. S. Farmer (1909, T. F. T.).

A non-controversial moral. The characters, allegorical and typical, are arranged for five actors, and include Ralph Roister, and ‘Nicholas Newfangle the Vice’, who ‘rideth away upon the Devil’s back’ (Dodsley, iii. 357). There is a prayer for the Queen at the end.

This might be The Collier played at Court in 1576. Fleay, 60; i. 235, puts it in 1561–3, assigns it to the Paul’s boys, and suggests that Richard Edwardes (q.v.) is satirized as Ralph Roister. Greg (Henslowe, ii. 228) suggests that Fulwell’s may be the play revived by Pembroke’s at the Rose on 28 Oct. 1600 as ‘the [devell] licke vnto licke’.

WILLIAM GAGER (> 1560–1621).

Gager entered Christ Church, Oxford, from Westminster in 1574, and took his B.A. in 1577, his M.A. in 1580, and his D.C.L. in 1589. In 1606 he became Chancellor of the diocese of Ely. He had a high reputation for his Latin verses, many of which are contained in Exequiae D. Philippi Sidnaei (1587) and other University volumes. A large collection in Addl. MS. 22583 includes lines to George Peele (q.v.). Meres in 1598 counts him as one of ‘the best for comedy amongst vs’. His correspondence with John Rainolds affords a summary of the controversy on the ethics of the stage in its academic aspect.

Latin Plays

Meleager. Feb. 1582

1592. Meleager. Tragoedia noua. Bis publice acta in aede Christi Oxoniae. Oxoniae. Joseph Barnes. [Epistle to Earl of Essex, ‘ex aede Christi Oxoniae, Calendis Ianuarij MDXCII. Gulielmus Gagerus’; Commendatory verses by Richard Edes, Alberico Gentili, and I. C[ase?]; Epistle Ad lectorem Academicum; Prologus ad academicos; Argumentum; Prologus ad illustrissimos Penbrochiae ac Lecestriae Comites. At end, Epilogus ad Academicos; Epilogus ad clarissimos Comites Penbrochiensem ac Lecestrensem; Panniculus Hippolyto ... assutus (vide infra); Apollo προλογίζει ad serenissimam Reginam Elizabetham 1592; Prologus in Bellum Grammaticale ad eandem sacram Maiestatem; Epilogus in eandem Comoediam ad Eandem.]

The dedication says ‘Annus iam pene vndecimus agitur ... ex quo Meleager primum, octauus ex quo iterum in Scenam venit’, and adds that Pembroke, Leicester, and Sidney were present on the second occasion. Meleager is ‘primogenitus meus’. The first production was doubtless one of those recorded in the Christ Church accounts in Feb. 1582 (Boas, 162), and the second during Leicester’s visit as Chancellor in Jan. 1585 (Boas, 192).

Dido. 12 June 1583

[MSS.] Christ Church, Oxford, MS. [complete text].

Addl. MS. 22583. [Acts II, III only, with Prologue, Argument, and Epilogue.]

Edition of B.M. fragment by A. Dyce (1850, Marlowe’s Works). Abstract from Ch. Ch. MS. in Boas, 183.

The play was produced before Alasco at Christ Church on 12 June 1583. It is unlikely that it influenced Marlowe’s play.

Ulysses Redux. 6 Feb. 1592

1592. Vlysses Redux Tragoedia Nova. In Aede Christi Oxoniae Publice Academicis Recitata, Octavo Idus Februarii. 1591. Oxoniae. Joseph Barnes. [Prologus ad Academicos; Epistle to Lord Buckhurst, ‘ex aede Christi Oxoniae sexto Idus Maij, 1592 ... Gulielmus Gagerus’; Commendatory verses by Thomas Holland, Alberico Gentili, Richard Edes, Henry Bust, Matthew Gwinne, Richard Late-warr, Francis Sidney, John Hoschines (Hoskins), William Ballowe, James Weston; Verses Ad Zoilum; Epistle Ad Criticum. At end, Prologus in Rivales Comoediam; Prologus in Hippolytum Senecae Tragoediam; Epilogus in eundem; Momus; Epilogus Responsiuus.]

The play was produced on Sunday, 6 Feb. 1592, and an indiscreet invitation to John Rainolds opened the flood-gates of controversy upon Gager’s head (cf. vol. i, p. 251 and App. C, No. 1). Gager’s Rivales was revived on 7 Feb. and the pseudo-Senecan Hippolytus, with Gager’s Panniculus, on 8 Feb. followed by a speech in the character of Momus as a carper at plays, and a reply to Momus by way of Epilogue. The latter was printed in an enlarged form given to it during the course of the controversy (Boas, 197, 234, with dates which disregard leap-year).

Additions to Hippolytus. 8 Feb. 1592

1592. Panniculus Hippolyto Senecae assutus, 1591. [Appended to Meleager; for Gager’s prologue, &c., cf. s.v. Ulysses Redux.]

These consist of two scenes, one of the nature of an opening, the other an insertion between Act I and Act II, written for a performance of the play at Christ Church on 8 Feb. 1592.

Oedipus

Addl. MS. 22583, f. 31, includes with other poems by Gager five scenes from a tragedy on Oedipus, of which nothing more is known.

Lost Play

Rivales. 11 June 1583

This comedy was produced before Alasco at Christ Church, on 11 June 1583. It is assigned to Gager by A. Wood, Annals, ii. 216, and referred to as his in the controversy with Rainolds (Boas, 181), who speaks of it as ‘the vnprinted Comedie’, and criticizes its ‘filth’. It contained scenes of country wooing, drunken sailors, a miles gloriosus, a blanda lena. The prologue to Dido says of it:

Hesterna Mopsum scena ridiculum dedit.

It was revived at Christ Church on 7 Feb. 1592 (Boas, 197) and again at the same place before Elizabeth on 26 Sept. 1592, when, according to a Cambridge critic, it was ‘but meanely performed’. Presumably it is the prologue for this revival which is printed with Ulysses Redux (q.v.).

BERNARD GARTER (c. 1578).

A London citizen, whose few and mainly non-dramatic writings were produced from 1565 to 1579. For his description of the Norwich entertainment (1578), cf. ch. xxiv.

THOMAS GARTER (c. 1569).

He may conceivably be identical with Bernard Garter, since Thomas and Bernard are respectively given from different sources (cf. D. N. B.) as the name of the father of Bernard Garter of Brigstocke, Northants, whose son was alive in 1634.

Susanna, c. 1569

S. R. 1568–9. ‘Ye playe of Susanna.’ Thomas Colwell (Arber, i. 383).

1578?

No copy is known, but S. Jones, Biographica Dramatica (1812), iii. 310, says: ‘Susanna. By Thomas Garter 4^{to} 1578. The running title of this play is, The Commody of the moste vertuous and godlye Susanna.’ According to Greg, Masques, cxxiii, the original authority for the statement is a manuscript note by Thomas Coxeter (ob. 1747) in a copy of G. Jacob’s Lives of the Dramatic Poets (1719–20). ‘Susanna’ is in Rogers and Ley’s list, and an interlude ‘Susanna’s Tears’ in Archer’s and Kirkman’s.

GEORGE GASCOIGNE (c. 1535–77).

George Gascoigne was son of Sir John Gascoigne of Cardington, Bedfordshire. He was probably born between 1530 and 1535, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and Gray’s Inn. He misspent his youth as a dissipated hanger-on at Court, under the patronage of Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton and others, and won some reputation as a versifier. About 1566 he married Elizabeth Breton of Walthamstow, widow of a London merchant, and mother of Nicholas Breton, the poet. From March 1573 to Oct. 1574 he served as a volunteer under William of Orange in the Netherlands. In 1575 he was assisting in preparing shows before Elizabeth at Kenilworth and Woodstock. It is possible that he was again in the Netherlands and present at the sack of Antwerp in 1576. On 7 Oct. 1577 he died at Stamford.

Collections

N.D. [1573] A Hundreth sundrie Flowres bounde up in one small Poesie.... For Richard Smith. [Datable by a prefatory epistle of 20 Jan. 1573, signed ‘H. W.’ and a reference in Gascoigne’s own epistle of 31 Jan. 1575 to Q_{2}. Includes Jocasta, Supposes, and the Mask.]

1575. The Posies of George Gascoigne Esquire. Corrected, perfected, and augmented by the Authour. H. Bynneman for Richard Smith. [A second issue, For Richard Smith.]

1587. The whole workes of George Gascoigne Esquyre: Newlye compyled into one Volume.... Abel Jeffes. [Adds the Princely Pleasures. A second issue, ‘The pleasauntest workes....’]

1869–70. W. C. Hazlitt, The Complete Poems of George Gascoigne. 2 vols. (Roxburghe Library). [Adds Glass of Government and Hemetes.]

1907–10. J. W. Cunliffe, The Complete Works of George Gascoigne. 2 vols. (C. E. C.).

Dissertation: F. E. Schelling, The Life and Writings of George Gascoigne (1893, Pennsylvania Univ. Publ.).

Jocasta. 1566

With Francis Kinwelmershe.

[MS.] B.M. Addl. MS. 34063, formerly the property of Roger, second Lord North, whose name and the motto ‘Durum Pati [15]68’ are on the title.

1573. Iocasta: A Tragedie written in Greke by Euripides, translated and digested into Acte by George Gascoyne, and Francis Kinwelmershe of Grayes Inne, and there by them presented. 1566. Henry Bynneman for Richard Smith. [Part of Collection, 1573; also in 1575, 1587. Argument; Epilogue ‘Done by Chr. Yeluerton’.]

Editions by F. J. Child (1848, Four Old Plays) and J. W. Cunliffe (1906, B. L., and 1912, E. E. C. T.).--Dissertation: M. T. W. Foerster, Gascoigne’s J. a Translation from the Italian (1904, M. P. ii. 147).

A blank-verse translation of Lodovico Dolce’s Giocasta (1549), itself a paraphrase or adaptation of the Phoenissae of Euripides (Creizenach, ii. 408). After Acts I and IV appears ‘Done by F. Kinwelmarshe’ and after II, III, V ‘Done by G. Gascoigne’. Before each act is a description of a dumb-show and of its accompanying music.

Supposes. 1566

1573. Supposes: A Comedie written in the Italian tongue by Ariosto, and Englished by George Gascoyne of Grayes Inne Esquire, and there presented. [Part of Collection, 1573; also in 1575 (with addition of ‘1566’ to title) and 1587. Prologue.]

Editions by T. Hawkins (1773, O. E. D. iii), J. W. Cunliffe (1906, B. L.), and R. W. Bond (1911, E. P. I.).

A prose translation of Ludovico Ariosto’s I Suppositi (1509). There was probably a revival at Trinity, Oxford, on 8 Jan. 1582, when Richard Madox records, ‘We supt at y^e presidents lodging and after had y^e supposes handeled in y^e haul indifferently’ (Boas, 161).

The Glass of Government. c. 1575

1575. The Glasse of Governement. A tragicall Comedie so entituled, bycause therein are handled aswell the rewardes for Vertues, as also the punishment for Vices. Done by George Gascoigne Esquier. 1575. Seen and allowed, according to the order appointed in the Queenes Maiesties Injunctions. For C. Barker. [Colophon] H. M. for Christopher Barker. [Epistle to Sir Owen Hopton, by ‘G. Gascoigne’, dated 26 Apr. 1575; Commendatory verses by B. C.; Argument; Prologue; Epilogue. A reissue has a variant colophon (Henry Middleton) and Errata.]

Edition by J. S. Farmer (1914, S. F.).--Dissertation: C. H. Herford, G.’s G. of G. (E. S. ix. 201).

This, perhaps only a closet drama, is an adaptation of the ‘Christian Terence’ (cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 216), with which Gascoigne may have become familiar in Holland during 1573–4. The prologue (cf. App. C, No. xiv) warns that the play is not a mere ‘worthie jest’, and that

Who list laye out some pence in such a marte, Bellsavage fayre were fittest for his purse.

MASK

Montague Mask. 1572

1573. A Devise of a Maske for the right honourable Viscount Mountacute. [Part of Collection, 1573; also in 1575, 1587.]

Anthony and Elizabeth Browne, children of Anthony, first Viscount Montague, married Mary and Robert, children of Sir William Dormer of Eythorpe, Bucks., in 1572 (cf. ch. v).

ENTERTAINMENTS

See s.v. Lee, Woodstock Entertainment (1575) and ch. xxiv, s.v. Kenilworth Entertainment (1575).

THOMAS GOFFE (1591–1629).

Selimus and the Second Maiden’s Tragedy have been ascribed to him, but as regards the first absurdly, and as regards the second not plausibly, since he only took his B.A. degree in 1613. His known plays are later in date than 1616.

ARTHUR GOLDING (1536–1605 <).

Arthur was son of John Golding of Belchamp St. Paul, Essex, and brother-in-law of John, 16th Earl of Oxford. He was a friend of Sidney and known to Elizabethan statesmen of puritanical leanings. Almost his only original work was a Discourse upon the Earthquake (1580), but he was a voluminous translator of theological and classical works, including Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1565, 1567). Beza’s tragedy was written when he was Professor at Lausanne in 1550 (Creizenach, ii. 456).

Abraham’s Sacrifice. 1575

1577. A Tragedie of Abrahams Sacrifice, Written in french, by Theodore Beza, and translated into Inglish by A. G. Finished at Powles Belchamp in Essex, the xj of August, 1575. Thomas Vautrollier. [Woodcuts, which do not suggest a scenic representation.]

Edition by M. W. Wallace (1907, Toronto Philological Series).

HENRY GOLDINGHAM (c. 1575).

A contributor to the Kenilworth and Norwich entertainments (cf. ch. xxiv, C) and writer of The Garden Plot (1825, Roxburghe Club). Gawdy, 13, mentions ‘a yonge gentleman touard my L. of Leycester called Mr. Goldingam’, as concerned c. 1587 in a street brawl.

WILLIAM GOLDINGHAM (c. 1567).

Author of the academic Herodes (cf. App. K).

HENRY GOLDWELL (c. 1581).

Describer of The Fortress of Perfect Beauty (cf. ch. xxiv, C).

STEPHEN GOSSON (1554–1624).

Gosson was born in Kent during 1554, was at Corpus Christi, Oxford, 1572 to 1576, then came to London, where he obtained some reputation as playwright and poet. Meres in Palladis Tamia (1598) commends his pastorals, which are lost. Lodge speaks of him also as a ‘player’.[658] In 1579 he forsook the stage, became a tutor in the country and published The School of Abuse (App. C, No. xxii). This he dedicated to Sidney, but ‘was for his labour scorned’. He was answered the same year in a lost pamphlet called Strange News out of Afric and also by Lodge (q.v.), and rejoined with A Short Apology of the School of Abuse (App. C, No. xxiv). The players revived his plays to spite him and on 23 Feb. 1582 produced The Play of Plays and Pastimes to confute him. In the same year he produced his final contribution to the controversy in Plays Confuted in Five Actions (App. C, No. xxx). In 1591 Gosson became Rector of Great Wigborough, Essex, and in 1595 published the anonymous pamphlet Pleasant Quips for Upstart Newfangled Gentlewomen. In 1600 he became Rector of St. Botolph’s, Bishopsgate. In 1616 and 1617 he wrote to Alleyn (q.v.) as his ‘very loving and ancient friend’.[659] He died 13 Feb. 1624.

Gosson claims to have written both tragedies and comedies,[660] but no play of his is extant. He names three of them. Of Catiline’s Conspiracies he says that it was ‘usually brought into the Theater and that ‘because it is known to be a pig of mine own sow, I will speak the less of it; only giving you to understand, that the whole mark which I shot at in that work was to show the reward of traitors in Catiline, and the necessary government of learned men in the person of Cicero, which foresees every danger that is likely to happen and forestalls it continually ere it take effect’.[661] Lodge disparages the originality of this play and compares it unfavourably with Wilson’s Short and Sweet[662] (q.v.). Of two other plays Gosson says: ‘Since my publishing the School of Abuse two plays of my making were brought to the stage; the one was a cast of Italian devices, called, The Comedy of Captain Mario; the other a Moral, Praise at Parting. These they very impudently affirm to be written by me since I had set out my invective against them. I can not deny they were both mine, but they were both penned two years at the least before I forsook them, as by their own friends I am able to prove.’[663] It is conceivable that Gosson may be the translator of Fedele and Fortunio (cf. ch. xxiv).

ROBERT GREENE (1558–92).

Robert Greene was baptized at Norwich on 11 July 1558. He entered St. John’s College, Cambridge, as a sizar in 1575 and took his B.A. in 1578 and his M.A. by 1583, when he was residing in Clare Hall. The addition of an Oxford degree in July 1588 enabled him to describe himself as Academiae Utriusque Magister in Artibus. He has been identified with a Robert Greene who was Vicar of Tollesbury, Essex, in 1584–5, but there is no real evidence that he took orders. The earlier part of his career may be gathered from his autobiographic pamphlet, The Repentance of Robert Greene (1592), eked out by the portraits, also evidently in a measure autobiographic, of Francesco in Never Too Late (1590) and of Roberto in Green’s Groats-worth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance (1592). It seems that he travelled in youth and learnt much wickedness; then married and lived for a while with his wife and had a child by her. During this period he began his series of euphuistic love-romances. About 1586, however, he deserted his wife, and lived a dissolute life in London with the sister of Cutting Ball, a thief who ended his days at Tyburn, as his mistress. By her he had a base-born son, Fortunatus. He does not seem to have been long in London before he ‘had wholly betaken me to the penning of plays which was my continual exercise’.[664] His adoption of his profession seems to be described in The Groats-worth of Wit. Roberto meets a player, goes with him, and soon becomes ‘famozed for an arch-plaimaking poet’.[665] Similarly, in Never Too Late, Francesco ‘fell in amongst a company of players, who persuaded him to try his wit in writing of comedies, tragedies, or pastorals, and if he could perform anything worthy of the stage, then they would largely reward him for his pains’. Hereupon Francesco ‘writ a comedy, which so generally pleased the audience that happy were those actors in short time, that could get any of his works, he grew so exquisite in that faculty’.[666] Greene’s early dramatic efforts seem to have brought him into rivalry with Marlowe (q.v.). In the preface to Perimedes the Blacksmith (S. R. 29 March 1588) he writes: ‘I keep my old course to palter up something in prose, using mine old poesie still, Omne tulit punctum, although lately two Gentlemen Poets made two mad men of Rome beat it out of their paper bucklers: and had it in derision for that I could not make my verses jet upon the stage in tragical buskins, every word filling the mouth like the faburden of Bo-Bell, daring God out of heaven with that Atheist Tamburlan, or blaspheming with the mad priest of the Sun.... Such mad and scoffing poets that have poetical spirits, as bred of Merlin’s race, if there be any in England that set the end of scholarism in an English blank-verse, I think either it is the humour of a novice that tickles them with self-love, or too much frequenting the hot-house (to use the German proverb) hath sweat out all the greatest part of their wits.... I but answer in print what they have offered on the stage.’[667] The references here to Marlowe are unmistakable. His fellow ‘gentleman poet’ is unknown; but the ‘mad priest of the Sun’ suggests the play of ‘the lyfe and deathe of Heliogabilus’, entered on S. R. to John Danter on 19 June 1594, but now lost.[668] In 1589 Greene published his Menaphon (S. R. 23 Aug.), in which he further alluded to Marlowe as the teller of ‘a Canterbury tale; some prophetical full-mouth that as he were a Cobler’s eldest son, would by the last tell where anothers shoe wrings’.[669] Doron, in the same story, appears to parody a passage in the anonymous play of The Taming of A Shrew, which is further alluded to in a prefatory epistle To the Gentlemen Students of Both Universities contributed to Greene’s book by Thomas Nashe. Herein Nashe, while praising Peele and his Arraignment of Paris, satirizes Marlowe, Kyd, and particularly the players (cf. App. C, No. xlii). To Menaphon are also prefixed lines by Thomas Brabine which tells the ‘wits’ that ‘strive to thunder from a stage-man’s throat’ how the novel is beyond them. ‘Players, avaunt!’[670] In the following year, 1590, Greene continued the attack on the players in the autobiographic romance, already referred to, of Never Too Late (cf. App. C, No. xliii). In 1590 Greene, whose publications had hitherto been mainly toys of love and romance, began a series of moral pamphlets, full of professions of repentance and denunciations of villainy. To these belong, as well as Never Too Late, Greene’s Mourning Garment (1590) and Greene’s Farewell to Folly (1591). A preface to the latter contains some satirical references to the anonymous play of Fair Em (cf. ch. xxiv.) One R. W. retorted upon Greene in a pamphlet called Martine Mar-Sextus (S. R. 8 Nov. 1591), in which he abuses lascivious authors who finally ‘put on a mourning garment and cry Farewell’.[671] Similarly, Greene’s exposures of ‘cony-catching’ or ‘sharping’ provoked the following passage in the Defence of Cony-catching (S. R. 21 April 1592) by one Cuthbert Conycatcher: ‘What if I should prove you a cony-catcher, Master R. G., would it not make you blush at the matter?... Ask the Queen’s players if you sold them not Orlando Furioso for twenty nobles, and when they were in the country sold the same play to the Lord Admiral’s men for as many more.... I hear, when this was objected, that you made this excuse; that there was no more faith to be held with players than with them that valued faith at the price of a feather; for as they were comedians to act, so the actions of their lives were camelion-like; that they were uncertain, variable, time-pleasers, men that measured honesty by profit, and that regarded their authors not by desert but by necessity of time.’[672] It is probable that the change in the tone of Greene’s writings did not correspond to any very thorough-going reformation of life. There is nothing to show that Greene had any share in the Martinist controversy. But he became involved in one of the personal animosities to which it led. Richard Harvey, the brother of Gabriel, in his Lamb of God (S. R. 23 Oct. 1589), while attacking Lyly as Paphatchet, had ‘mistermed all our other poets and writers about London, piperly make-plaies and make-bates. Hence Greene, beeing chiefe agent for the companie [i.e. the London poets] (for hee writ more than foure other, how well I will not say: but sat citò, si sat benè) tooke occasion to canuaze him a little.’[673] Apparently he called the Harveys, in his A Quip for an Upstart Courtier (S. R. 21 July 1592, cf. App. C, No. xlvii), the sons of a ropemaker, which is what they were.[674] In August Greene partook freely of Rhenish wine and pickled herrings at a supper with Nashe and one Will Monox, and fell into a surfeit. On 3 September he died in a squalid lodging, after writing a touching letter to his deserted wife, and begging his landlady, Mrs. Isam, to lay a wreath of bays upon him. These details are recorded by Gabriel Harvey, who visited the place and wrote an account of his enemy’s end in a letter to a friend, which he published in his Four Letters and Certain Sonnets: especially Touching Robert Greene, and Other Parties by him Abused (S. R. 4 Dec. 1592).[675] This brought Nashe upon him in the Strange News of the Intercepting of Certain Letters[676] (S. R. 12 Jan. 1593) and began a controversy between the two which lasted for several years. In Pierce’s Supererogation (27 Apr. 1593) Harvey spoke of ‘Nash, the ape of Greene, Greene the ape of Euphues, Euphues the ape of Envy’, and declared that Nashe ‘shamefully and odiously misuseth every friend or acquaintance as he hath served ... Greene, Marlowe, Chettle, and whom not?’[677] In Have With You to Saffron Walden (1596), Nashe defends himself against these accusations. ‘I never abusd Marloe, Greene, Chettle in my life.... He girds me with imitating of Greene.... I scorne it ... hee subscribing to me in anything but plotting Plaies, wherein he was his crafts master.’[678] The alleged abuse of Marlowe, Greene, and Chettle belongs to the history of another pamphlet. This is Green’s Groats-worth of Wit, Bought with a Million of Repentance (S. R. 20 Sept. 1592, ‘upon the peril of Henry Chettle’[679]). According to the title-page, it was ‘written before his death and published at his dying request’. To this is appended the famous address To those Gentlemen, his Quondam Acquaintance, that spend their wits in making Plays.[680] The reference here to Shakespeare is undeniable. Of the three playwrights warned, the first and third are almost certainly Marlowe and Peele; the third may be Lodge, but on the whole is far more likely to be Nashe (q.v.). It appears, however, that Nashe himself was supposed to have had a hand in the authorship. Chettle did his best to take the responsibility off Nashe’s shoulders in the preface to his Kind-Hart’s Dream (S. R. 8 Dec. 1592; cf. App. C, No. xlix). In the epistle prefixed to the second edition of Pierce Penniless his Supplication to the Devil (Works, i. 154), written early in 1593, Nashe denies the charge for himself and calls The Groats-worth ‘a scald trivial lying pamphlet’; and it is perhaps to this that Harvey refers as abuse of Greene, Marlowe, and Chettle, although it is not clear how Marlowe comes in. There is an echo of Greene’s hit at the ‘upstart crow, beautified with our feathers’ in the lines of R. B., Greene’s Funerals (1594, ed. McKerrow, 1911, p. 81):

Greene, gaue the ground, to all that wrote upon him. Nay more the men, that so eclipst his fame: Purloynde his plumes, can they deny the same?

It should be added that the theory that Greene himself was actor as well as playwright rests on a misinterpretation of a phrase of Harvey’s and is inconsistent with the invariable tone of his references to the profession.

Collections

1831. A. Dyce, The Dramatic Works of R. G. 2 vols.

1861, &c. A. Dyce, The Dramatic and Poetical Works of R. G. and George Peele.

1881–6. A. B. Grosart, The Complete Works in Prose and Verse of R. G. 15 vols. (Huth Library).

1905. J. C. Collins, The Plays and Poems of R. G. 2 vols.

1909. T. H. Dickinson, The Plays of R. G. (Mermaid Series).

Dissertations: W. Bernhardi, R. G.’s Leben und Schriften (1874); J. M. Brown, An Early Rival of Shakespeare (1877); N. Storojenko, R. G.: His Life and Works (1878, tr. E. A. B. Hodgetts, in Grosart, i); R. Simpson, Account of R. G., his Life and Works, and his Attacks on Shakspere, in School of Sh. (1878), ii; C. H. Herford, G.’s Romances and Shakespeare (1888, N. S. S. Trans. 181); K. Knauth, Ueber die Metrik R. G.’s (1890, Halle diss.); H. Conrad, R. G. als Dramatiker (1894, Jahrbuch, xxix. 210); W. Creizenach, G. über Shakespeare (1898, Wiener Festschrift); G. E. Woodberry, G.’s Place in Comedy, and C. M. Gayley, R. G., His Life and the Order of his Plays (1903, R. E. C. i); K. Ehrke, R. G.’s Dramen (1904); S. L. Wolff, R. G. and the Italian Renaissance (1907, E. S. xxxvii. 321); F. Brie, Lyly und G. (1910, E. S. xlii. 217); J. C. Jordan, R. G. (1915).

Alphonsus. c. 1587

1599. The Comicall Historie of Alphonsus King of Aragon. As it hath bene sundrie times Acted. Made by R. G. Thomas Creede.

There is general agreement that, on grounds of style, this should be the earliest of Greene’s extant plays. In IV. 1444 is an allusion to ‘mighty Tamberlaine’, and the play reads throughout like an attempt to emulate the success of Marlowe’s play of 1587 (?). In IV. i Mahomet speaks out of a brazen head. The play may therefore be alluded to in the ‘Mahomet’s poo [pow]’ of Peele’s (q.v.) Farewell of April 1589, although Peele may have intended his own lost play of The Turkish Mahomet and Hiren the Fair Greek. There is no reference in Alphonsus to the Armada of 1588. On the whole, the winter of 1587 appears the most likely date for it, and if so, it is possibly the play whose ill success is recorded by Greene in the preface to Perimedes (1588). The Admiral’s revived a Mahomet on 16 Aug. 1594, inventoried ‘owld Mahemetes head’ in 1598, and revived the play again in Aug. 1601, buying the book from Alleyn, who might have brought it from Strange’s, or bought it from the Queen’s (Greg, Henslowe, ii. 167; Henslowe Papers, 116). Collins dates Alphonsus in 1591, on a theory, inconsistent with the biographical indications of the pamphlets, that Greene’s play-writing did not begin much before that year. A ‘Tragicomoedia von einem Königk in Arragona’ played at Dresden in 1626 might be either this play or Mucedorus (Herz, 66, 78).

A Looking Glass for London and England. c. 1590

With Lodge.

S. R. 1594, March 5. ‘A booke intituled the lookinge glasse for London by Thomas Lodg and Robert Greene gent.’ Thomas Creede (Arber, ii. 645).

1594. A Looking Glasse for London and England. Made by Thomas Lodge Gentleman, and Robert Greene. In Artibus Magister. Thomas Creede, sold by William Barley.

1598. Thomas Creede, sold by William Barley.

1602. Thomas Creede, for Thomas Pavier.

1617. Bernard Alsop.

Edition by J. S. Farmer (1914, S. F. T.).

The facts of Lodge’s (q.v.) life leave 1588, before the Canaries voyage, or 1589–91, between that voyage and Cavendish’s expedition, as possible dates for the play. In favour of the former is Lodge’s expressed intention in 1589 to give up ‘penny-knave’s delight’. On the other hand, the subject is closely related to that of Greene’s moral pamphlets, the series of which begins in 1590, and the fall of Nineveh is referred to in The Mourning Garment of that year. Fleay, ii. 54, and Collins, i. 137, accept 1590 as the date of the play. Gayley, 405, puts it in 1587, largely on the impossible notion that its ‘priest of the sun’ (IV. iii. 1540) is that referred to in the Perimedes preface, but partly also from the absence of any reference to the Armada. It is possible that ‘pleasing Alcon’ in Spenser’s Colin Clout’s Come Home Again (1591) may refer to Lodge as the author of the character Alcon in this play. The Looking Glass was revived by Strange’s men on 8 March 1592. The clown is sometimes called Adam in the course of the dialogue (ll. 1235 sqq., 1589 sqq., 2120 sqq.), and a comparison with James IV suggests that the original performer was John Adams of the Queen’s men, from whom Henslowe may have acquired the play. Fleay, ii. 54, and Gayley, 405, make attempts to distinguish Greene’s share from Lodge’s, but do not support their results by arguments. Crawford, England’s Parnassus, xxxii, 441, does not regard Allot’s ascription of the passages he borrowed to Greene and Lodge respectively as trustworthy. Unnamed English actors played a ‘comedia auss dem propheten Jona’ at Nördlingen in 1605 (Herz, 78).

Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, c. 1589

S. R. 1594, May 14. ‘A booke entituled the Historye of ffryer Bacon and ffryer Boungaye.’ Adam Islip (Arber, ii. 649). [Against this and other plays entered on the same day, Adam Islip’s name is crossed out and Edward White’s substituted.]

1594. The Honorable Historie of frier Bacon, and frier Bongay. As it was plaid by her Maiesties seruants. Made by Robert Greene Maister of Arts. For Edward White. [Malone dated one of his copies of the 1630 edition ‘1599’ in error; cf. Gayley, 430.]

1630.... As it was lately plaid by the Prince Palatine his Seruants.... Elizabeth Allde. [The t.p. has a woodcut representing Act II, sc. iii.]

1655. Jean Bell.

Editions by A. W. Ward (1878, &c.), C. M. Gayley (1903, R. E. C. i), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.), and J. S. Farmer (1914, S. F. T.).--Dissertation: O. Ritter, De R. G. Fabula: F. B. and F. B. (1866, Thorn diss.).

Fleay, in Appendix B to Ward’s ed., argues from I. i. 137, ‘next Friday is S. James’, that the date of the play is 1589, in which year St. James’s Day fell on a Friday. This does not seem to me a very reliable argument. Probably the play followed not long after Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus (q.v.), itself probably written in 1588–9. The date of 1589, which Ward, i. 396, and Gayley, 411, accept, is likely enough. Collins prefers 1591–2, and notes (ii. 4) a general resemblance in tone and theme to Fair Em, but there is nothing to indicate the priority of either play, and no charge of plagiarism in the pamphlets (vide supra) to which Fair Em gave rise. Friar Bacon was revived by Strange’s men on 19 Feb. 1592, and again by the Queen’s and Sussex’s men together on 1 April 1594. Doubtless it was Henslowe’s property, as Middleton wrote a prologue and epilogue for a performance by the Admiral’s men at Court at Christmas 1602 (Greg, Henslowe, ii. 149).

Orlando Furioso. c. 1591

[MS.] The Dulwich MSS. contain an actor’s copy with cues of Orlando’s part. Doubtless it belonged to Alleyn. The fragment covers ll. 595–1592 of the Q_{q}, but contains passages not in those texts. It is printed by Collier, Alleyn Papers, 198, Collins, i. 266, and Greg, Henslowe Papers, 155.

S. R. 1593, Dec. 7. ‘A plaie booke, intituled, the historye of Orlando ffurioso, one of the xij peeres of Ffraunce.’ John Danter (Arber, ii. 641).

1594, May 28. ‘Entred for his copie by consent of John Danter.... A booke entytuled The historie of Orlando furioso, &c. Prouided alwaies, and yt is agreed that soe often as the same booke shalbe printed, the saide John Danter to haue thimpryntinge thereof.’ Cuthbert Burby (Arber, ii. 650).

1594. The Historie of Orlando Furioso One of the twelve Pieres of France. As it was plaid before the Queenes Maiestie. John Danter for Cuthbert Burby.

1599. Simon Stafford for Cuthbert Burby.

Edition by W. W. Greg (1907, M. S. R.).

The Armada (1588) is referred to in I. i. 87. Two passages are common to the play and Peele’s Old Wive’s Tale (before 1595), and were probably borrowed by Peele with the name Sacripant, which Greene got from Ariosto. The play cannot be the ‘King Charlemagne’ of Peele’s (q.v.) Farewell (April 1589), as Charlemagne does not appear in it. The appearance of Sir John Harington’s translation of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso in 1591 suggests that as a likely date. This also would fit the story (vide supra) of the second sale to the Admiral’s men, when the Queen’s ‘were in the country’ (cf. vol. ii, p. 112). Strange’s men played Orlando for Henslowe on 22 Feb. 1592. Collins, i. 217, seems to accept 1591 as the date, but Fleay, i. 263, Ward, i. 395, and Gayley, 409, prefer 1588–9. So does Greg (Henslowe, ii. 150) on the assumption that Old Wive’s Tale (q.v.) ‘must belong to 1590’. A ‘Comoedia von Orlando Furioso’ was acted at Dresden in 1626 (Herz, 66, 77).

James the Fourth. c. 1591

S. R. 1594, May 14. ‘A booke intituled the Scottishe story of James the Ffourth slayne at Fflodden intermixed with a plesant Comedie presented by Oboron Kinge of ffayres.’ Thomas Creede (Arber, ii. 648.)

1598. The Scottish Historie of Iames the fourth, slaine at Flodden. Entermixed with a pleasant Comedie, presented by Oboram, King of Fayeries: As it hath bene sundrie times publikely plaide. Written by Robert Greene, Maister of Arts. Thomas Creede.

Editions by J. M. Manly (1897, Specimens, ii. 327) and A. E. H. Swaen and W. W. Greg (1921, M. S. R.).--Dissertation: W. Creizenach, Zu G.’s J. IV (1885, Anglia, viii. 419).

There is very little to date the play. Its comparative merit perhaps justifies placing it, as Greene’s maturest drama, in 1591. Collins, i. 44, agrees; but Fleay, i. 265; Ward, i. 400; Gayley, 415, prefer 1590. Fleay finds traces of a second hand, whom he believes to be Lodge, but he is not convincing. In l. 2269 the name Adam appears for Oberon in a stage-direction, which, when compared with A Looking-Glass, suggests that the actor was John Adams of the Queen’s.

Lost Play

Warburton’s list of burnt plays (3 Library, ii. 231) contains the duplicate entries ‘His^t of Jobe by Rob. Green’ and ‘The Trag^d of Jobe. Good.’ Greg suggests a confusion with Sir Robert Le Grys, who appears in the list as ‘S^r Rob. le Green’.

The statement that Greene had a share in a play on Henry VIII (Variorum, xix. 500) seems to be based on a confusion with a Robert Greene named by Stowe as an authority for his Annales (Collins, i. 69).

Doubtful Plays

Greene’s hand has been sought in Contention of York and Lancaster, Edward III, Fair Em, George a Greene, Troublesome Reign of King John, Knack to Know a Knave, Thracian Wonder, Leire, Locrine, Mucedorus, Selimus, Taming of A Shrew, Thomas Lord Cromwell (cf. ch. xxiv), and Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and Henry VI.

FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE (c. 1554–1628).

Greville’s father, Sir Fulke, was a cadet of the Grevilles of Milcote, and held great estates in Warwickshire. The son was born at Beauchamp Court ten years before he entered Shrewsbury School on 17 Oct. 1564 with Philip Sidney, of whom he wrote, c. 1610–12, a Life (ed. Nowell Smith, 1907). In 1568 he went to Jesus College, Cambridge, and from 1577 was a courtier in high favour with Elizabeth, and entrusted with minor diplomatic and administrative tasks. He took part in the great tilt of 15 May 1581 (cf. ch. xxiv) and was a steady patron of learning and letters. His own plays were for the closet. He was knighted in 1597. James granted him Warwick Castle in 1605, but he was no friend of Robert Cecil, and took no great part in affairs until 1614, when he became Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1621 he was created Lord Brooke. On 1 Sept. 1628 he was stabbed to death by his servant Ralph Haywood. D. Lloyd, Statesmen of England (1665), 504, makes him claim to have been ‘master’ to Shakespeare and Jonson.

Collections

S. R. 1632, Nov. 10 (Herbert). ‘A booke called Certaine learned and elegant Workes of Fulke Lord Brooke the perticular names are as followeth (viz^t) ... The Tragedy of Alaham. The Tragedy of Mustapha (by assignment from Master Butter).... Seile (Arber, iv. 288).

1633. Certaine Learned and Elegant Workes of the Right Honorable Fulke Lord Brooke, Written in his Youth, and familiar exercise with Sir Philip Sidney. The seuerall Names of which Workes the following page doth declare. E. P. for Henry Seyle. [Contains Alaham and Mustapha.]

1670. The Remains of Sir Fulk Grevill Lord Brooke: Being Poems of Monarchy and Religion: Never before Printed. T. N. for Henry Herringham. [Contains Alaham and Mustapha.]

1870. A. B. Grosart, The Works in Verse and Prose Complete of the Lord Brooke. 4 vols. (Fuller Worthies Library).

Dissertations: M. W. Croll, The Works of F. G. (1903, Pennsylvania thesis); R. M. Cushman (M. L. N. xxiv. 180).

Alaham. c. 1600 (?)

[MS.] Holograph at Warwick Castle (cf. Grosart, iv. 336).

1633. [Part of Coll. 1633. Prologue and Epilogue; at end, ‘This Tragedy, called Alaham, may be printed, this 13 day of June 1632, Henry Herbert.’]

Croll dates 1586–1600 on metrical grounds, and Cushman 1598–1603, as bearing on Elizabethan politics after Burghley’s death.

Mustapha. 1603 < > 8

[MSS.] Holograph at Warwick Castle (cf. Grosart, iv. 336). Camb. Univ. MS. F. f. 2. 35.

S. R. 1608, Nov. 25 (Buck). ‘A booke called the Tragedy of Mustapha and Zangar.’ Nathanaell Butter (Arber, iii. 396).

1609. The Tragedy of Mustapha. For Nathaniel Butter.

S. R. 1632, Nov. 10. Transfer from Butter to Seile (Arber, iv. 288) (vide Collections, supra).

Cushman dates 1603–9, as bearing on the Jacobean doctrine of divine right.

MATTHEW GWINNE (c. 1558–1627).

Gwinne, the son of a London grocer of Welsh descent, entered St. John’s, Oxford, from Merchant Taylors in 1574, and became Fellow of the College, taking his B.A. in 1578, his M.A. in 1582, and his M.D. in 1593. In 1592 he was one of the overseers for the plays at the visit of Elizabeth (Boas, 252). He became Professor of Physic at Gresham College in 1597 and afterwards practised as a physician in London.

LATIN PLAYS

Nero > 1603

S. R. 1603, Feb. 23 (Buckerydge). ‘A booke called Nero Tragedia nova Matheo Gwyn medicine Doctore Colegij Divi Johannis precursoris apud Oxonienses socio Collecta.’ Edward Blunt (Arber, iii. 228).

1603. Nero Tragoedia Nova; Matthaeo Gwinne Med. Doct. Collegii Diui Joannis Praecursoris apud Oxonienses Socio collecta è Tacito, Suetonio, Dione, Seneca. Ed. Blount. [Epistle to James, ‘Londini ex aedibus Greshamiis Cal. Jul. 1603’, signed ‘Matthaeus Gvvinne’; commendatory verses to Justus Lipsius, signed ‘Io. Sandsbury Ioannensis’; Prologue and Epilogue.]

1603. Ed. Blount. [Epistle to Thomas Egerton and Francis Leigh, ‘Londini ex aedibus Greshamiis in festo Cinerum 1603’; Epilogue.]

1639. M. F. Prostant apud R. Mynne.

Boas, 390, assigns the play to St. John’s, Oxford, c. Easter 1603, but the S. R. entry and the ‘Elisa regnat’ of the Epilogue point to an Elizabethan date.

Vertumnus. 29 Aug. 1605

[MS.] Inner Temple Petyt MS. 538, 43, f. 293, has a scenario, with the title ‘The yeare about’.

1607. Vertumnus sive Annus Recurrens Oxonii, xxix Augusti, Anno. 1605. Coram Iacobo Rege, Henrico Principe, Proceribus. A Joannensibus in Scena recitatus ab vno scriptus, Phrasi Comica propè Tragicis Senariis. Nicholas Okes, impensis Ed. Blount. [Epistle to Henry, signed ‘Matthaeus Gwinne’; Verses to Earl of Montgomery; commendatory verses, signed ‘Guil. Paddy’, ‘Ioa. Craigius’, ‘Io. Sansbery Ioannensis’, ‘Θώμας ὁ Φρεάῤῥεος’; Author ad Librum. Appended are verses, signed ‘M. G.’ and headed ‘Ad Regis introitum, è Ioannensi Collegio extra portam Vrbis Borealem sito, tres quasi Sibyllae, sic (ut e sylua) salutarunt’, which are thought to have given a hint for Macbeth.]

This was shown to James during his visit to Oxford, and it sent him to sleep. The performance was at Christ Church by men of St. John’s.

STEPHEN HARRISON (c. 1604).

Designer and describer of the arches at the coronation of James I (cf. ch. xxiv, C).

RICHARD HATHWAY (c. 1600).

Practically nothing is known of Hathway outside Henslowe’s diary, although he was included by Meres amongst the ‘best for comedy’ in 1598, and wrote commendatory verses for Bodenham’s Belvedere (1600). It is only conjecture that relates him to the Hathaways of Shottery in Warwickshire, of whom was Shakespeare’s father-in-law, also a Richard. He has left nothing beyond an undetermined share of 1 Sir John Oldcastle, but the following plays by him are traceable in the diary:

(a) Plays for the Admiral’s, 1598–1602

(i) King Arthur.

April 1598.

(ii) Valentine and Orson.

With Munday, July 1598. It is uncertain what relation, if any, this bore to an anonymous play of the same name which was twice entered in the S. R. on 23 May 1595 and 31 March 1600 (Arber, ii. 298, iii. 159), was ascribed in both entries to the Queen’s and not the Admiral’s, and is not known to be extant.

(iii, iv) 1, 2 Sir John Oldcastle.

With Drayton (q.v.), Munday, and Wilson, Oct.–Dec. 1599.

(v) Owen Tudor.

With Drayton, Munday, and Wilson, Jan. 1600; but apparently not finished.

(vi) 1 Fair Constance of Rome.

With Dekker, Drayton, Munday, and Wilson (q.v.), June 1600.

(vii) 2 Fair Constance of Rome.

June 1600; but apparently not finished.

(viii) Hannibal and Scipio.

With Rankins, Jan. 1601. Greg, ii. 216, bravely suggests that Nabbes’s play of the same name, printed as a piece of Queen Henrietta’s men in 1637, may have been a revision of this.

(ix) Scogan and Skelton.

With Rankins, Jan.–March 1601.

(x) The Conquest of Spain by John of Gaunt.

With Rankins, Mar.–Apr. 1601, but never finished, as shown by a letter to Henslowe from S. Rowley, bidding him let Hathway ‘have his papars agayne’ (Henslowe Papers, 56).

(xi, xii) 1, 2 The Six Clothiers.

With Haughton and Smith, Oct.–Nov. 1601; but the second part was apparently unfinished.

(xiii) Too Good To Be True.

With Chettle (q.v.) and Smith, Nov. 1601–Jan. 1602.

(xiv) Merry as May Be.

With Day and Smith, Nov. 1602.

(b) Plays for Worcester’s, 1602–3

(xv, xvi) 1, 2 The Black Dog of Newgate.

With Day, Smith, and an anonymous ‘other poete’, Nov. 1602–Feb. 1603.

(xvii) The Unfortunate General.

With Day, Smith, and a third, Jan. 1603.

(c) Play for the Admiral’s, 1603

(xviii) The Boss of Billingsgate.

With Day and one or more other ‘felowe poetes’, March 1603.

CHRISTOPHER HATTON (1540–91).

Christopher Hatton, of Holdenby, Northants, entered the Inner Temple in Nov. 1559. He was Master of the Game at the Grand Christmas of 1561, and the mask to which he is said to have owed his introduction to Elizabeth’s favour was probably that which the revellers took to Court, together with Norton (q.v.) and Sackville’s Gorboduc on 18 Jan. 1562. He became a Gentleman Pensioner in 1564, Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, Captain of the Guard in 1572, Vice-Chamberlain and Privy Councillor in 1578, when he was knighted, and Lord Chancellor on 25 April 1587. He was conspicuous at Court in masks and tilts, and is reported, even as Lord Chancellor, to have laid aside his gown and danced at the wedding of his nephew and heir, Sir William Newport, alias Hatton, to Elizabeth Gawdy at Holdenby in June 1590.

His only contribution to the drama is as writer of an act of Gismond of Salerne at the Inner Temple in 1568 (cf. s.v. Wilmot).

WILLIAM HAUGHTON (c. 1575–1605).

Beyond his extant work and the entries in Henslowe’s diary, in the earliest of which, on 5 Nov. 1597, he appears as ‘yonge’ Haughton, little is known of Haughton. Cooper, Ath. Cantab. ii. 399, identified him with an alleged Oxford M.A. of the same name who was incorporated at Cambridge in 1604, but turns out to have misread the name, which is ‘Langton’ (Baugh, 15). He worked for the Admiral’s during 1597–1602, and found himself in the Clink in March 1600. Baugh, 22, prints his will, made on 6 June 1605, and proved on 20 July. He left a widow Alice and children. Wentworth Smith (q.v.) and one Elizabeth Lewes were witnesses. He was then of Allhallows, Stainings. He cannot be traced in the parish, but the name, which in his will is Houghton, is also spelt by Henslowe Harton, Horton, Hauton, Hawton, Howghton, Haughtoun, Haulton, and Harvghton, and was common in London. He might be related to a William Houghton, saddler, who held a house in Turnmill Street in 1577 (Baugh, 11), since in 1601 (H. P. 57) Day requested that a sum due to Haughton and himself might be paid to ‘Will Hamton sadler’.

Englishmen for My Money, or _A Woman Will Have Her Will. 1598_

S. R. 1601, Aug. 3. ‘A comedy of A woman Will haue her Will.’ William White (Arber, iii. 190).

1616. English-Men For my Money: or, A pleasant Comedy, called, A Woman will haue her Will. W. White.

1626.... As it hath beene diuers times Acted with great applause. I. N., sold by Hugh Perry.

1631. A. M., sold by Richard Thrale.

Editions in O. E. D. (1830, i) and Dodsley^4, x (1875), and by J. S. Farmer (1911, T. F. T.), W. W. Greg (1912, M. S. R.), and A. C. Baugh, (1917).

The evidence for Haughton’s evidence is in two payments in Henslowe’s diary of 18 Feb. and early in May 1598 on behalf of the Admiral’s. The sum of these is only £2, but it seems possible that at least one, and perhaps more than one, other payment was made for the book in 1597 (cf. Henslowe, ii. 191).

Patient Grissell. 1599

With Chettle and Dekker (q.v.).

Lost and Doubtful Plays

The following plays by Haughton, all for the Admiral’s, are traceable in Henslowe’s diary:

(i) A Woman Will Have Her Will.

See supra.

(ii) The Poor Man’s Paradise.

Aug. 1599; apparently not finished.

(iii) Cox of Collumpton.

With Day, Nov. 1599; on a ‘note’ of the play by Simon Forman, cf. ch. xiii (Admiral’s).

(iv) Thomas Merry, or Beech’s Tragedy.

With Day, Nov.–Dec. 1599, on the same theme as one of Yarington’s Two Lamentable Tragedies (q.v.).

(v) The Arcadian Virgin.

With Chettle, Dec. 1599; apparently not finished.

(vi) Patient Grissell.

With Chettle and Dekker (q.v.), Oct.–Dec. 1599.

(vii) The Spanish Moor’s Tragedy.

With Day and Dekker, Feb. 1600; but apparently then unfinished; possibly identical with Lust’s Dominion (cf. s.v. Marlowe).

(viii) The Seven Wise Masters.

With Chettle, Day, and Dekker, March 1600.

(ix) Ferrex and Porrex.

March-April 1600.

(x) The English Fugitives.

April 1600, but apparently not finished.

(xi) The Devil and His Dame.

6 May 1600; probably the extant anonymous Grim the Collier of Croydon (q.v.).

(xii) Strange News Out of Poland.

With ‘M^r. Pett’, May 1600.

(xiii) Judas.

Haughton had 10_s._ for this, May 1600; apparently the play was finished by Bird and S. Rowley, Dec. 1601.

(xiv) Robin Hood’s Pennorths.

Dec. 1600–Jan. 1601; but apparently not finished.

(xv, xvi) 2, 3 The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green.

With Day (q.v.), Jan.–July 1600.

(xvii) The Conquest of the West Indies.

With Day and Smith, April-Sept. 1601.

(xviii) The Six Yeomen of the West.

With Day, May–June 1601.

(xix) Friar Rush and the Proud Woman of Antwerp.

With Chettle and Day, July 1601–Jan. 1602.

(xx) 2 Tom Dough.

With Day, July–Sept. 1601; but apparently not finished.

(xxi, xxii) 1, 2 The Six Clothiers.

With Hathway and Smith, Oct.–Nov. 1601; but apparently the second part was not finished.

(xxiii) William Cartwright.

Sept. 1602; perhaps never finished.

WALTER HAWKESWORTH (?-1606).

A Yorkshireman by birth, Hawkesworth entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1588, and became a Fellow, taking his B.A. in 1592 and his M.A. in 1595. In 1605 he went as secretary to the English embassy in Madrid, where he died.

LATIN PLAYS

Leander. 1599

[MSS.] T. C. C. MS. R. 3. 9. Sloane MS. 1762. [‘Authore M^{ro} Haukesworth, Collegii Trinitatis olim Socio Acta est secundo A. D. 1602 comitiis Baccalaureorum ... primo acta est A. D. 1598.’ Prologue, ‘ut primo acta est’; Additions for revival; Actor-lists.]

St. John’s, Cambridge, MS. J. 8. [Dated at end ‘7 Jan. 1599’.]

Emmanuel, Cambridge, MS. I. 2. 30.

Cambridge Univ. Libr. MS. Ee. v. 16.

Bodl. Rawl. Misc. MS. 341.

Lambeth MS. 838.

The production in 1599 and 1603 indicated by the MSS. agrees with the Trinity names in the actor-lists (Boas, 399).

Labyrinthus. 1603 (?)

[MSS.] T. C. C. MS. R. 3. 6.

Cambridge Univ. Libr. MS. Ee. v. 16. [Both ‘M^{ro} Haukesworth’. Prologue. Actor-list in T. C. C. MS.]

St. John’s, Cambridge, MS. J. 8. T. C. C. MS. R. 3. 9. Bodl. Douce MSS. 43, 315. Lambeth MS. 838.

S. R. 1635, July 17 (Weekes). ‘A Latyn Comedy called Laborinthus &c.’ Robinson (Arber, iv. 343).

1636. Labyrinthus Comoedia, habita coram Sereniss. Rege Iacobo in Academia Cantabrigiensi. Londini, Excudebat H. R. [Prologue.]

An allusion in the text (v. 5) to the marriage ‘heri’ of Leander and Flaminia has led to the assumption that production was on the day after the revival of Leander in 1603; the actor-list has some inconsistencies, and is not quite conclusive for any year of the period 1603–6 (Boas, 317, 400).

MARY HERBERT, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE (1561–1621).

Mary, daughter of Sir Henry, and sister of Sir Philip, Sidney, married Henry, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, in 1577. She had literary tastes and was a liberal patroness of poets, notably Samuel Daniel. Most of her time appears to have been spent at her husband’s Wiltshire seats of Wilton, Ivychurch, and Ramsbury, but in the reign of James she rented Crosby Hall in Bishopsgate, and in 1615 the King granted her for life the manor of Houghton Conquest, Beds.

Dissertation: F. B. Young, Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke (1912).

TRANSLATION

Antony. 1590

S. R. 1592, May 3. ‘Item Anthonius a tragedie wrytten also in French by Robert Garnier ... donne in English by the Countesse of Pembrok.’ William Ponsonby (Arber, ii. 611).

1592. A Discourse of Life and Death. Written in French by Ph. Mornay. Antonius, A Tragoedie written also in French by Ro. Garnier Both done in English by the Countesse of Pembroke. For William Ponsonby.

1595. The Tragedie of Antonie. Doone ... For William Ponsonby.

Edition by A. Luce (1897). The Marc-Antoine (1578) of Robert Garnier was reissued in his Huit Tragédies (1580).

ENTERTAINMENT

Astraea. 1592 (?)

In Davison’s Poetical Rapsody (1602, S. R. 28 May 1602) is ‘A Dialogue betweene two Shepheards, Thenot and Piers, in Praise of Astrea. Made by the excellent Lady the Lady Mary Countesse of Pembrook at the Queenes Maiesties being at her house at ---- Anno 15--’.

S. Lee (D. N. B.) puts the visit at Wilton ‘late in 1599’. But there was no progress in 1599, and progresses to Wilts. planned in 1600, 1601, and 1602 were abandoned. Presumably the verses were written for the visit to Ramsbury of 27–9 Aug. 1592 (cf. App. A).

JASPER HEYWOOD (1535–98).

Translator of Seneca (q.v.).

THOMAS HEYWOOD (c. 1570–1641).

Heywood regarded Lincolnshire as his ‘country’ and had an uncle Edmund, who had a friend Sir Henry Appleton. K. L. Bates has found Edmund Heywood’s will of 7 Oct. 1624 in which Thomas Heywood and his wife are mentioned, and has shown it to be not improbable that Edmund was the son of Richard Heywood, a London barrister who had manors in Lincolnshire. If so, Thomas was probably the son of Edmund’s disinherited elder brother Christopher who was aged 30 in 1570. And if Richard Heywood is the same who appears in the circle of Sir Thomas More, a family connexion with the dramatist John Heywood may be conjectured. The date of Thomas’s birth is unknown, but he tells us that he was at Cambridge, although a tradition that he became Fellow of Peterhouse cannot be confirmed, and is therefore not likely to have begun his stage career before the age of 18 or thereabouts. Perhaps we may conjecture that he was born c. 1570, for a Thomas Heywood is traceable in the St. Saviour’s, Southwark, token-books from 1588 to 1607, and children of Thomas Heywood ‘player’ were baptized in the same parish from 28 June 1590 to 5 Sept. 1605 (Collier, in Bodl. MS. 29445). This is consistent with his knowledge (App. C, No. lvii) of Tarlton, but not of earlier actors. He may, therefore, so far as dates are concerned, easily have written The Four Prentices as early as 1592; but that he in fact did so, as well as his possible contributions to the Admiral’s repertory of 1594–7, are matters of inference (cf. Greg, Henslowe, ii. 284). The editors of the Apology for Actors (Introd. v) say that in his Funeral Elegy upon James I (1625) he claims to have been ‘the theatrical servant of the Earl of Southampton, the patron of Shakespeare’. I have never seen the Elegy. It is not in the B. M., but a copy passed from the Bindley to the Brown collection. There is no other evidence that Southampton ever had a company of players. The first dated notice of Heywood is in a payment of Oct. 1596 on behalf of the Admiral’s ‘for Hawodes bocke’. On 25 March 1598 he bound himself to Henslowe for two years as an actor, doubtless for the Admiral’s, then in process of reconstitution. Between Dec. 1598 and Feb. 1599 he wrote two plays for this company, and then disappears from their records. He was not yet out of his time with Henslowe, but if Edward IV is really his, he may have been enabled to transfer his services to Derby’s men, who seem to have established themselves in London in the course of 1599. By the autumn of 1602 he was a member of Worcester’s, for whom he had probably already written How a Man may Choose a Good Wife from a Bad. He now reappears in Henslowe’s diary both as actor and as playwright. On 1 Sept, he borrowed 2_s._ 6_d._ to buy garters, and between 4 Sept, and 6 March 1603 he wrote or collaborated in not less than seven plays for the company. During the same winter he also helped in one play for the Admiral’s. It seems probable that some of his earlier work was transferred to Worcester’s. He remained with them, and in succession to them Queen Anne’s, until the company broke up soon after the death of the Queen in 1619. Very little of his work got into print. Of the twelve plays at most which appeared before 1619, the first seven were unauthorized issues; from 1608 onwards, he himself published five with prefatory epistles. About this date, perhaps in the enforced leisure of plague-time, he also began to produce non-dramatic works, both in prose and verse, of which the Apology for Actors, published in 1612, but written some years earlier (cf. App. C, No. lvii), is the most important. The loss of his Lives of All the Poets, apparently begun c. 1614 and never finished, is irreparable. After 1619 Heywood is not traceable at all as an actor; nor for a good many years, with the exception of one play, The Captives, for the Lady Elizabeth’s in 1624, as a playwright, either on the stage or in print. In 1623 a Thomas Heywarde lived near Clerkenwell Hill (Sh.-Jahrbuch, xlvi. 345) and is probably the dramatist. In 1624 he claims in the Epistle to Gynaikeion the renewed patronage of the Earl of Worcester, since ‘I was your creature, and amongst other your servants, you bestowed me upon the excellent princesse Q. Anne ... but by her lamented death, your gift is returned againe into your hands’. But about 1630 he emerges again. Old plays of his were revived and new ones produced both by Queen Henrietta’s men at the Cockpit and the King’s at the Globe and Blackfriars. He wrote the Lord Mayor’s pageants for a series of years. He sent ten more plays to the press, and included a number of prologues, epilogues, and complimentary speeches of recent composition in his Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas of 1637. This period lies outside my survey. I have dealt with all plays in which there is a reasonable prospect of finding early work, but have not thought it necessary to discuss The English Traveller, or A Maidenhead Well Lost, merely because of tenuous attempts by Fleay to connect them with lost plays written for Worcester’s or still earlier anonymous work for the Admiral’s, any more than The Fair Maid of the West, The Late Lancashire Witches, or A Challenge for Beauty, with regard to which no such suggestion is made. As to Love’s Mistress, see the note on Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas. The Epistle to The English Traveller (1633) is worth quoting. Heywood describes the play as ‘one reserued amongst two hundred and twenty, in which I haue had either an entire hand, or at the least a maine finger’, and goes on to explain why his pieces have not appeared as Works. ‘One reason is, that many of them by shifting and change of Companies, haue beene negligently lost, Others of them are still retained in the hands of some Actors, who thinke it against their peculiar profit to haue them come in Print, and a third, That it neuer was any great ambition in me, to bee in this kind Volumniously read.’ Heywood’s statement would give him an average of over five plays a year throughout a forty years’ career, and even if we assume that he included every piece which he revised or supplied with a prologue, it is obvious that the score or so plays that we have and the dozen or so others of which we know the names must fall very short of his total output. ‘Tho. Heywood, Poet’, was buried at St. James’s, Clerkenwell, on 16 Aug. 1641 (Harl. Soc. Reg. xvii. 248), and therefore the alleged mention of him as still alive in The Satire against Separatists (1648) must rest on a misunderstanding.

Collections

1842–51. B. Field and J. P. Collier, The Dramatic Works of Thomas Heywood. 2 vols. (Shakespeare Society). [Intended for a complete edition, although issued in single parts; a title-page for vol. i was issued in 1850 and the 10th Report of the Society treats the plays for 1851 as completing vol. ii. Twelve plays were issued, as cited infra.]

1874. The Dramatic Works of Thomas Heywood. 6 vols. (Pearson Reprints). [All the undoubted plays, with Edward IV and Fair Maid of the Exchange; also Lord Mayors’ Pageants and part of Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas.]

1888. A. W. Verity, The Best Plays of Thomas Heywood (Mermaid Series). [Woman Killed with Kindness, Fair Maid of the West, English Traveller, Wise Woman of Hogsdon, Rape of Lucrece.]

Dissertations: K. L. Bates, A Conjecture as to Thomas Heywood’s Family (1913, J. G. P. xii. 1); P. Aronstein, Thomas Heywood (1913, Anglia, xxxvii. 163).

The Four Prentices of London. 1592 (?)

S. R. 1594, June 19. ‘An enterlude entituled Godfrey of Bulloigne with the Conquest of Jerusalem.’ John Danter (Arber, ii. 654).

1615. The Foure Prentises of London. With the Conquest of Ierusalem. As it hath bene diuerse times Acted, at the Red Bull, by the Queenes Maiesties Seruants. Written by Thomas Heywood. For I. W. [Epistle to the Prentices, signed ‘Thomas Heywood’ and Prologue, really an Induction.]

1632.... Written and newly reuised by Thomas Heywood. Nicholas Okes.

Editions in Dodsley^{2, 3} (1780–1827) and by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. iii).

The Prologue gives the title as True and Strange, or The Four Prentises of London. The Epistle speaks of the play as written ‘many yeares since, in my infancy of iudgment in this kinde of poetry, and my first practice’ and ‘some fifteene or sixteene yeares agoe’. This would, by itself, suggest a date shortly after the publication of Fairfax’s translation from Tasso under the title of Godfrey of Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Ierusalem in 1600. But the Epistle also refers to a recent revival of ‘the commendable practice of long forgotten armes’ in ‘the Artillery Garden’. This, according to Stowe, Annales (1615), 906, was in 1610, which leads Fleay, i. 182, followed by Greg (Henslowe, ii. 166), to assume that the Epistle was written for an edition, now lost, of about that date. In support they cite Beaumont’s K. B. P. iv. 1 (dating it 1610 instead of 1607), ‘Read the play of the Foure Prentices of London, where they tosse their pikes so’. Then, calculating back sixteen years, they arrive at the anonymous Godfrey of Bulloigne produced by the Admiral’s on 19 July 1594, and identify this with The Four Prentices, in which Godfrey is a character. But this Godfrey of Bulloigne was a second part, and it is difficult to suppose that the first part was anything but the play entered on the S. R. earlier in 1594. This, from its title, clearly left no room for a second part covering the same ground as The Four Prentices, which ends with the capture of Jerusalem. If then Heywood’s play is as old as 1594 at all, it must be identified with the first part of Godfrey of Bulloigne. And is not this in its turn likely to be the Jerusalem played by Strange’s men on 22 March and 25 April 1592? If so, Heywood’s career began very early, and, as we can hardly put his Epistle earlier than the opening of the Artillery Garden in 1610, his ‘fifteene or sixteene yeares’ must be rather an understatement. There is of course nothing in the Epistle itself to suggest that the play had been previously printed, but we know from the Epistle to Lucrece that the earliest published plays by Heywood were surreptitious.

Greg, Henslowe, ii. 230, hesitatingly suggests that a purchase by Worcester’s of ‘iiij lances for the comody of Thomas Hewedes & M^r. Smythes’ on 3 Sept. 1602 may have been for a revival of The Four Prentices, ‘where they tosse their pikes so’, transferred from the Admiral’s. But I think his afterthought, that the comedy was Heywood and Smith’s Albere Galles, paid for on the next day, is sound.

Sir Thomas Wyatt. 1602

See s.v. Dekker.

The Royal King and the Loyal Subject. 1602 (?)

S. R. 1637, March 25 (Thomas Herbert, deputy to Sir Henry Herbert). ‘A Comedy called the Royall king and the Loyall Subiects by Master Heywood.’ James Beckett (Arber, iv. 376).

1637. The Royall King, and the Loyall Subject. As it hath beene Acted with great Applause by the Queenes Maiesties Servants. Written by Thomas Heywood. Nich. and John Okes for James Becket. [Prologue to the Stage and Epilogue to the Reader.]

Editions by J. P. Collier (1850, Sh. Soc.) and K. W. Tibbals (1906, Pennsylvania Univ. Publ.).--Dissertation: O. Kämpfer, Th. Heywood’s The Royal King and Painter’s Palace of Pleasure (1903, Halle diss.).

The Epilogue describes the play as ‘old’, and apparently relates it to a time when rhyme, of which it makes considerable use, was more looked after than ‘strong lines’, and when stuffed and puffed doublets and trunk-hose were worn, which would fit the beginning of the seventeenth century. An anonymous Marshal is a leading character, and the identification by Fleay, i. 300, with the Marshal Osric written by Heywood and Smith for Worcester’s in Sept. 1602 is not the worst of his guesses.

A Woman Killed With Kindness. 1603

1607. A Woman Kilde with Kindnesse. Written by Tho: Heywood. William Jaggard, sold by John Hodgets. [Prologue and Epilogue.]

1617.... As it hath beene oftentimes Acted by the Queenes Maiest. Seruants.... The third Edition. Isaac Jaggard.

Editions in Dodsley^{1, 2, 3} (1744–1827) and by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. ii), J. P. Collier (1850, Sh. Soc.), A. W. Ward (1897, T. D.), F. J. Cox (1907), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.), K. L. Bates (1919).--Dissertation: R. G. Martin, A New Source for a Woman Killed with Kindness (1911, E. S. xliii. 229).

Henslowe, on behalf of Worcester’s, paid Heywood £6 for this play in Feb. and March 1603 and also bought properties for it. It is mentioned in T. M., The Black Book of London (1604), sig. E3.

The Wise Woman of Hogsdon. c. 1604 (?)

S. R. 1638, Mar. 12 (Wykes). ‘A Play called The wise woman of Hogsden by Thomas Haywood.’ Henry Sheapard (Arber, iv. 411).

1638. The Wise Woman of Hogsdon. A Comedie. As it hath been sundry times Acted with great Applause. Written by Tho: Heywood. M. P. for Henry Shephard.

Fleay, i. 291, suggested a date c. 1604 on the grounds of allusions to other plays of which A Woman Killed with Kindness is the latest (ed. Pearson, v. 316), and a conjectural identification with Heywood’s How to Learn of a Woman to Woo, played by the Queen’s at Court on 30 Dec. 1604. The approximate date is accepted by Ward, ii. 574, and others. It may be added that there are obvious parallelisms with the anonymous How a Man may Choose a Good Wife from a Bad (1602) generally assigned to Heywood.

If You Know not Me, You Know Nobody. 1605

S. R. 1605, July 5 (Hartwell). ‘A booke called yf you knowe not me you knowe no body.’ Nathaniel Butter (Arber, iii. 295).

1605, Sept. 14 (Hartwell). ‘A Booke called the Second parte of Yf you knowe not me you knowe no bodie with the buildinge of the exchange.’ Nathaniel Butter (Arber, iii. 301).

[Part i]

1605. If you Know not me, You Know no bodie: Or, The troubles of Queene Elizabeth. For Nathaniel Butter.

1606, 1608, 1610, 1613, 1623, 1632, 1639.

[Part ii]

1606. The Second Part of, If you Know not me, you know no bodie. With the building of the Royall Exchange: And the famous Victorie of Queene Elizabeth, in the Yeare 1588. For Nathaniell Butter.

1609.... With the Humors of Hobson and Tawny-cote. For Nathaniell Butter.

N.D. [1623?].

1632. For Nathaniel Butter. [With different version of Act V.]

Editions by J. P. Collier (1851, Sh. Soc.) and J. Blew (1876).--Dissertation: B. A. P. van Dam and C. Stoffel, The Fifth Act of Thomas Heywood’s Queen Elizabeth: Second Part (1902, Jahrbuch, xxxviii. 153).

Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas, 248, has ‘A Prologue to the Play of Queene Elizabeth as it was last revived at the Cockpit, in which the Author taxeth the most corrupted copy now imprinted, which was published without his consent’. It says:

This: (by what fate I know not) sure no merit, That it disclaimes, may for the age inherit. Writing ’bove one and twenty; but ill nurst, And yet receiv’d, as well perform’d at first, Grac’t and frequented, for the cradle age, Did throng the Seates, the Boxes, and the Stage So much; that some by Stenography drew The plot: put it in print: (scarce one word trew:)

There is also an Epilogue, which shows that both parts were revived. The piracy may serve to date the original production in 1605 and the Caroline revival probably led to the reprints of 1632. As the play passed to the Cockpit, it was presumably written for Queen Anne’s. Greg (Henslowe, ii. 223) rightly resists the suggestion that it was the old Philip of Spain bought by the Admiral’s from Alleyn in 1602. It is only Part i which has characteristics attributable to stenography, and this remained unrevised. According to Van Dam and Stoffel, the 1606 and 1632 editions of Part ii represent the same original text, in the first case shortened for representation, in the second altered by a press-corrector.

Fortune by Land and Sea. c. 1607 (?)

With W. Rowley.

S. R. 1655, June 20. ‘Fortune by Land & sea, a tragicomedie, written by Tho: Heywood & Wm. Rowley.’ John Sweeting (Eyre, i. 486).

1655. Fortune by Land and Sea. A Tragi-Comedy. As it was Acted with great Applause by the Queens Servants. Written by Tho. Haywood and William Rowly. For John Sweeting and Robert Pollard.

Edition by B. Field (1846, Sh. Soc.).--Dissertation: Oxoniensis, Illustration of Fortune by Land and Sea (1847, Sh. Soc. Papers, iii. 7).

The action is placed in the reign of Elizabeth (cf. ed. Pearson, vi, pp. 409, 431), but this may be due merely to the fact that the source is a pamphlet (S. R. 15 Aug. 1586) dealing with Elizabethan piracy. Rowley’s co-operation suggests the date 1607–9 when he was writing for Queen Anne’s men, and other trifling evidence (Aronstein, 237) makes such a date plausible.

The Rape of Lucrece. 1603 < > 8

S. R. 1608, June 3 (Buck). ‘A Booke called A Romane tragedie called The Rape of Lucrece.’ John Busby and Nathanael Butter (Arber, iii. 380).

1608. The Rape of Lucrece. A True Roman Tragedie. With the seuerall Songes in their apt places, by Valerius, the merrie Lord amongst the Roman Peeres. Acted by her Maiesties Seruants at the Red Bull, neare Clarkenwell. Written by Thomas Heywood. For I. B. [Epistle to the Reader, signed ‘T. H.’]

1609. For I. B.

1630.... The fourth Impression.... For Nathaniel Butter.

1638.... The copy revised, and sundry Songs before omitted, now inserted in their right places.... John Raworth for Nathaniel Butter. [Note to the Reader at end.]

Edition in 1825 (O. E. D. i).

Fleay, i. 292, notes the mention of ‘the King’s head’ as a tavern sign for ‘the Gentry’, which suggests a Jacobean date. The play was given at Court, apparently by the King’s and Queen’s men together, on 13 Jan. 1612. The Epistle says that it has not been Heywood’s custom ‘to commit my Playes to the Presse’, like others who ‘have used a double sale of their labours, first to the Stage, and after to the Presse’. He now does so because ‘some of my Playes have (unknowne to me, and without any of my direction) accidentally come into the Printers hands (and therefore so corrupt and mangled, copied only by the eare) that I have beene as unable to knowe them, as ashamed to challenge them’. A play on the subject seems to have been on tour in Germany in 1619 (Herz, 98). The Rape of Lucrece was on the Cockpit stage in 1628, according to a newsletter in Athenaeum (1879), ii. 497, and to the 1638 edition are appended songs ‘added by the stranger that lately acted Valerius his part’. It is in the Cockpit list of plays in 1639 (Variorum, iii. 159).

The Golden Age > 1611

S. R. 1611, Oct. 14 (Buck). William Barrenger, ‘A booke called, The golden age with the liues of Jupiter and Saturne.’ William Barrenger (Arber, iii. 470).

1611. The Golden Age. Or The liues of Iupiter and Saturne, with the defining of the Heathen Gods. As it hath beene sundry times acted at the Red Bull, by the Queenes Maiesties Seruants. Written by Thomas Heywood. For William Barrenger. [Epistle to the Reader, signed ‘T. H.’ Some copies have ‘defining’ corrected to ‘deifying’ in the title.]

Edition by J. P. Collier (1851, Sh. Soc.).

The Epistle describes the play as ‘the eldest brother of three Ages, that haue aduentured the Stage, but the onely yet, that hath beene iudged to the presse’, and promises the others. It came to the press ‘accidentally’, but Heywood, ‘at length hauing notice thereof’, prefaced it, as it had ‘already past the approbation of auditors’. Fleay, i. 283, followed hesitatingly by Greg (Henslowe, ii. 175), thinks it a revision of the Olympo or Seleo & Olempo, which he interprets Coelo et Olympo, produced by the Admiral’s on 5 March 1595. The Admiral’s inventories show that they had a play with Neptune in it, but it is only at the very end of The Golden Age that the sons of Saturn draw lots and Jupiter wins Heaven or Olympus. Fleay’s assumption that the play was revised c. 1610, because of Dekker, If it be not Good, i. 1, ‘The Golden Age is moulding new again’, is equally hazardous.

The Silver Age > 1612

1613. The Silver Age, Including. The loue of Iupiter to Alcmena: The birth of Hercules. And the Rape of Proserpine. Concluding, With the Arraignement of the Moone. Written by Thomas Heywood. Nicholas Okes, sold by Beniamin Lightfoote. [Epistle to the Reader, signed ‘T. H,’; Prologue and Epilogue.]

Edition by J. P. Collier (1851, Sh. Soc.).

The Epistle says, ‘Wee begunne with Gold, follow with Siluer, proceede with Brasse, and purpose by Gods grace, to end with Iron’. Fleay, i. 283, and Greg (Henslowe, ii. 175) take this and The Brazen Age to be the two parts of the anonymous Hercules, produced by the Admiral’s men on 7 and 23 May 1595 respectively. It may be so. But the text presumably represents the play as given at Court, apparently by the King’s and Queen’s men together, on 12 Jan. 1612. An Anglo-German Amphitryo traceable in 1626 and 1678 may be based on Heywood’s work (Herz, 66; Jahrbuch, xli. 201).

The Brazen Age > 1613

1613. The Brazen Age, The first Act containing, The death of the Centaure Nessus, The Second, The Tragedy of Meleager: The Third The Tragedy of Iason and Medea. The Fourth. Vulcans Net. The Fifth. The Labours and death of Hercules: Written by Thomas Heywood. Nicholas Okes for Samuel Rand. [Epistle to the Reader; Prologue and Epilogue.]

Cf. s.v. The Silver Age.

The Iron Age. c. 1613 (?)

1632. [Part i] The Iron Age: Contayning the Rape of Hellen: The siege of Troy: The Combate betwixt Hector and Aiax: Hector and Troilus slayne by Achilles: Achilles slaine by Paris: Aiax and Vlesses contend for the Armour of Achilles: The Death of Aiax, &c. Written by Thomas Heywood. Nicholas Okes. [Epistles to Thomas Hammon and to the Reader, signed ‘Thomas Heywood’.]

1632. [Part ii] The Second Part of the Iron Age. Which contayneth the death of Penthesilea, Paris, Priam, and Hecuba: The burning of Troy: The deaths of Agamemnon, Menelaus, Clitemnestra, Hellena, Orestes, Egistus, Pillades, King Diomed, Pyrhus, Cethus, Synon, Thersites, &c. Written by Thomas Heywood. Nicholas Okes. [Epistles to the Reader and to Thomas Mannering, signed ‘Thomas Heywood’.]

Dissertation: R. G. Martin, A New Specimen of the Revenge Play (1918, M. P. xvi. 1).

The Epistles tell us that ‘these were the playes often (and not with the least applause,) Publickely Acted by two Companies, vppon one Stage at once, and haue at sundry times thronged three seuerall Theaters, with numerous and mighty Auditories’; also that they ‘haue beene long since Writ’. This, however, was in 1632, and I can only read the Epistles to the earlier Ages as indicating that the Iron Age was contemplated, but not yet in existence, up to 1613. I should therefore put the play c. 1613, and take the three theatres at which it was given to be the Curtain, Red Bull, and Cockpit. Fleay, i. 285, thinks that Part i was the anonymous Troy produced by the Admiral’s on 22 June 1596. More plausible is the conjecture of Greg (Henslowe, ii. 180) that this was ‘an earlier and shorter version later expanded into the two-part play’. Spencer had a play on the Destruction of Troy at Nuremberg in 1613 (Herz, 66).

Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas. 1630–6 (?)

S. R. 1635, Aug. 29 (Weekes). ‘A booke called Pleasant Dialogues and Dramma’s selected out of Lucian Erasmus Textor Ovid &c. by Thomas Heywood.’ Richard Hearne (Arber, iv. 347).

1637. Pleasant Dialogues and Dramma’s, selected out of Lucian, Erasmus, Textor, Ovid, &c. With sundry Emblems extracted from the most elegant Iacobus Catsius. As also certaine Elegies, Epitaphs, and Epithalamions or Nuptiall Songs; Anagrams and Acrosticks; With divers Speeches (upon severall occasions) spoken to their most Excellent Majesties, King Charles, and Queene Mary. With other Fancies translated from Beza, Bucanan, and sundry Italian Poets. By Tho. Heywood. R. O. for R. H., sold by Thomas Slater. [Epistle to the Generous Reader, signed ‘Tho. Heywood’, and Congratulatory Poems by Sh. Marmion, D. E., and S. N.]

Edition by W. Bang (1903, Materialien, iii).

The section called ‘Sundry Fancies writ upon severall occasions’ (Bang, 231) includes a number of Prologues and Epilogues, of which those which are datable fall between 1630 and 1636. Bang regards all the contents of the volume as of about this period. Fleay, i. 285, had suggested that Deorum Judicium, Jupiter and Io, Apollo and Daphne, Amphrisa, and possibly Misanthropos formed the anonymous Five Plays in One produced by the Admiral’s on 7 April 1597, and also that Misanthropos, which he supposed to bear the name Time’s Triumph, was played with Faustus on 13 April 1597 and carelessly entered by Henslowe as ‘times triumpe & fortus’. Greg (Henslowe, ii. 183) says of the Dialogues and Dramas, ‘many of the pieces in that collection are undoubtedly early’. He rejects Fleay’s views as to Misanthropos on the grounds that it is ‘unrelieved tediousness’ and has no claim to the title Time’s Triumph, and is doubtful as to Deorum Judicium. The three others he seems inclined to accept as possibly belonging to the 1597 series, especially Jupiter and Io, where the unappropriated head of Argus in one of the Admiral’s inventories tempts him. He is also attracted by an alternative suggestion of Fleay’s that one of the Five Plays in One may have been a Cupid and Psyche, afterwards worked up into Love’s Mistress (1636). This he says, ‘if it existed’, would suit very well. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that it did exist. Moreover, P. A. Daniel has shown that certain lines found in Love’s Mistress are assigned to Dekker in England’s Parnassus (1600, ed. Crawford, xxxi. 509, 529) and must be from the Cupid and Psyche produced by the Admiral’s c. June 1600 (Henslowe, ii. 212). There is no indication that Heywood collaborated with Dekker, Chettle, and Day in this; but it occurs to me that, if he was still at the Rose, he may have acted in the play and cribbed years afterwards from the manuscript of his part. I will only add that Misanthropos and Deorum Judicium seem to me out of the question. They belong to the series of ‘dialogues’ which Heywood in his Epistle clearly treats as distinct from the ‘dramas’, for after describing them he goes on, ‘For such as delight in Stage-poetry, here are also divers Dramma’s, never before published: Which, though some may condemne for their shortnesse, others againe will commend for their sweetnesse’. It is only Jupiter and Io and Apollo and Daphne, which are based on Ovid, and Amphrisa, for which there is no known source, that can belong to this group; and Heywood gives no indication as to their date.

Lost and Doubtful Plays

On How to Learn of a Woman to Woo, see s.v. The Wise Woman of Hogsden. The author of The Second Part of Hudibras (1663) names Heywood as the author of The Bold Beauchamps, which is mentioned with Jane Shore in The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Ind. 59.

The following is a complete list of the plays, by Heywood or conjecturally assigned to him, which are recorded in Henslowe’s diary:

Possible plays for the Admiral’s, 1594–7

For conjectures as to the authorship by Heywood of Godfrey of Bulloigne (1594), The Siege of London (>1594), Wonder of a Woman (1595), Seleo and Olympo (1595), 1, 2 Hercules (1595), Troy (1596), Five Plays in One (1597), Time’s Triumph (>1597), see The Four Prentices, the anonymous Edward IV, W. Rowley’s A New Wonder, The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Iron Age, Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas.

Plays for the Admiral’s, 1598–1603

(i) War without Blows and Love without Suit.

Dec. 1598–Jan. 1599; identified, not plausibly, by Fleay, i. 287, with the anonymous Thracian Wonder (q.v.).

(ii) Joan as Good as my Lady.

Feb. 1599, identified, conjecturally, by Fleay, i. 298, with A Maidenhead Well Lost, printed as Heywood’s in 1634.

(iii) 1 The London Florentine.

With Chettle, Dec. 1602–Jan. 1603.

Plays for Worcester’s, 1602–3

(iv) Albere Galles.

With Smith, Sept. 1602, possibly identical with the anonymous Nobody and Somebody (q.v.).

(v) Cutting Dick (additions only).

Sept. 1602, identified by Fleay, ii. 319, with the anonymous Trial of Chivalry, but not plausibly (Greg, Henslowe, ii. 231).

(vi) Marshal Osric.

With Smith, Sept. 1602, conceivably identical with The Royal King and the Loyal Subject (q.v.).

(vii) 1 Lady Jane.

With Chettle, Dekker, Smith, and Webster, Oct. 1602, doubtless represented by the extant Sir Thomas Wyatt of Dekker (q.v.) and Webster, in which, however, Heywood’s hand has not been traced.

(viii) Christmas Comes but Once a Year.

With Chettle, Dekker, and Webster, Nov. 1602.

(ix) The Blind Eats many a Fly.

Nov. 1602–Jan. 1603.

(x) [Unnamed play.]

With Chettle, Jan. 1603, but apparently not finished, or possibly identical with the Shore of Chettle (q.v.) and Day. The title Like Quits Like, inserted into one entry for this play, is a forgery (Greg, Henslowe, i. xliii).

(xi) A Woman Killed With Kindness.

Feb.–March 1603. Vide supra.

Heywood’s hand or ‘finger’ has also been suggested in the Appius and Virginia printed as Webster’s (q.v.), in Pericles, and in Fair Maid of the Exchange, George a Greene, How a Man May Choose a Good Wife from a Bad, Thomas Lord Cromwell, and Work for Cutlers (cf. ch. xxiv).

GRIFFIN HIGGS (1589–1659).

A student at St. John’s, Oxford (1606), afterwards Fellow of Merton (1611), Chaplain to Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia (1627), and Dean of Lichfield (1638). The MS. of The Christmas Prince (1607) was once thought to be in his handwriting (cf. ch. xxiv, C).

THOMAS HUGHES (c. 1588).

A Cheshire man, who matriculated from Queens’ College, Cambridge, in Nov. 1571 and became Fellow of the College on 8 Sept. 1576.

The Misfortunes of Arthur. 28 Feb. 1588

1587. Certain deuises and shewes presented to her Maiestie by the Gentlemen of Grayes Inne at her Highnesse Court in Greenewich, the twenty-eighth day of Februarie in the thirtieth yeare of her Maiesties most happy Raigne. Robert Robinson. [‘An Introduction penned by Nicholas Trotte Gentleman one of the society of Grayes Inne’; followed by ‘The misfortunes of Arthur (Vther Pendragons Sonne) reduced into Tragicall notes by Thomas Hughes one of the societie of Grayes Inne. And here set downe as it past from vnder his handes and as it was presented, excepting certaine wordes and lines, where some of the Actors either helped their memories by brief omission: or fitted their acting by some alteration. With a note at the ende, of such speaches as were penned by others in lue of some of these hereafter following’; Arguments, Dumb-Shows, and Choruses between the Acts; at end, two substituted speeches ‘penned by William Fulbecke gentleman, one of the societie of Grayes Inne’; followed by ‘Besides these speaches there was also penned a Chorus for the first act, and an other for the second act, by Maister Frauncis Flower, which were pronounced accordingly. The dumbe showes were partly deuised by Maister Christopher Yeluerton, Maister Frauncis Bacon, Maister Iohn Lancaster and others, partly by the saide Maister Flower, who with Maister Penroodocke and the said Maister Lancaster directed these proceedings at Court.’]

Editions in Collier, Five Old Plays (1833), and Dodsley^4 (1874, iv), and by H. C. Grumbine (1900), J. S. Farmer (1911, T. F. T.), and J. W. Cunliffe (1912, E. E. C. T.).

Of the seven collaborators, three--Bacon, Yelverton, and Fulbecke--subsequently attained distinction. It is to be wished that editors of more important plays had been as communicative as offended dignity, or some other cause, made Thomas Hughes.

WILLIAM HUNNIS (?-1597).

[Nearly all that is known of Hunnis, except as regards his connexion with the Blackfriars, and much that is conjectural has been gathered and fully illustrated by Mrs. C. C. Stopes in Athenaeum and Shakespeare-Jahrbuch papers, and finally in William Hunnis and the Revels of the Chapel Royal (1910, Materialien, xxix).]

The date of Hunnis’s birth is unknown, except as far as it can be inferred from the reference to him as ‘in winter of thine age’ in 1578. He is described on the title-page of his translation of Certayne Psalmes (1550) as ‘seruant’ to Sir William Herbert, who became Earl of Pembroke. He is in the lists of the Gentlemen of the Chapel about 1553, but he took part in plots against Mary and in 1556 was sent to the Tower. He lost his post, but this was restored between Elizabeth’s accession in 1558 and the opening of the extant Cheque Book of the Chapel in 1561, and on 15 Nov. 1566 he was appointed Master of the Children in succession to Richard Edwardes (q.v.). For the history of his Mastership, cf. ch. xii (Chapel). Early in 1559 he married Margaret, widow of Nicholas Brigham, Teller of the Exchequer, through whom he acquired a life-interest in the secularized Almonry at Westminster. She died in June 1559, and about 1560 Hunnis married Agnes Blancke, widow of a Grocer. He took out the freedom of the Grocers’ Company, and had a shop in Southwark. He was elected to the livery of the Company in 1567, but disappears from its records before 1586. In 1569 he obtained a grant of arms, and is described as of Middlesex. From 1576–85, however, he seems to have had a house at Great Ilford, Barking, Essex. His only known child, Robin, was page to Walter Earl of Essex in Ireland, and is said in Leicester’s Commonwealth to have tasted the poison with which Leicester killed Essex in 1576 and to have lost his hair. But he became a Rider of the Stable under Leicester as Master of the Horse during 1579–83, and received payments for posting services in later years up to 1593. In 1562 William Hunnis became Keeper of the Orchard and Gardens at Greenwich, and held this post with his Mastership to his death. He supplied greenery and flowers for the Banqueting Houses of 1569 and 1571 (cf. ch. i). In 1570 the Queen recommended him to the City as Taker of Tolls and Dues on London Bridge, and his claim was bought off for £40. In 1583 he called attention to the poor remuneration of the Mastership, and in 1585 he received grants of land at Great Ilford and elsewhere. He died on 6 June 1597.

Hunnis published several volumes of moral and religious verse, original and translated: Certayne Psalmes (1550); A Godly new Dialogue of Christ and a Sinner (S. R. 1564, if this is rightly identified with the Dialogue of Hunnis’s 1583 volume); A Hive Full of Honey (1578, S. R. 1 Dec. 1577, dedicated to Leicester); A Handful of Honnisuckles (N.D., S. R. 11 Dec. 1578, a New Year’s gift to the Ladies of the Privy Chamber); Seven Sobbes of a Sorrowful Soule for Sinne (1583, S. R. 7 Nov. 1581, with the Handful of Honnisuckles, The Widow’s Mite, and A Comfortable Dialogue between Christ and a Sinner, dedicated to Lady Sussex); Hunnies Recreations (1588, S. R. 4 Dec. 1587, dedicated to Sir Thomas Heneage). Several poems by Hunnis are also with those of Richard Edwardes and others in The Paradyse of Daynty Deuises (1567); one, the Nosegay, in Clement Robinson’s A Handfull of Pleasant Delites (1584); and it is usual to assign to him two bearing the initials W. H., Wodenfride’s Song in Praise of Amargana and Another of the Same, in England’s Helicon (1600).

The name of no play by Hunnis has been preserved, although he may probably enough have written some of those produced by the Chapel boys during his Mastership. That he was a dramatist is testified to by the following lines contributed by Thomas Newton, one of the translators of Seneca, to his Hive Full of Honey.

In prime of youth thy pleasant Penne depaincted Sonets sweete, Delightfull to the greedy Eare, for youthfull Humour meete. Therein appeared thy pregnant wit, and store of fyled Phraze Enough t’ astoune the doltish Drone, and lumpish Lout amaze, Thy Enterludes, thy gallant Layes, thy Rond’letts and thy Songes, Thy Nosegay and thy Widowes’ Mite, with that thereto belonges.... ... Descendinge then in riper years to stuffe of further reache, Thy schooled Quill by deeper skill did graver matters teache, And now to knit a perfect Knot; In winter of thine age Such argument thou chosen hast for this thy Style full sage. As far surmounts the Residue.

Newton’s account of his friend’s poetic evolution seems to assign his ‘enterludes’ to an early period of mainly secular verse; but if this preceded his Certayne Psalmes of 1550, which are surely of ‘graver matters’, it must have gone back to Henry VIII’s reign, far away from his Mastership. On the other hand, Hunnis was certainly contributing secular verse and devices to the Kenilworth festivities (cf. s.v. Gascoigne) only three years before Newton wrote. Mrs. Stopes suggests, with some plausibility, that the Amargana songs of England’s Helicon may come from an interlude. She also assigns to Hunnis, by conjecture, Godly Queen Hester, in which stress is laid on Hester’s Chapel Royal, and Jacob and Esau (1568, S. R. 1557–8), which suggests gardens.

LEONARD HUTTEN (c. 1557–1632).

Possibly the author of the academic Bellum Grammaticale (cf. App. K).

THOMAS INGELEND.

Lee (D. N. B.) conjecturally identifies Ingelend with a man of the same name who married a Northamptonshire heiress.

The Disobedient Child, c. 1560

S. R. 1569–70. ‘An enterlude for boyes to handle and to passe tyme at christinmas.’ Thomas Colwell (Arber, i. 398). [The method of exhaustions points to this as the entry of the play.]

N.D. A pretie and Mery new Enterlude: called the Disobedient Child. Compiled by Thomas Ingelend late Student in Cambridge. Thomas Colwell.

Editions by J. O. Halliwell (1848, Percy Soc. lxxv), in Dodsley^4 (1874, ii), and by J. S. Farmer (1908, T. F. T.).--Dissertation: F. Holthausen, Studien zum älteren englischen Drama (1902, E. S. xxxi. 90).

J. Bolte, Vahlen-Festschrift, 594, regards this as a translation of the Iuvenis, Pater, Uxor of J. Ravisius Textor (Dialogi, ed. 1651, 71), which Holthausen reprints, but which is only a short piece in one scene. Brandl, lxxiii, traces the influence of the Studentes (1549) of Christopherus Stymmelius (Bahlmann, Lat. Dr. 98). The closing prayer is for Elizabeth.

JAMES I (1566–1625).

_An Epithalamion on the Marquis of Huntly’s Marriage. 21 July 1588_

R. S. Rait, Lusus Regis (1901), 2, printed from Bodleian MS. 27843 verses by James I, which he dated c. 1581. The occasion and correct date are supplied by another text, with a title, in A. F. Westcott, New Poems of James I (1911). The bridal pair were George Gordon, 6th Earl and afterwards 1st Marquis of Huntly, and Henrietta Stuart, daughter of Esme, Duke of Lennox. The verses consist of a hymeneal dialogue, with a preliminary invocation by the writer, and speeches by Mercury, Nimphes, Agrestis, Skolar, Woman, The Vertuouse Man, Zani, The Landvart Gentleman, The Soldat. The earlier lines seem intended to accompany a tilting at the ring or some such contest, but at l. 74 is a reference to the coming of ‘strangers in a maske’.

Westcott, lviii, says that James helped William Fowler in devising a mimetic show for the banquet at the baptism of Prince Henry on 23 Aug. 1594.

JOHN JEFFERE (?-?).

Nothing is known of him, beyond his possible authorship of the following play:

The Bugbears. 1563 <

[MS.] Lansdowne MS. 807, f. 57. [The MS. contains the relics of John Warburton’s collection, and on a slip once attached to the fly-leaf is his famous list of burnt plays, which includes ‘Bugbear C. Jo^n. Geffrey’ (Greg in 3 Library, ii. 232). It appears to be the work of at least five hands, of which one, acting as a corrector, as well as a scribe, may be that of the author. The initials J. B. against a line or two inserted at the end do not appear to be his, but, as there was no single scribe, he may be writer of a final note to the text, written in printing characters, ‘Soli deo honor et gloria Johannus Jeffere scribebat hoc’. This note is followed by the songs and their music, and at the top of the first is written ‘Giles peperel for Iphiginia’. On the last page are the names ‘Thomas Ba ...’ and ‘Frances Whitton’, which probably do not indicate authorship. A title-page may be missing, and a later hand has written at the head of the text, ‘The Buggbears’.]

Editions by C. Grabau (1896–7, Archiv, xcviii. 301; xcix. 311) and R. W. Bond (1911, E. P. I.).--Dissertation: W. Dibelius (Archiv, cxii. 204).

The play is an adaptation of A. F. Grazzini, La Spiritata (1561), and uses also material from J. Weier (De Praestigiis Daemonum) (1563) and from the life of Michel de Nôtredame (Nostradamus), not necessarily later than his death in 1566. Bond is inclined to date the play, partly on metrical grounds, about 1564 or 1565. Grabau and Dibelius suggest a date after 1585, apparently under the impression that the name Giles in the superscription to the music may indicate the composition of Nathaniel Giles, of the Chapel Royal, who took his Mus. Bac. in 1585. But the name, whether of a composer, or of the actor of the part of Iphigenia, is Giles Peperel. The performers were ‘boyes’, but the temptation to identify the play with the Effiginia shown by Paul’s at Court on 28 Dec. 1571 is repressed by the description of Effiginia in the Revels account as a ‘tragedye’, whereas The Bugbears is a comedy. Moreover, Iphigenia is not a leading part, although one added by the English adapter.

LAURENCE JOHNSON (c. 1577).

A possible author of Misogonus (cf. ch. xxiv).

BENJAMIN JONSON (1572–1637).

Benjamin Johnson, or Jonson, as he took the fancy to spell his name, was born, probably on 11 June 1572, at Westminster, after the death of his father, a minister, of Scottish origin. He was withheld, or withdrawn, from the University education justified by his scholastic attainments at Westminster to follow his step-father’s occupation of bricklaying, and when this proved intolerable, he served as a soldier in the Netherlands. In a prologue to The Sad Shepherd, left unfinished at his death in August 1637, he describes himself as ‘He that has feasted you these forty years’, and by 1597 at latest his connexion with the stage had begun. Aubrey tells us (ii. 12, 226) that he ‘acted and wrote, but both ill, at the Green Curtaine, a kind of nursery or obscure play-house, somewhere in the suburbes (I thinke towards Shoreditch or Clarkenwell)’, and again that he ‘was never a good actor, but an excellent instructor’. The earliest contemporary records, however, show Jonson not at the Curtain, but on the Bankside. On 28 July 1597 Henslowe (i. 200) recorded a personal loan to ‘Bengemen Johnson player’ of £4 ‘to be payd yt agayne when so euer ether I or any for me shall demande yt’, and on the very same day he opened on another page of his diary (i. 47) an account headed ‘Received of Bengemenes Johnsones share as ffoloweth 1597’ and entered in it the receipt of a single sum of 3_s._ 9_d._, to which no addition was ever made. Did these entries stand alone, one would infer, on the analogy of other transactions of Henslowe’s and from the signatures of two Admiral’s men as witnesses to the loan, that Jonson had purchased a share in the Admiral’s company for £4, that he borrowed the means to do this from Henslowe, and that Henslowe was to recoup himself by periodical deductions from the takings of the company as they passed through his hands. But there is no other evidence that Jonson ever had an interest in the Admiral’s, and there are facts which, if one could believe that Henslowe would regard the takings of any company but the Admiral’s as security for a loan, would lead to the conclusion that Jonson’s ‘share’ was with Pembroke’s men at the Swan. The day of Henslowe’s entries, 28 July 1597, is the very day on which the theatres were suppressed as a result of the performance of The Isle of Dogs (cf. App. D, No. cx), and it is hardly possible to doubt that Jonson was one of the actors who had a hand with Nashe (q.v.) in that play. The Privy Council registers record his release, with Shaw and Spencer of Pembroke’s men, from the Marshalsea on 3 Oct. 1597 (Dasent, xxviii. 33; cf. App. D, No. cxii); while Dekker in Satiromastix (l. 1513) makes Horace admit that he had played Zulziman in Paris Garden, and Tucca upbraid him because ‘when the Stagerites banisht thee into the Ile of Dogs, thou turn’dst Bandog (villanous Guy) & ever since bitest’. The same passage confirms Aubrey’s indication that Jonson was actor, and a bad actor, as well as poet. ‘Thou putst vp a supplication’, says Tucca, ‘to be a poor iorneyman player, and hadst beene still so, but that thou couldst not set a good face vpon ’t: thou hast forgot how thou amblest (in leather pilch) by a play-wagon, in the high way, and took’st mad Ieronimoes part, to get seruice among the mimickes.’ Elsewhere (l. 633) Tucca taunts him that ‘when thou ranst mad for the death of Horatio, thou borrowedst a gowne of Roscius the stager, (that honest Nicodemus) and sentst it home lowsie’. This imprisonment for the Isle of Dogs is no doubt the ‘bondage’ for his ‘first error’ to which Jonson refers in writing to Salisbury about Eastward Ho! in 1605, and the ‘close imprisonment, under Queen Elizabeth’, during which he told Drummond he was beset by spies (Laing, 19). Released, Jonson borrowed 5_s._ more from Henslowe (i. 200) on 5 Jan. 1598, and entered into a relationship with him and the Admiral’s as a dramatist, which lasted intermittently until 1602. It was broken, not only by plays for the King’s men, whose employment of him, which may have been at the Curtain, was due, according to Rowe, to the critical instinct of Shakespeare (H.-P. ii. 74), and for the Chapel children when these were established at Blackfriars in 1600, but also by a quarrel with Gabriel Spencer, whose death at his hands during a duel with swords in Hoxton Fields on 22 Sept. 1598 was ‘harde & heavey’ news to Henslowe (Henslowe Papers, 48) and brought Jonson to trial for murder, from which he only escaped by reading his neck-verse (Jeaffreson, Middlesex County Records, i. xxxviii; iv. 350; cf. Laing, 19). Jonson’s pen was critical, and to the years 1600–2 belongs the series of conflicts with other poets and with the actors generically known as the Poetomachia or Stage Quarrel (cf. ch. xi). Meanwhile Jonson, perhaps encouraged by his success in introducing a mask into Cynthia’s Revels (1601), seems to have conceived the ambition of becoming a Court poet. At first he was not wholly successful, and the selection of Daniel to write the chief Christmas mask of 1603–4 appears to have provoked an antagonism between the two poets, which shows itself in Jonson’s qualified acknowledgement to Lady Rutland of the favours done him by Lady Bedford (Forest, xii):

though she have a better verser got, (Or poet, in the court-account) than I, And who doth me, though I not him envy,

and long after in the remark to Drummond (Laing, 10) that ‘Daniel was at jealousies with him’. But the mask was a form of art singularly suited to Jonson’s genius. In the next year he came to his own, and of ten masks at Court during 1605–12 not less than eight are his. This employment secured him a considerable vogue as a writer of entertainments and complimentary verses, and a standing with James himself, with the Earl of Salisbury, and with other persons of honour, which not only brought him pecuniary profit, but also enabled him to withstand the political attacks made upon Sejanus, for which he was haled before the Council, and upon Eastward Ho!, for which he was once more imprisoned. During this period he continued to write plays, with no undue frequency, both for the King’s men and for the Queen’s Revels and their successors, the Lady Elizabeth’s. As a rule, he had published his plays, other than those bought by Henslowe, soon after they were produced, and in 1612 he seems to have formed the design of collecting them, with his masks and occasional verses, into a volume of Works. Probably the design was deferred, owing to his absence in France as tutor to the son of Sir Walter Raleigh, from the autumn of 1612 (M. P. xi. 279) to some date in 1613 earlier than 29 June, when he witnessed the burning of the Globe (M. L. R. iv. 83). For the same reason he took no part in the masks for the Princess Elizabeth’s wedding at Shrovetide. But he returned in time for that of the Earl of Somerset at Christmas 1613, and wrote three more masks before his folio Works actually appeared in 1616. In the same year he received a royal pension of 100 marks.

Jonson’s later life can only be briefly summarized. During a visit to Scotland he paid a visit to William Drummond of Hawthornden in January 1619, and of his conversation his host took notes which preserve many biographical details and many critical utterances upon the men, books, and manners of his time. In 1621 (cf. ch. iii) he obtained a reversion of the Mastership of the Revels, which he never lived to enjoy. His masks continued until 1631, when an unfortunate quarrel with Inigo Jones brought them to an end. His play-writing, dropped after 1616, was resumed about 1625, and to this period belong his share in The Bloody Brother of the Beaumont and Fletcher series, The Staple of News, The New Inn, The Magnetic Lady, and The Tale of a Tub. In 1637, probably on 6 August, he died. He had told Drummond ‘that the half of his comedies were not in print’, as well as that ‘of all his playes he never gained two hundreth pounds’ (Laing, 27, 35), and in 1631 he began the publication, by instalments, of a second volume of his Works. This was completed after his death, with the aid of Sir Kenelm Digby, in 1640 and 1641. But it did not include The Case is Altered, the printing of which in 1609 probably lacked his authority, or the Henslowe plays, of which his manuscripts, if he had any, may have perished when his library was burnt in 1623.

Collections

F{1}_ (1616)

S. R. 1615, Jan. 20 (Tavernour). William Stansbye, ‘Certayne Masques at the Court never yet printed written by Ben Johnson’ (Arber, iii. 562).

1616. The Workes of Beniamin Jonson. W. Stansby, sold by Rich. Meighen. [Contains (a) commendatory verses, some reprinted from Qq, signed ‘I. Selden I.C.’, ‘Ed. Heyward’, ‘Geor. Chapman’, ‘H. Holland’, ‘I. D.’, ‘E. Bolton’, and for three sets ‘Franc. Beaumont’; (b) nine plays, being all printed in Q, except The Case is Altered; (c) the five early entertainments; (d) the eleven early masks and two barriers, with separate title-page ‘Masques at Court, London, 1616’; (e) non-dramatic matter. For bibliographical details on both Ff., see B. Nicholson, B. J.’s Folios and the Bibliographers (1870, 4 N. Q. v. 573); Greg, Plays, 55, and Masques, xiii, 11; G. A. Aitken, B. J.’s Works (10 N. Q. xi. 421); the introductions to the Yale editions; and B. A. P. van Dam and C. Stoffel, The Authority of the B. J. Folio of 1616 (1903, Anglia, xxvi. 377), whose conclusion that Jonson did not supervise F_{1} is not generally accepted. It is to be noted that, contrary to the usual seventeenth-century practice, some, and possibly all, of the dates assigned to productions in F_{1} follow the Circumcision and not the Annunciation style; cf. Thorndike, 17, whose demonstration leaves it conceivable that Jonson only adopted the change of style from a given date, say, 1 Jan. 1600, when it came into force in Scotland.]

F{2}_ (1631–41)

1640. The Workes of Beniamin Jonson. Richard Bishop, sold by Andrew Crooke. [Same contents as F_{1}.]

1640. The Workes of Benjamin Jonson. The second volume. Containing these Playes, Viz. 1 Bartholomew Fayre. 2 The Staple of Newes. 3 The Divell is an Asse. For Richard Meighen. [Contains (a) reissue of folio sheets of three plays named with separate title-pages of 1631; (b) The Magnetic Lady, A Tale of a Tub, The Sad Shepherd, Mortimer his Fall; (c) later masks; (d) non-dramatic matter. The editor is known to have been Sir Kenelm Digby.]

S. R. 1658, Sept. 17. ‘A booke called Ben Johnsons Workes ye 3^d volume containing these peeces, viz^t. Ffifteene masques at court and elsewhere. Horace his art of Poetry Englished. English Gramar. Timber or Discoveries. Underwoods consisting of divers poems. The Magnetick Lady. A Tale of a Tub. The sad shephard or a tale of Robin hood. The Devill is an asse. Salvo iure cuiuscunque. Thomas Walkley (Eyre, ii. 196).

1658, Nov. 20. Transfer of ‘Ben Johnsons workes ye 3^d vol’ from Walkley to Humphrey Moseley (Eyre, ii. 206). [Neither Walkley nor Moseley ever published the Works.]

F{3}_ (1692)

1692. The Works of Ben Jonson, Which were formerly Printed in Two Volumes, are now Reprinted in One. To which is added a Comedy, called the New Inn. With Additions never before Published. Thomas Hodgkin, for H. Herringham [&c.].

The more important of the later collections are:

1756. P. Whalley, The Works of B. J. 7 vols. [Adds The Case is Altered.]

1816, 1846. W. Gifford, The Works of B. J. 9 vols.

1828. J. Nichols, The Progresses, Processions and Magnificent Festivities of King James the First. 4 vols. [Prints the masks.]

1871, &c. W. Gifford, edited by F. Cunningham, The Works of B. J. 3 vols.

1875. W. Gifford, edited by F. Cunningham, The Works of B. J. 9 vols.

1893–5. B. Nicholson, The Best Plays of B. J. 3 vols. (Mermaid Series). [The nine plays of F_{1}.]

1905–8 (in progress). W. Bang, B. J.’s Dramen in Neudruck herausgegeben nach der Folio 1616. (Materialien, vi.)

1906. H. C. Hart, The Plays of B. J. 2 vols. (Methuen’s Standard Library). [Case is Altered, E. M. I., E. M. O., Cynthia’s Revels, Poetaster.]

In the absence of a complete modern critical edition, such as is promised by C. H. Herford and P. Simpson from the Clarendon Press, reference must usually be made to the editions of single plays in the Yale Studies and Belles Lettres Series.

Select Dissertations: W. R. Chetwood, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of B. J. (1756); O. Gilchrist, An Examination of the Charges of B. J.’s Enmity to Shakespeare (1808), A Letter to W. Gifford (1811); D. Laing, Notes of B. J.’s Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden (1842, Sh. Soc.); B. Nicholson, The Orthography of B. J.’s Name (1880, Antiquary, ii. 55); W. Wilke, Metrische Untersuchungen zu B. J. (1884, Halle diss.), Anwendung der Rhyme-test und Double-endings test auf. B. J.’s Dramen (1888, Anglia, x. 512); J. A. Symonds, B. J. (1888, English Worthies); A. C. Swinburne, A Study of B. J. (1889); P. Aronstein, B. J.’s Theorie des Lustspiels (1895, Anglia, xvii. 466), Shakespeare and B. J. (1904, E. S. xxxiv. 193); B. J. (1906, Literarhistorische Forschungen, xxxiv); E. Koeppel, Quellen-Studien zu den Dramen B. J.’s, John Marston’s, und Beaumont und Fletcher’s (1895, Münchener Beiträge, xi), B. J.’s Wirkung auf zeitgenössische Dramatiker (1906, Anglistische Forschungen, xx); J. H. Penniman, The War of the Theatres (1897, Pennsylvania Univ. Series, iv. 3); E. Woodbridge, Studies in J.’s Comedy (1898, Yale Studies, v); R. A. Small, The Stage-Quarrel between B. J. and the so-called Poetasters (1899); B. Dobell, Newly Discovered Documents (1901, Athenaeum, i. 369, 403, 433, 465); J. Hofmiller, Die ersten sechs Masken B. J.’s in ihrem Verhältnis zur antiken Literatur (1901, Freising progr.); H. C. Hart, B. J., Gabriel Harvey and Nash, &c. (1903–4, 9 N. Q. xi. 201, 281, 343, 501; xii. 161, 263, 342, 403, 482; 10 N. Q. i. 381); G. Sarrazin, Nym und B. J. (1904, Jahrbuch, xl. 212); M, Castelain, B. J., l’Homme et l’Œuvre (1907); Shakespeare and B. J. (1907, Revue Germanique, iii. 21, 133); C. R. Baskervill, English Elements in J.’s Early Comedy (1911, Texas Univ. Bulletin, 178); W. D. Briggs, Studies in B. J. (1913–14, Anglia, xxxvii. 463; xxxviii. 101), On Certain Incidents in B. J.’s Life (1913, M. P. xi. 279), The Birth-date of B. J. (1918, M. L. N. xxxiii. 137); G. Gregory Smith, Ben Jonson (1919, English Men of Letters); J. Q. Adams, The Bones of Ben Jonson (1919, S. P. xvi. 289). For fuller lists, see Castelain, xxiii, and C. H. vi. 417.

PLAYS

The Case is Altered. 1597 (?)-1609

S. R. 1609, Jan. 26 (Segar, ‘deputy to Sir George Bucke’). ‘A booke called The case is altered.’ Henry Walley, Richard Bonion (Arber, iii. 400).

1609, July 20. ‘Entred for their copie by direction of master Waterson warden, a booke called the case is altered whiche was entred for H. Walley and Richard Bonyon the 26 of January last.’ Henry Walley, Richard Bonyon, Bartholomew Sutton (Arber, iii. 416).

1609. [Three issues, with different t.ps.]

(a) Ben: Ionson, His Case is Alterd. As it hath beene sundry times Acted by the Children of the Blacke-friers. For Bartholomew Sutton. [B.M. 644, b. 54.]

(b) A Pleasant Comedy, called: The Case is Alterd. As it hath beene sundry times acted by the children of the Black-friers. Written by Ben. Ionson. For Bartholomew Sutton and William Barrenger. [B.M. T. 492 (9); Bodl.; W. A. White.]

(c) A Pleasant Comedy, called: The Case is Alterd. As it hath been sundry times acted by the children of the Black-friers. For Bartholomew Sutton and William Barrenger. [Devonshire.]

Edition by W. E. Selin (1917, Yale Studies, lvi).--Dissertation: C. Crawford, B. J.’s C. A.: its Date (1909, 10 N. Q. xi. 41).

As Nashe, Lenten Stuff (Works, iii. 220), which was entered in S. R. on 11 Jan. 1599, refers to ‘the merry coblers cutte in that witty play of the Case is altered’, and as I. i chaffs Anthony Munday as ‘in print already for the best plotter’, alluding to the description of him in Francis Meres’s Palladis Tamia (S. R. 7 Sept. 1598), the date would seem at first sight to be closely fixed to the last few months of 1598. But I. i has almost certainly undergone interpolation. Antonio Balladino, who appears in this scene alone, and whose dramatic function is confused with that later (II. vii) assigned to Valentine, is only introduced for the sake of a satirical portrait of Munday. He is ‘pageant poet to the City of Milan’, at any rate ‘when a worse cannot be had’. He boasts that ‘I do use as much stale stuff, though I say it myself, as any man does in that kind’, and again, ‘An they’ll give me twenty pound a play, I’ll not raise my vein’. Some ‘will have every day new tricks, and write you nothing but humours’; this pleases the gentlemen, but he is for ‘the penny’. Crawford points out that there are four quotations from the play in Bodenham’s Belvedere (1600), of which Munday was the compiler, and suggests that he would have left it alone had the ridicule of himself then been a part of it. I should put the scene later still. Antonio makes an offer of ‘one of the books’ of his last pageant, and as far as is known, although Munday may have been arranging city pageants long before, the first which he printed was that for 1605. Nor does the reference to plays of ‘tricks’ and ‘humours’ necessarily imply proximity to Jonson’s own early comedies, for Day’s Law Tricks and his Humour out of Breath, as well as probably the anonymous Every Woman in her Humour, belong to 1604–8. Moreover, the play was certainly on the stage about this time, since the actors are called ‘Children of Blackfriars’, although of course this would not be inconsistent with their having first produced it when they bore some other name. The text is in an odd state. Up to the end of Act III it has been arranged in scenes, on the principle usually adopted by Jonson; after ‘Actus 3 [an error for 4] Scaene 1’ there is no further division, and in Act V verse and prose are confused. As Jonson was careful about the printing of his plays, as there is no epistle, and as C. A. was left out of the Ff., there is some reason to suppose that the publication in this state was not due to him. Is it possible that Day, whom Jonson described to Drummond as a ‘rogue’ and a ‘base fellow’, was concerned in this transaction? It is obvious that, if I. i is a later addition, the original production may have been earlier than 1598. And the original company is unknown. The mere fact that the Children of the Blackfriars revived it shortly before 1609 does not in the least prove that it was originally written for the Children of the Chapel. If Chapman’s All Fools is a Blackfriars revival of an Admiral’s play, C. A. might even more easily be a Blackfriars revival of a play written, say, for the extinct Pembroke’s. With the assumption that C. A. was a Chapel play disappears the assumption that the Chapel themselves began their renewed dramatic activities at a date earlier than the end of 1600. Selin shows a fair amount of stylistic correspondence with Jonson’s other work, but it is quite possible that, as suggested by Herford (R. E. C. ii. 9), he had a collaborator. If so, Chapman seems plausible.

C. A. has nothing to do with the Poetomachia. Hart (9 N. Q. xi. 501, xii. 161, 263) finds in the vocabulary of Juniper a parody of the affected phraseology of Gabriel Harvey, and in the critical attitude of Valentine a foreshadowing of such autobiographical studies as that of Asper in E. M. O. His suggestion that the cudgel-play between Onion and Martino in II. vii represents the controversy between Nashe and Martin Marprelate is perhaps less plausible. Nashe would be very likely to think the chaff of Harvey ‘witty’.

Every Man In his Humour. 1598

S. R. [1600], Aug. 4. ‘Euery man in his humour, a booke ... to be staied’ (Arber, iii. 37). [As You Like It, Henry V, and Much Ado about Nothing are included in the entry, which appears to be an exceptional memorandum. The year 1600 is conjectured from the fact that the entry follows another of May 1600.]

1600, Aug. 14 (Pasfield). ‘A booke called Euery man in his humour.’ Burby and Walter Burre (Arber, iii. 169).

1609, Oct. 16. Transfer of Mrs. Burby’s share to Welby (Arber, iii. 421).

1601. Every Man In his Humor. As it hath beene sundry times publickly acted by the right Honorable the Lord Chamberlaine his seruants. Written by Ben. Iohnson. For Walter Burre.

1616. Euery Man In His Humour. A Comœdie. Acted in the yeere 1598. By the then Lord Chamberlaine his Seruants. The Author B. I. By William Stansby. [Part of F_{1}. Epistle to William Camden, signed ‘Ben. Ionson’, and Prologue. After text: ‘This Comoedie was first Acted, in the yeere 1598. By the then L. Chamberlayne his Seruants. The principall Comœdians were, Will. Shakespeare, Ric. Burbadge, Aug. Philips, Ioh. Hemings, Hen. Condel, Tho. Pope, Will. Slye, Chr. Beeston, Will. Kempe, Ioh. Duke. With the allowance of the Master of Revells.’]

Editions by W. Scott (1811, M. B. D. iii), H. B. Wheatley (1877), W. M. Dixon (1901, T. D.), H. Maas (1901, Rostock diss.), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.), C. H. Herford (1913, R. E. C. ii), P. Simpson (1919), H. H. Carter (1921, Yale Studies, lii), and facsimile reprints of Q_{1} by C. Grabau (1902, Jahrbuch, xxxviii. 1), W. Bang and W. W. Greg (1905, Materialien, x).--Dissertations: A. Buff, The Quarto Edition of B. J.’s E. M. I. (1877, E. S. i. 181), B. Nicholson, On the Dates of the Two Versions of E. M. I. (1882, Antiquary, vi. 15, 106).

The date assigned by F_{1} is confirmed by an allusion (IV. iv. 15) to the ‘fencing Burgullian’ or Burgundian, John Barrose, who challenged all fencers in that year, and was hanged for murder on 10 July (Stowe, Annales, 787). The production must have been shortly before 20 Sept, when Toby Mathew wrote to Dudley Carleton (S. P. D. Eliz. cclxviii. 61; Simpson, ix) of an Almain who lost 300 crowns at ‘a new play called, Euery mans humour’. Two short passages were taken from the play in R. Allot’s England’s Parnassus (1600, ed. Crawford, xxxii. 110, 112, 436) which is earlier than Q_{1}. The Q_{1} text (I. i. 184) contains a hit at Anthony Munday in ‘that he liue in more penurie of wit and inuention, then eyther the Hall-Beadle, or Poet Nuntius’. This has disappeared from F_{1}, which in other respects represents a complete revision of the Q_{1} text. Many passages have been improved from a literary point of view; the scene has been transferred from Italy to London and the names anglicized; the oaths have all been expunged or softened. Fleay, i. 358, finding references to a ‘queen’ in F_{1} for the ‘duke’ of Q_{1} and an apparent dating of St. Mark’s Day on a Friday, assigned the revision to 1601, and conjectured that it was done by Jonson for the Chapel, that the Chamberlain’s published the Q in revenge, and that Jonson tried to stay it. Here he is followed by Castelain. But Q_{1} is a good edition and there is no sign whatever that it had not Jonson’s authority, and as the entry in S. R. covers other Chamberlain’s plays, it is pretty clear that the company caused the ‘staying’. St. Mark’s Day did not, as Fleay thought, fall on a Friday in 1601, and if it had, the dating is unchanged from Q_{1} and the references to a queen may, as Simpson suggests, be due to Jonson’s conscientious desire to preserve consistency with the original date of 1598. Nor is the play likely to have passed to the Chapel, since the King’s men played it before James on 2 Feb. 1605 (cf. App. B). This revival would be the natural time for a revision, and in fact seems to me on the whole the most likely date, in spite of two trifling bits of evidence which would fit in rather better a year later. These are references to the siege of Strigonium or Graan (1595) as ten years since (III. i. 103), and to a present by the Turkey company to the Grand Signior (I. ii. 78), which was perhaps the gift worth £5,000 sent about Christmas 1605 (S. P. D. Jac. I, xv. 3; xvii. 35; xx. 27). No doubt also the revision of oaths in Jacobean plays is usually taken as due to the Act against Abuses of Players (1606), although it is conceivable that the personal taste of James may have required a similar revision of plays selected for Court performance at an earlier date. Or this particular bit of revision, which was done for other plays before F_{1}, may be of later date than the rest. Simpson is in favour, largely on literary grounds, for a revision in 1612, in preparation for F_{1}. The Prologue, which is not in Q, probably belongs to the revision, or at any rate to a revival later than 1598, since it criticizes not only ‘Yorke, and Lancasters long jarres’, but also plays in which ‘Chorus wafts you ore the seas’, as in Henry V (1599). These allusions would not come so well in 1612; on the other hand, Simpson’s date would enable us to suppose that the play in which the public ‘grac’d monsters’ was the Tempest (cf. the similar jibe in Bartholomew Fair). The character Matheo or Mathew represents a young gull of literary tendencies, and is made to spout passages from, or imitations of, Daniel’s verses. Perhaps this implies some indirect criticism of Daniel, but it can hardly be regarded as a personal attack upon him.

Every Man Out of his Humour. 1599

S. R. 1600, April 8 (Harsnett). ‘A Comicall Satyre of euery man out of his humour.’ William Holme (Arber, iii. 159).

1638, April 28. Transfer by Smethwicke to Bishop (Arber, iv. 417).

Q_{1}, 1600. The Comicall Satyre of Every Man Out Of His Humor. As it was first composed by the Author B. I. Containing more than hath been Publickely Spoken or Acted. With the seuerall Character of euery Person. For William Holme. [Names and description of Characters; Publisher’s note, ‘It was not neere his thoughts that hath publisht this, either to traduce the Authour; or to make vulgar and cheape, any the peculiar & sufficient deserts of the Actors; but rather (whereas many Censures flutter’d about it) to giue all leaue, and leisure, to iudge with Distinction’; Induction, by Asper, who becomes Macilente and speaks Epilogue, Carlo Buffone who speaks in lieu of Prologue, and Mitis and Cordatus, who remain on stage as Grex or typical spectators.]

Q_{2}, 1600. [Peter Short] For William Holme. [W. W. Greg (1920, 4 Library, i. 153) distinguished Q_{1}, of which he found a copy in Brit. Mus. C. 34, i. 29, from Q_{2}, (Bodl. and Dyce).]

Q_{3}, 1600. For Nicholas Linge. [‘A careless and ignorant reprint’ (Greg) of Q_{1}.]

F_{1}, 1616. Euery Man Out Of His Humour. A Comicall Satyre. Acted in the yeere 1599. By the then Lord Chamberlaine his Seruants. The Author B. I. William Stansby for Iohn Smithwicke. [Epistle to the Inns of Court, signed ‘Ben. Ionson’. After text: ‘This Comicall Satyre was first acted in the yeere 1599. By the then Lord Chamberlaine his Seruants. The principall Comœdians were, Ric. Burbadge, Ioh. Hemings, Aug. Philips, Hen. Condel, Wil. Sly, Tho. Pope. With the allowance of the Master of Revels.’]

Facsimile reprints of Q_{1} by W. W. Greg and F. P. Wilson (1920, M. S. R.) and of Q_{2, 3} by W. Bang and W. W. Greg (1907, Materialien, xvi, xvii).--Dissertations: C. A. Herpich, Shakespeare and B. J. Did They Quarrel? (1902, 9 N. Q. ix. 282); Van Dam and C. Stoffel, The Authority of the B. J. Folio of 1616 (1903, Anglia, xxvi. 377); W. Bang, B. J. und Castiglione’s Cortegiano (1906, E. S. xxxvi. 330).

In the main the text of F_{1} follows that of Q_{1} with some slight revision of wording and oaths. The arrangement of the epilogues is somewhat different, but seems intended to represent the same original stage history. In Q_{1} Macilente speaks an epilogue, ‘with Aspers tongue (though not his shape)’, evidently used in the theatre as it begs ‘The happier spirits in this faire-fild Globe’ to confirm applause

as their pleasures Pattent: which so sign’d, Our leane and spent Endeuours shall renue Their Beauties with the Spring to smile on you.

Then comes a ‘Finis’ and on the next page, ‘It had another Catastrophe or Conclusion at the first Playing: which (διὰ τὸ τὴν βασίλισσαν προσωποποιεῖσθαι) many seem’d not to relish it: and therefore ’twas since alter’d: yet that a right-ei’d and solide Reader may perceiue it was not so great a part of the Heauen awry, as they would make it; we request him but to looke downe vpon these following Reasons.’ There follows an apology, from which it is clear that originally Macilente was cured of his envious humour by the appearance on the stage of the Queen; and this introduces a different epilogue of the nature of an address to her. At the end of all comes a short dialogue between Macilente, as Asper, and the Grex. There is no mention of the Globe, but as the whole point of the objection to this epilogue, which it is not suggested that Elizabeth herself shared, lay in the miming of the Queen, one would take it, did the Q_{1} stand alone, to have been, like its substitute, a theatre and not a Court epilogue. In F_{1}, however, we get successively (a) a shortened version of the later epilogue, (b) the dialogue with the Grex, followed by ‘The End’, and (c) a version of the original epilogue, altered so as to make it less of a direct address and headed ‘Which, in the presentation before Queen E. was thus varyed’. It seems to me a little difficult to believe that the play was given at Court before it had been ‘practised’ in public performances, and I conclude that, having suppressed the address to a mimic Elizabeth at the Globe, Jonson revived it in a slightly altered form when he took the play to Court at Christmas. As to the date of production, Fleay, i. 361, excels himself in the suggestion that ‘the mention of “spring” and the allusion to the company’s new “patent” for the Globe in the epilogue’ fix it to c. April 1599. Even if this were the original epilogue, it alludes to a coming and not a present spring, and might have been written at any time in the winter, either before or after the New Year. Obviously, too, there can be no allusion to an Elizabethan patent for the Globe, which never existed. I do not agree with Small, 21, that the Globe was not opened until early in 1600, nor do I think that any inference can be drawn from the not very clear notes of dramatic time in I. iii and III. ii. At first sight it seems natural to suppose that the phrase ‘would I had one of Kempes shooes to throw after you’ (IV. v) was written later than at any rate the planning of the famous morris to Norwich, which lasted from 11 Feb. to 11 March 1600 and at the end of which Kempe hung his shoes in Norwich Guildhall. Certainly it cannot refer, as Fleay thinks, merely to Kempe’s leaving the Chamberlain’s men. Conceivably it might be an interpolation of later date than the original production. Creizenach, 303, however, points out that in 1599 Thomas Platter saw a comedy in which a servant took off his shoe and threw it at his master, and suggests that this was a bit of common-form stage clownery, in which case the Norwich dance would not be concerned. The performance described by Platter was in September or October, and apparently at the Curtain (cf. ch. xvi, introd.). Kempe may quite well have been playing then at the Curtain with a fresh company after the Chamberlain’s moved to the Globe. Perhaps the episode had already found a place in Phillips’s Jig of the Slippers, printed in 1595 and now lost (cf. ch. xviii). If 1600 is the date of E. M. O., the Court performance may have been that of 3 February, or perhaps more probably may have fallen in the following winter, which would explain the divergence between Q_{1} and F_{1} as to the epilogues. But it must be remembered that the F_{1} date is 1599, and that most, if not quite all, of the F_{1} dates follow Circumcision style, although Jonson may not have adopted this style as early as 1600. On the whole, I think that the balance of probability is distinctly in favour of 1599. If so, the production must have been fairly late in that year, as there is a hit (III. i) at the Histriomastix of the same autumn. The play has been hunted through and through for personalities, most of which are effectively refuted by Small. Most of the characters are types rather than individuals, and social types rather than literary or stage types. I do not think there are portraits of Daniel, Lyly, Drayton, Donne, Chapman, Munday, Shakespeare, Burbadge, in the play or its induction at all. Nor do I think there are portraits in the strict sense of Marston and Dekker, although no doubt some parody of Marston’s ‘fustian’ vocabulary is put into the mouth of Clove (iii. 1), and, on the other hand, the characters of Carlo Buffone and Fastidious Brisk have analogies with the Anaides and Hedon of Cynthia’s Revels, and these again with the Demetrius and Crispinus of Poetaster, who are undoubtedly Dekker and Marston. But we know from Aubrey, ii. 184, that Carlo was Charles Chester, a loose-tongued man about town, to whom there are many contemporary references. To those collected by Small and Hart (10 N. Q. i. 381) I may add Chamberlain, 7, Harington, Ulysses upon Ajax (1596), 58, and Hatfield Papers, iv. 210, 221; x. 287. The practical joke of sealing up Carlo’s mouth with wax (V. iii) was, according to Aubrey, played upon Chester by Raleigh, and there may be traits of Raleigh in Puntarvolo, perhaps combined with others of Sir John Harington, while Hart finds in the mouths both of Puntarvolo and of Fastidious Brisk the vocabulary of Gabriel Harvey. The play was revived at Court on 8 Jan. 1605.

Cynthia’s Revels. 1600–1

S. R. 1601, May 23 (Pasfield). ‘A booke called Narcissus the fountaine of self-love.’ Walter Burre (Arber, iii. 185).

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