V. PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS (part 2 of 3)

V. PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS (part 2 of 3)

1601. The Fountaine of Selfe-Loue. Or Cynthias Reuels. As it hath beene sundry times priuately acted in the Black-Friers by the Children of her Maiesties Chappell. Written by Ben: Iohnson. For Walter Burre. [Induction, Prologue, and Epilogue.]

1616. Cynthias Revels, Or The Fountayne of selfe-loue. A Comicall Satyre. Acted in the yeere 1600. By the then Children of Queene Elizabeth’s Chappel. The Author B. I. William Stansby. [Part of F_{1}. Epistle to the Court, signed ‘Ben Ionson’, Induction, Prologue, and Epilogue. After text: ‘This Comicall Satyre was first acted, in the yeere 1600. By the then Children of Queene Elizabeths Chappell. The principall Comœdians were, Nat. Field, Ioh. Underwood, Sal. Pavy, Rob. Baxter, Tho. Day, Ioh. Frost. With the allowance of the Master of Revells.’]

Edition by A. C. Judson (1912, Yale Studies, xlv), and facsimile reprint of Q by W. Bang and L. Krebs (1908, Materialien, xxii).

The difference between the Q and F_{1} texts amounts to more than mere revision of wording and of oaths. Criticus is renamed Crites, and the latter half of the play is given in a longer form, parts of IV. i and IV. iii, and the whole of V. i-iv appearing in F_{1} alone. I think the explanation is to be found in a shortening of the original text for representation, rather than in subsequent additions. Jonson’s date for the play is 1600. This Small, 23, would translate as Feb. or March 1601, neglecting the difficulty due to the possibility that Jonson’s date represents Circumcision style. He relies on V. xi, where Cynthia says:

For so Actaeon, by presuming farre, Did (to our griefe) incurre a fatall doome; ... But are we therefore judged too extreme? Seemes it no crime, to enter sacred bowers, And hallowed places, with impure aspect, Most lewdly to pollute?

Rightly rejecting the suggestion of Fleay, i. 363, that this alludes to Nashe and the Isle of Dogs, Small refers it to the disgrace of Essex, and therefore dates the play after his execution on 25 Feb. 1601. But surely the presumption which Jonson has in mind is not Essex’s rebellion, but his invasion of Elizabeth’s apartment on his return from Ireland in 1599, and the ‘fatall doome’ is merely his loss of offices in June 1600. I do not believe that a Court dramatist would have dared to refer to Essex at all after 25 Feb. 1601. I feel little doubt that the play was the subject of the Chapel presentation on 6 Jan. 1601, and the description of this by the Treasurer of the Chamber as including a ‘show’, which puzzled Small, is explained by the presence of a full-blown Court mask in V. vii-x. The original production will have been in the winter of 1600, soon after Evans set up the Chapel plays. As to personalities, Small rightly rejects the identifications of Hedon with Daniel, Anaides with Marston, and Asotus with Lodge. Amorphus repeats the type of Puntarvolo from E. M. O. and like Puntarvolo may show traces of the Harveian vocabulary. As Satiromastix, I. ii. 191, applies to Crispinus and Demetrius the descriptions (III. iii) of Hedon as ‘a light voluptuous reveller’ and Anaides as ‘a strange arrogating puff’, it seems clear that Marston and Dekker, rightly or wrongly, fitted on these caps. Similarly, there is a clear attempt in Satiromastix, I. ii. 376, ‘You must be call’d Asper, and Criticus, and Horace’, to charge Jonson with lauding himself as Criticus. But the description of the ‘creature of a most perfect and diuine temper’ in II. iii surely goes beyond even Jonson’s capacity of self-praise. I wonder whether he can have meant Donne, whom he seems from a remark to Drummond (Laing, 6) to have introduced as Criticus in an introductory dialogue to the Ars Poetica.

Of the three children who appear in the induction, both Q and F_{1} name one as Jack. He might be either Underwood or Frost. Q alone (l. 214) names another, who played Anaides, as Sall, i.e. Salathiel Pavy. An interesting light is thrown on the beginnings of the Chapel enterprise by the criticism (Ind. 188), ‘They say, the Vmbrae, or Ghosts of some three or foure Playes, departed a dozen yeares since, haue been seene walking on your Stage here.’

The Poetaster. 1601

S. R. 1601, Dec. 21 (Pasfield). ‘A booke called Poetaster or his arrainement.’ Matthew Lownes (Arber, iii. 198).

1602. Poetaster or The Arraignment: As it hath beene sundry times priuately acted in the Blacke-Friers, by the Children of her Maiesties Chappell. Composed by Ben. Iohnson. For M. L. [Prologue; after text, Note to Reader: ‘Here (Reader) in place of the Epilogue, was meant to thee an Apology from the Author, with his reasons for the publishing of this booke: but (since he is no lesse restrain’d, then thou depriv’d of it by Authoritie) hee praies thee to think charitably of what thou hast read, till thou maist heare him speake what hee hath written.’]

1616. Poëtaster, Or His Arraignement. A Comicall Satyre, Acted, in the yeere 1601. By the then Children of Queene Elizabeths Chappel. The Author B. I. W. Stansby for M. Lownes. [Part of F_{1}. Epistle to Richard Martin, by ‘Ben. Ionson’; Prologue. After text, Note to Reader, with ‘an apologeticall Dialogue: which was only once spoken vpon the stage, and all the answere I euer gaue, to sundry impotent libells then cast out (and some yet remayning) against me, and this Play’. After the dialogue: ‘This comicall Satyre was first acted, in the yeere 1601. By the then Children of Queene Elizabeths Chappell. The principall Comœdians were, Nat. Field, Ioh. Vnderwood, Sal. Pavy, Will. Ostler, Tho. Day, Tho. Marton. With the allowance of the Master of Revells.’]

Editions by H. S. Mallory (1905, Yale Studies, xxvii), J. H. Penniman (1913, B. L.).

The play is admittedly an attack upon the poetaster represented as Crispinus, and his identity is clear from Jonson’s own statement to Drummond (Laing, 20) that ‘he had many quarrells with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his Poetaster on him’. Marston’s vocabulary is elaborately ridiculed in V. iii. Nor is there any reason to doubt that Demetrius Fannius, ‘a dresser of plaies about the towne, here’, who has been ‘hir’d to abuse Horace, and bring him in, in a play’ (III. iv. 367), is Dekker, who certainly associated himself with Marston as a victim of Jonson’s arraignment, and wrote Satiromastix (q.v.) in reply. At the same time these characters continue the types of Hedon and Anaides from Cynthia’s Revels, although these were not literary men. Horace is Jonson himself, as the rival portrait of Horace in Satiromastix shows, while Dekker tells us that Tucca is ‘honest Capten Hannam’, doubtless the Jack Hannam traceable as a Captain under Drake in 1585; cf. the reference to him in a letter of that year printed by F. P. Wilson in M. L. R. xv. 81. Fleay, i. 367, has a long list of identifications of minor personages, Ovid with Donne, Tibullus with Daniel, and so forth, all of which may safely be laid aside, and in particular I do not think that the fine eulogies of Virgil (V. i) are meant for Chapman, or for Shakespeare, applicable as some of them are to him, or for any one but Virgil. On the matter of identifications there is little to add to the admirable treatment of Small, 25. But in addition to the personal attacks, the play clearly contains a more generalized criticism of actors, the challenge of which seems to have been specially taken up by the Chamberlain’s men (cf. ch. xi), while there is evidence that Tucca and, I suppose, Lupus were taken amiss by the soldiers and the lawyers respectively. The latter at least were powerful, and in the epistle to Martin Jonson speaks of the play as one ‘for whose innocence, as for the Authors, you were once a noble and timely undertaker, to the greatest Iustice of this Kingdome’, and on behalf of posterity acknowledges a debt for ‘the reading of that ... which so much ignorance, and malice of the times, then conspir’d to haue supprest’. Evidently Jonson had not made matters better by his Apologetical Dialogue, the printing of which with the play was restrained. In this he denies that he

tax’d The Law, and Lawyers; Captaines; and the Players By their particular names;

but admits his intention to try and shame the

Fellowes of practis’d and most laxative tongues,

of whom he says, that during

three yeeres, They did provoke me with their petulant stiles On every stage.

Now he has done with it, will not answer the ‘libells’, or the ‘untrussers’ (i. e. Satiromastix), and is turning to tragedy.

Jonson gives the date of production as 1601. The play followed Cynthia’s Revels, criticisms on the epilogue of which inspired its ‘armed Prologue’, who sets a foot on Envy. Envy has been waiting fifteen weeks since the plot was an ‘embrion’, and this is chaffed in Satiromastix, I. ii. 447, ‘What, will he bee fifteene weekes about this cockatrice’s egge too?’ Later (V. ii. 218) Horace is told, ‘You and your itchy poetry breake out like Christmas, but once a yeare’. This stung Jonson, who replied in the Apologetical Dialogue,

Polyposus. They say you are slow, And scarse bring forth a play a yeere. Author. ’Tis true. I would they could not say that I did that.

The year’s interval must not be pressed too closely. On the other hand, I do not know why Small, 25, assumes that the fifteen weeks spent on the Poetaster began directly after Cynthia’s Revels was produced, whatever that date may be. It must have come very near that of Satiromastix, for Horace knows that Demetrius has been hired to write a play on him. On the other hand, Satiromastix cannot possibly have been actually written until the contents of Poetaster were known to Dekker. The S. R. entry of Satiromastix is 11 Nov. 1601, and the two dates of production may reasonably be placed in the late spring or early autumn of the same year. The Note to the Reader in Q shows that the Dialogue had been restrained before Poetaster itself appeared in 1602. Probably it was spoken in December between the two S. R. entries. Hart (9 N. Q. xi. 202) assuming that the contemplated tragedy was Sejanus (q.v.) put it in 1603, but this is too late.

Sejanus. 1603

S. R. 1604, Nov. 2 (Pasfield). ‘A booke called the tragedie of Seianus written by Beniamin Johnson.’ Edward Blunt (Arber, iii. 273).

1605, Aug. 6. Transfer from Blount to Thomas Thorpe (Arber, iii. 297).

1610, Oct. 3. Transfer from Thorpe to Walter Burre (Arber, iii. 445).

1605. Seianus his fall. Written by Ben: Ionson. G. Eld for Thomas Thorpe. [Epistle to Readers, signed ‘Ben. Jonson’; Commendatory Verses, signed ‘Georgius Chapmannus’, ‘Hugh Holland’, ‘Cygnus’, ‘Th. R.’, ‘Johannes Marstonius’, ‘William Strachey’, ‘ΦΙΛΟΣ’, ‘Ev. B.’; Argument.]

1616. Seianus his Fall. A Tragœdie. Acted, in the yeere 1603. By the K. Maiesties Servants. The Author B. I. William Stansby. [Part of F_{1}. Epistle to Esmé, Lord Aubigny, signed ‘Ben. Ionson’. After text: ‘This Tragœdie was first acted, in the yeere 1603. By the Kings Maiesties Servants. The principall Tragœdians were, Ric. Burbadge, Will. Shake-Speare, Aug. Philips, Ioh. Hemings, Will. Sly, Hen. Condel, Ioh. Lowin, Alex. Cooke. With the allowance of the Master of Revells.’]

Editions by W. D. Briggs (1911, B. L.) and W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).--Dissertations: B. Nicholson, Shakespeare not the Part-Author of B. J.’s S. (1874, Acad. ii. 536); W. A. Henderson, Shakespeare and S. (1894, 8 N. Q. v. 502).

As the theatres were probably closed from Elizabeth’s death to March 1604, the production may have been at Court in the autumn or winter of 1603, although, if Sejanus is the something ‘high, and aloofe’ contemplated at the end of the Apologetical Dialogue to Poetaster (q.v.), it must have been in Jonson’s mind since 1601. The epistle to Aubigny admits the ‘violence’ which the play received in public, and ‘Ev. B.’s’ verses indicate that this ‘beastly rage’ was at the Globe. Marston’s verses were presumably written before his renewed quarrel with Jonson over Eastward Ho! (q.v.), and there appears to be an unkindly reference to Sejanus in the epistle to his Sophonisba (1606). But either Eastward Ho! or something else caused publication to be delayed for nearly a year after the S. R. entry, since Chapman’s verses contain a compliment to the Earl of Suffolk,

Who when our Hearde came not to drink, but trouble The Muses waters, did a Wall importune, (Midst of assaults) about their sacred River,

which seems to refer to his share in freeing Jonson and Chapman from prison about Sept. or Oct. 1605. Chapman also has compliments to the Earls of Northampton and Northumberland. It must therefore be to a later date that Jonson referred, when he told Drummond (Laing, 22) that ‘Northampton was his mortall enimie for beating, on a St. George’s day, one of his attenders; He was called before the Councell for his Sejanus, and accused both of poperie and treason by him’. Fleay, i. 372, suggests that the reference at the end of the Q version of the Argument to treason against princes, ‘for guard of whose piety and vertue, the Angels are in continuall watch, and God himselfe miraculously working’, implies publication after the discovery of the Plot. On the other hand, one would have expected Chapman’s reference to Northumberland, if not already printed, to be suppressed, in view of the almost immediate suspicion of a connexion with the Plot that fell upon him. Castelain, 907, considers, and rightly rejects, another suggestion by Fleay that Sejanus and not Eastward Ho! was the cause of the imprisonment of Jonson and Chapman in 1605. Fleay supposed that Chapman was the collaborator of whom Jonson wrote in the Q epistle, ‘I would informe you, that this Booke, in all numbers, is not the same with that which was acted on the publike Stage, wherein a second pen had good share; in place of which I have rather chosen, to put weaker (and no doubt lesse pleasing) of mine own, then to defraud so happy a Genius of his right, by my lothed usurpation’. Shakespeare also has been guessed at. If Jonson’s language was seriously meant, there were not, of course, many contemporaries of whom he would have so spoken. Probably the problem is insoluble, as the subject-matter of it has disappeared. It is difficult to believe that the collaborator was Samuel Sheppard, who in his The Times Displayed in Six Sestyads (1646) claims to have ‘dictated to’ Ben Jonson ‘when as Sejanus’ fall he writ’. Perhaps he means ‘been amanuensis to’.

Eastward Ho! (1605)

With Chapman (q.v.) and Marston.

Volpone or The Fox. 1606

[MS.] J. S. Farmer (Introd. to Believe As You List in T. F. T.) states that a holograph MS. is extant. He may have heard of a modern text by L. H. Holt, used by J. D. Rea. If so, App. N is in error.

S. R. 1610, Oct. 3. Transfer from Thomas Thorpe to Walter Burre of ‘2 bookes the one called, Seianus his fall, the other, Vulpone or the ffoxe’ (Arber, iii. 445).

1607. Ben: Ionson his Volpone Or The Foxe. For Thomas Thorpe. [Dedicatory epistle by ‘Ben. Ionson’ to the two Universities, dated ‘From my House in the Black Friars, the 11^{th} day of February, 1607’; Commendatory Verses, signed ‘I. D[onne]’, ‘E. Bolton’, ‘F[rancis] B[eaumont]’, ‘T. R.’, ‘D. D.’, ‘I. C.’, ‘G. C.’, ‘E. S.’, ‘I. F.’; Argument; Prologue and Epilogue.]

1616. Volpone, or The Foxe. A Comœdie. Acted in the yeere 1605. By the K. Maiesties Servants. The Author B. I. William Stansby. [Part of F_{1}. After text: ‘This Comoedie was first acted, in the yeere 1605. By the Kings Maiesties Servants. The principall Comœdians were, Ric. Burbadge, Ioh. Hemings, Hen. Condel, Ioh. Lowin, Will. Sly, Alex. Cooke. With the allowance of the Master of Revells.’]

Editions by W. Scott (1811, M. B. D. iii) in O. E. D. (1830, i) and by H. B. Wilkins (1906), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.), J. D. Rea (1919, Yale Studies).--Dissertations: F. Holthausen, Die Quelle von B. J.’s V. (1889, Anglia, xii. 519); J. Q. Adams, The Sources of B. J.’s V. (1904, M. P. ii. 289); L. H. Holt, Notes on J.’s V. (1905, M. L. N. xx. 63).

Jonson dates the production 1605, and the uncertainty as to the style he used leaves it possible that this may cover the earlier part of 1606. Fleay, i. 373, attempts to get nearer with the help of the news from London brought to Venice by Peregrine in II. i. Some of this does not help us much. The baboons had probably been in London as early as 1603 at least (cf. s.v. Sir Giles Goosecap). The Tower lioness had a whelp on 5 Aug. 1604, another on 26 Feb. 1605, and two more on 27 July 1605 (Stowe, ed. 1615, 844, 857, 870). The ‘another whelp’ of Volpone would suggest Feb.–July 1605. On the other hand, the whale at Woolwich is recorded by Stowe, 880, a few days after the porpoise at West Ham (not ‘above the bridge’ as in Volpone) on 19 Jan. 1606. Holt argues from this that, as Peregrine left England seven weeks before, the play must have been produced in March 1606, but this identification of actual and dramatic time can hardly be taken for granted. There are also allusions to meteors at Berwick and a new star, both in 1604, and to the building of a raven in a royal ship and the death of Stone the fool, which have not been dated and might help. Gawdy, 146, writes on 18 June 1604 that ‘Stone was knighted last weeke, I meane not Stone the foole, but Stone of Cheapsyde’. Stone the fool was whipped about March, 1605 (Winwood, ii. 52). The suggested allusion to Volpone in Day’s Isle of Gulls (q.v.) of Feb. 1606 is rather dubious. The ambiguity of style must also leave us uncertain whether Q and its dedication belong to 1607 or 1608, and therefore whether ‘their love and acceptance shewn to his poeme in the presentation’ by the Universities was in 1606 or 1607. This epistle contains a justification of Jonson’s comic method. He has had to undergo the ‘imputation of sharpnesse’, but has never provoked a ‘nation, societie, or generall order, or state’, or any ‘publique person’. Nor has he been ‘particular’ or ‘personall’, except to ‘a mimick, cheater, bawd, or buffon, creatures (for their insolencies) worthy to be tax’d’. But that he has not wholly forgotten the Poetomachia is clear from a reference to the ‘petulant stiles’ of other poets, while in the prologue he recalls the old criticism that he was a year about each play, and asserts that he wrote Volpone in five weeks. The commendatory verses suggest that the play was successful. Fleay’s theory that it is referred to in the epilogue to the anonymous Mucedorus (q.v.), as having given offence, will not bear analysis. The passage in III. iv about English borrowings from Guarini and Montaigne is too general in its application to be construed as a specific attack on Daniel. But the gossip of Aubrey, ii. 246, on Thomas Sutton, the founder of the Charterhouse, relates that ‘’Twas from him that B. Johnson took his hint of the fox, and by Seigneur Volpone is meant Sutton’.

Epicoene. 1609

S. R. 1610, Sept. 20 (Buck). ‘A booke called, Epicoene or the silent woman by Ben Johnson.’ John Browne and John Busby (Arber, iii. 444).

1612, Sept. 28. Transfer from Browne to Walter Burre (Arber, iii. 498).

1609, 1612. Prints of both dates are cited, but neither is now traceable. The former, in view of the S. R. date, can hardly have existed; the latter appears to have been seen by Gifford, and for it the commendatory verses by Beaumont, found at the beginning of F_{1}, were probably written.

1616. Epicoene, Or The silent Woman. A Comœdie. Acted in the yeere 1609. By the Children of her Maiesties Revells. The Author B. I. W. Stansby. [Part of F_{1}. Epistle to Sir Francis Stuart, signed ‘Ben. Ionson’; Two Prologues, the second ‘Occasion’d by some persons impertinent exception’; after text: ‘This Comœdie was first acted, in the yeere 1609. By the Children of her Maiesties Revells. The principall Comœdians were, Nat. Field, Will. Barksted, Gil. Carie, Will. Pen, Hug. Attawel, Ric. Allin, Ioh. Smith, Ioh. Blaney. With the allowance of the Master of Revells.’]

1620. William Stansby, sold by John Browne.

Editions in O. E. D. (1830, iii) and by A. Henry (1906, Yale Studies, xxxi) and C. M. Gayley (1913, R. E. C. ii).

The first prologue speaks of the play as fit for ‘your men, and daughters of white-Friars’, and at Whitefriars the play was probably produced by the Revels children, either at the end of 1609, or, if Jonson’s chronology permits, early in 1610. Jonson told Drummond (Laing, 41) that, ‘When his play of a Silent Woman was first acted, ther was found verses after on the stage against him, concluding that that play was well named the Silent Woman, ther was never one man to say Plaudite to it’. Fleay, i. 374, suggests an equation between Sir John Daw and Sir John Harington. In I. i. 86 Clerimont says of Lady Haughty, the President of the Collegiates, ‘A poxe of her autumnall face, her peec’d beautie’. I hope that this was not, as suggested by H. J. C. Grierson, Poems of Donne, ii. 63, a hit at Lady Danvers, on whom Donne wrote (Elegy ix):

No Spring, nor Summer Beauty hath such grace, As I have seen in one Autumnall face.

In any case, I do not suppose that these are the passages which led to the ‘exception’ necessitating the second prologue. This ends with the lines:

If any, yet, will (with particular slight Of application) wrest what he doth write; And that he meant or him, or her, will say: They make a libell, which he made a play.

Jonson evidently refers to the same matter in the Epistle, where he says: ‘There is not a line, or syllable in it changed from the simplicity of the first copy. And, when you shall consider, through the certaine hatred of some, how much a mans innocency may bee indanger’d by an vn-certaine accusation; you will, I doubt not, so beginne to hate the iniquitie of such natures, as I shall loue the contumely done me, whose end was so honorable, as to be wip’d off by your sentence.’ I think the explanation is to be found in a dispatch of the Venetian ambassador on 8 Feb. 1610 (V. P. xi. 427), who reports that Lady Arabella Stuart ‘complains that in a certain comedy the playwright introduced an allusion to her person and the part played by the Prince of Moldavia. The play was suppressed.’ The reference may be to V. i. 17 of the play:

La Foole. He [Daw] has his boxe of instruments ... to draw maps of euery place, and person, where he comes.

Clerimont. How, maps of persons!

La Foole. Yes, sir, of Nomentack, when he was here, and of the Prince of Moldauia, and of his mistris, mistris Epicoene.

Clerimont. Away! he has not found out her latitude, I hope.

The Prince of Moldavia visited London in 1607 and is said to have been a suitor for Arabella, but if Jonson’s text is really not ‘changed from the simplicity of the first copy’, it is clear that Arabella misunderstood it, since Epicoene was Daw’s mistress.

The Alchemist. 1610

S. R. 1610, Oct. 3 (Buck). ‘A Comoedy called The Alchymist made by Ben: Johnson.’ Walter Burre (Arber, iii. 445).

1612. The Alchemist. Written by Ben Ionson. Thomas Snodham for Walter Burre, sold by John Stepneth. [Epistles to Lady Wroth, signed ‘Ben. Jonson’ and to the Reader; Commendatory Verses, signed ‘George Lucy’; Argument and Prologue.]

1616. The Alchemist. A Comœdie. Acted in the yeere 1610. By the Kings Maiesties Seruants. The author B. I. W. Stansby. [Part of F_{1}. After text: ‘This Comoedie was first acted, in the yeere 1610. By the Kings Maiesties Servants. The principall Comœdians were, Ric. Burbadge, Ioh. Hemings, Ioh. Lowin, Will. Ostler, Hen. Condel, Ioh. Vnderwood, Alex. Cooke, Nic. Tooley, Rob. Armin, Will. Eglestone. With the allowance of the Master of Revells.’]

Editions by W. Scott (1811, M. B. D. iii), C. M. Hathaway (1903, Yale Studies, xvii), H. C. Hart (1903, King’s Library), F. E. Schelling (1903, B. L.), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.), G. A. Smithson (1913, R. E. C.).

Jonson’s date is confirmed by the references in II. vi. 31 and IV. iv. 29 to the age of Dame Pliant, who is 19 and was born in 1591. In view of the S. R. entry, one would take the production to have fallen in the earlier half of the year, before the plague reached forty deaths, which it did from 12 July to 29 Nov. The action is set in plague-time, but obviously the experience of 1609 and early years might suggest this. Fleay, i. 375, and others following him argue that the action of the play is confined to one day, that this is fixed by V. v. 102 to ‘the second day of the fourth week in the eighth month’, and that this must be 24 October. They are not deterred by the discrepancy of this with III. ii. 129, which gives only a fifteen-days interval before ‘the second day, of the third weeke, in the ninth month’, i. e. on their principles 17 November. And they get over the S.R. entry by assuming that Jonson planned to stage the play on 24 October and then, finding early in October that the plague continued, decided to publish it at once. This seems to me extraordinarily thin, in the absence of clearer knowledge as to the system of chronology employed by Ananias of Amsterdam. Aubrey, i. 213, says that John Dee ‘used to distill egge-shells, and ’twas from hence that Ben Johnson had his hint of the alkimist, whom he meant’. The play was given by the King’s men at Court during 1612–13.

Catiline his Conspiracy. 1611

1611. Catiline his Conspiracy. Written by Ben: Ionson. For Walter Burre. [Epistles to William Earl of Pembroke, and to the Reader, both signed ‘Ben. Jonson’; Commendatory Verses, signed ‘Franc: Beaumont’, ‘John Fletcher’, ‘Nat. Field’.]

1616. Catiline his Conspiracy. A Tragoedie. Acted in the yeere 1611. By the Kings Maiesties Seruants. The Author B. I. William Stansby. [Part of F_{1}. After text: ‘This Tragœdie was first Acted, in the yeere 1611. By the Kings Maiesties Servants. The principall Tragœdians were, Ric. Burbadge, Ioh. Hemings, Alex. Cooke, Hen. Condel, Ioh. Lowin, Ioh. Underwood, Wil. Ostler, Nic. Tooly, Ric. Robinson, Wil. Eglestone.’]

1635.... ‘now Acted by his Maiesties Servants’.... N. Okes for I. S.

Edition by L. H. Harris (1916, Yale Studies, liii).--Dissertation: A. Vogt, B. J.’s Tragödie C. und ihre Quellen (1905, Halle diss.).

Bartholomew Fair. 1614

1631. Bartholomew Fayre: A Comedie, Acted in the Yeare, 1614. By the Lady Elizabeths Seruants. And then dedicated to King Iames of most Blessed Memorie; By the Author, Beniamin Iohnson. I. B. for Robert Allot. [Part of F_{2}. Prologue to the King; Induction; Epilogue. Jonson wrote (n.d.) to the Earl of Newcastle (Harl. MS. 4955, quoted in Gifford’s memoir and by Brinsley Nicholson in 4 N. Q. v. 574): ‘It is the lewd printer’s fault that I can send ... no more of my book. I sent you one piece before, The Fair, ... and now I send you this other morsel, The fine gentleman that walks the town, The Fiend; but before he will perfect the rest I fear he will come himself to be a part under the title of The Absolute Knave, which he hath played with me.’]

Edition by C. S. Alden (1904, Yale Studies, xxv).--Dissertation: C. R. Baskervill, Some Parallels to B. F. (1908, M. P. vi. 109).

No dedication to James, other than the prologue and epilogue, appears to be preserved, but Aubrey, ii. 14, says that ‘King James made him write against the Puritans, who began to be troublesome in his time’. The play was given at Court on 1 Nov. 1614 (App. B), and a mock indenture between the author and the spectators at the Hope, on 31 Oct. 1614, is recited in the Induction and presumably fixes the date of production. One must not therefore assume that a ballad of Rome for Company in Bartholomew Faire, registered on 22 Oct. 1614 (Arber, iii. 554), was aimed at Jonson. Greg, Henslowe Papers, 78, follows Malone and Fleay, i. 80, in inferring from a mention of a forthcoming ‘Johnsons play’ in a letter of 13 Nov. 1613 from Daborne to Henslowe that the production may have been intended for 1613, but I think that Daborne refers to the revival of Eastward Ho! The Induction describes the locality of the Hope as ‘being as durty as Smithfield, and as stinking euery whit’, and possibly glances at the Winter’s Tale and Tempest in disclaiming the introduction of ‘a Seruant-monster’ and ‘a nest of Antiques’, since the author is ‘loth to make Nature afraid in his Playes, like those that beget Tales, Tempests, and such like Drolleries’. There is no actor-list, but in V. iii ‘Your best Actor. Your Field?’ is referred to on a level with ‘your Burbage’. Similarly the puppet Leander is said to shake his head ‘like an hostler’ and it is declared that ‘one Taylor, would goe neere to beat all this company, with a hand bound behinde him’. Field and Taylor were both of the Lady Elizabeth’s men in 1614, while the allusion to Ostler of the King’s men is apparently satirical. The suggestion of Ordish, 225, that Taylor is the water poet, who had recently appeared on the Hope stage, is less probable. The ‘word out of the play, Palemon’ (IV. iii) is set against another, Argalus ‘out of the Arcadia’, and might therefore, as Fleay, i. 377, thinks, refer to Daniel’s Queen’s Arcadia (1605), but the Palamon of T. N. K. was probably quite recent. I see no reason to accept Fleay’s identification of Littlewit with Daniel; that of Lanthorn Leatherhead with Inigo Jones is more plausible. Gifford suggested that the burlesque puppet-play of Damon and Pythias in V. iv may have been retrieved by Jonson from earlier work, perhaps for the real puppet-stage, since ‘Old Cole’ is a character, and in Satiromastix Horace is called ‘puppet-teacher’ (1980) and in another passage (607) ‘olde Coale’, and told that Crispinus and Demetrius ‘shal be thy Damons and thou their Pithyasse’.

The Devil Is An Ass 1616

1631. The Diuell is an Asse: A Comedie Acted in the yeare, 1616. By His Maiesties Seruants. The Author Ben: Ionson. I. B. for Robert Allot. [Part of F_{2}. Prologue and Epilogue. The play is referred to in Jonson’s letter to the Earl of Newcastle, quoted under Bartholomew Fair.]

1641. Imprinted at London.

Edition by W. S. Johnson (1905, Yale Studies, xxix).--Dissertation: E. Holstein, Verhältnis von B. J.’s D. A. und John Wilson’s Belphegor zu Machiavelli’s Novelle vom Belfagor (1901).

In the play itself are introduced references to a performance of The Devil as a new play, to its playbill, to the Blackfriars as the house, and to Dick Robinson as a player of female parts (I. iv. 43; vi. 31; II. viii. 64; III. v. 38). Probably the production was towards the end rather than the beginning of 1616.

Lost Plays

I do not feel able to accept the view, expounded by Fleay, i. 370, 386, and adopted by some later writers, that A Tale of a Tub, licensed by Herbert on 7 May 1633, was only a revision of one of Jonson’s Elizabethan plays. It appears to rest almost wholly upon references to a ‘queen’. These are purely dramatic, and part of an attempt to give the action an old-fashioned setting. The queen intended is not Elizabeth, but Mary. There are also references to ‘last King Harry’s time’ (I. ii), ‘King Edward, our late liege and sovereign lord’ (I. v). A character says, ‘He was King Harry’s doctor and my god-phere’ (IV. i). The priest is ‘Canon’ or ‘Sir’ Hugh, and has a ‘Latin tongue’ (III. vii). ‘Old John Heywood’ is alive (V. ii).

In 1619 Jonson told Drummond (Laing, 27) ‘That the half of his Comedies were not in print’. The unprinted ones of course included Bartholomew Fair and The Devil is an Ass. He went on to describe ‘a pastorall intitled The May Lord’, in which he figured himself as Alkin. As it had a ‘first storie’, it may not have been dramatic. But Alkin appears in The Sad Shepherd, a fragment of a dramatic pastoral, printed in F_{2} with a prologue in which Jonson describes himself as ‘He that hath feasted you these forty yeares’, and which therefore cannot have been written long before his death in 1637. This is edited by W. W. Greg (1905, Materialien, xi) with an elaborate discussion in which he arrives at the sound conclusions that the theory of its substantial identity with The May Lord must be rejected, and that there is no definite evidence to oppose to the apparent indication of its date in the prologue.

It is doubtful whether any of Jonson’s early work for Pembroke’s and the Admiral’s, except perhaps The Case is Altered, ever found its way into print. The record of all the following plays, except the first, is in Henslowe’s diary (cf. Greg, Henslowe, ii. 288).

(a) The Isle of Dogs.

See s.v. Nashe.

(b) On 3 Dec. 1597 he received £1 ‘vpon a boocke w^{ch} he showed the plotte vnto the company w^{ch} he promysed to dd vnto the company at crysmas’. It is just possible that this was Dido and Aeneas, produced by the Admiral’s on 8 Jan. 1598. But no further payment to Jonson is recorded, and it is more likely that Dido and Aeneas was taken over from Pembroke’s repertory; and it may be that Jonson had not carried out his contract before the fray with Spencer in Sept. 1598, and that this is the ‘Bengemens plotte’ on which Chapman was writing a tragedy on the following 23 Oct. The theory that it is the Fall of Mortimer, still little more than a plot when Jonson died, may safely be rejected (Henslowe, ii. 188, 199, 224).

(c) Hot Anger Soon Cold.

Written with Chettle and Porter in Aug. 1598 (Henslowe, ii. 196).

(d) Page of Plymouth.

Written with Dekker in Aug. and Sept. 1599 (Henslowe, ii. 205).

(e) Robert the Second, King of Scots.

A tragedy, written with Chettle, Dekker, ‘& other Jentellman’ (probably Marston) in Sept. 1599 (Henslowe, ii. 205).

(f) Additions to Jeronimo.

See s.v. Kyd, Spanish Tragedy.

(g) Richard Crookback.

For this Jonson received a sum ‘in earnest’ on 22 June 1602, but it is not certain that it was ever finished (Henslowe, ii, 222).

Doubtful Plays

Jonson’s hand has been sought in The Captain of the Beaumont (q.v.) and Fletcher series, and the anonymous Puritan (cf. ch. xxiv).

MASKS

Mask of Blackness. 6 Jan. 1605

[MS.] Brit. Mus. Royal MS. 17 B. xxxi. [‘The Twelvth Nights Reuells.’ Not holograph, but signed ‘Hos ego versiculos feci. Ben. Jonson.’ A shorter text than that of the printed descriptions, in present tense, as for a programme.]

S. R. 1608, April 21 (Buck). ‘The Characters of Twoo Royall Maskes. Invented by Ben. Johnson.’ Thomas Thorpe (Arber, iii. 375).

N.D. The Characters of Two royall Masques. The one of Blacknesse, The other of Beautie. personated By the most magnificent of Queenes Anne Queene of Great Britaine, &c. With her honorable Ladyes, 1605. and 1608. at Whitehall: and Inuented by Ben: Ionson. For Thomas Thorp.

1616. The Queenes Masques. The first, Of Blacknesse: Personated at the Court, at White-Hall, on the Twelu’th night, 1605. [Part of F_{1}.]

Edition in J. P. Collier, Five Court Masques (1848, Sh. Soc. from MS.).

The maskers, in azure and silver, were twelve nymphs, ‘negroes and the daughters of Niger’; the torchbearers, in sea-green, Oceaniae; the presenters Oceanus, Niger, and Aethiopia the Moon; the musicians Tritons, Sea-maids, and Echoes.

The locality was the old Elizabethan banqueting-house at Whitehall (Carleton; Office of Works). The curtain represented a ‘landtschap’ of woods with hunting scenes, ‘which falling’, according to the Quarto, ‘an artificial sea was seen to shoot forth’. The MS. describes the landscape as ‘drawne uppon a downe right cloth, strayned for the scene, ... which openinge in manner of a curtine’, the sea shoots forth. On the sea were the maskers in a concave shell, and the torchbearers borne by sea-monsters.

The maskers, on landing, presented their fans. They gave ‘their own single dance’, and then made ‘choice of their men’ for ‘several measures and corantoes’. A final dance took them back to their shell.

This was a Queen’s mask, danced by the Queen, the Countesses of Bedford, Derby, and Suffolk, the Ladies Rich, Bevill, Howard of Effingham, Wroth, and Walsingham, Lady Elizabeth Howard, Anne Lady Herbert, and Susan Lady Herbert. The ‘bodily part’ was the ‘design and act’ of Inigo Jones.

Sir Thomas Edmondes told Lord Shrewsbury on 5 Dec. that the mask was to cost the Exchequer £3,000 (Lodge, iii. 114). The same sum was stated by Chamberlain to Winwood on 18 Dec. to have been ‘delivered a month ago’ (Winwood, ii. 41). Molin (V. P. x. 201) reported the amount on 19 Dec. as 25,000 crowns. On 12 Dec. John Packer wrote to Winwood of the preparations, and after naming some of the maskers added, ‘The Lady of Northumberland is excused by sickness, Lady Hartford by the measles. Lady of Nottingham hath the polypus in her nostril, which some fear must be cut off. The Lady Hatton would feign have had a part, but some unknown reason kept her out’ (Winwood, ii. 39). The performance was described by Carleton to Winwood, as following the creation of Prince Charles as Duke of York on 6 Jan. (Winwood, ii. 44): ‘At night we had the Queen’s maske in the Banquetting-House, or rather her pagent. There was a great engine at the lower end of the room, which had motion, and in it were the images of sea-horses with other terrible fishes, which were ridden by Moors: The indecorum was, that there was all fish and no water. At the further end was a great shell in form of a skallop, wherein were four seats; on the lowest sat the Queen with my Lady Bedford; on the rest were placed the Ladies Suffolk, Darby, Rich, Effingham, Ann Herbert, Susan Herbert, Elizabeth Howard, Walsingham, and Bevil. Their apparell was rich, but too light and curtizan-like for such great ones. Instead of vizzards, their faces, and arms up to the elbows, were painted black, which was disguise sufficient, for they were hard to be known; but it became them nothing so well as their red and white, and you cannot imagine a more ugly sight, then a troop of lean-cheek’d Moors. The Spanish and Venetian ambassadors were both present, and sate by the King in state, at which Monsieur Beaumont quarrells so extreamly, that he saith the whole court is Spanish. But by his favour, he should fall out with none but himself, for they were all indifferently invited to come as private men, to a private sport; which he refusing, the Spanish ambassador willingly accepted, and being there, seeing no cause to the contrary, he put off Don Taxis, and took upon him El Señor Embaxadour, wherein he outstript our little Monsieur. He was ... taken out to dance, and footed it like a lusty old gallant with his country woman. He took out the Queen, and forgot not to kiss her hand, though there was danger it would have left a mark on his lips. The night’s work was concluded with a banquet in the great Chamber, which was so furiously assaulted, that down went table and tressels before one bit was touched.’ Carleton gives some additional information in another account, which he sent to Chamberlain on 7 Jan. (S. P. D. Jac. I, xii. 6, quoted by Sullivan, 28), as that the ‘black faces and hands, which were painted and bare up to the elbowes, was a very lothsome sight’, and he was ‘sory that strangers should see owr court so strangely disguised’; that ‘the confusion in getting in was so great, that some Ladies lie by it and complain of the fury of the white stafes’; that ‘in the passages through the galleries they were shutt up in several heapes betwixt dores and there stayed till all was ended’; and that there were losses ‘of chaynes, jewels, purces and such like loose ware’. References in letters to one Benson and by the Earl of Errol to Cecil (S. P. D. Jac. I, xii. 16; xix. 25) add nothing material. Carleton’s account of the triumph of the Spanish ambassador is confirmed by reports of the Venetian (V. P. x. 212) and French (B. M. King’s MS. cxxvii, ff. 117, 127^v, 177^v; cf. Sullivan, 196–8) ambassadors. Beaumont had pleaded illness in order to avoid attending a mask on 27 Dec. 1604 in private, and the Court chose to assume that he was still ill on 6 Jan. This gave De Taxis and Molin an opening to get their private invitations converted into public ones. Beaumont lost his temper and accused Sir Lewis Lewknor and other officials of intriguing against him, but he had to accept his defeat.

The Accounts of the Master of the Revels (Cunningham, 204) record ‘The Queens Ma^{tis} Maske of Moures with Aleven Laydies of honnour’ as given on 6 Jan. Reyher, 358, 520, notes references to the mask in accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber and of the Office of Works, and quotes from the latter items for ‘framinge and settinge vpp of a great stage in the banquettinge house xl foote square and iiij^{or} foote in heighte with wheeles to goe on ... framinge and settinge vpp an other stage’.

Many of the notices of the Queen’s mask also refer to another mask which was performed ‘among the noblemen and gentlemen’ (Lodge, iii. 114) on 27 Dec. 1604, at the wedding of Sir Philip Herbert and Lady Susan Vere, daughter of the Earl of Oxford. The bride was herself a dancer in the Queen’s mask. The wedding mask, the subject of which was Juno and Hymenaeus, is unfortunately lost. The Revels Accounts (Cunningham, 204) tell us that it was ‘presented by the Earl of Pembroke, the Lord Willowbie and 6 Knightes more of the Court’, and Stowe’s Chronicle, 856, briefly records ‘braue Masks of the most noble ladies’. Carleton gave Winwood details of the wedding, and said (Winwood, ii. 43): ‘At night there was a mask in the Hall, which for conceit and fashion was suitable to the occasion. The actors were the Earle of Pembrook, the Lord Willoby, Sir Samuel [James?] Hays, Sir Thomas Germain, Sir Robert Cary, Sir John Lee, Sir Richard Preston, and Sir Thomas Bager. There was no smal loss that night of chaines and jewells, and many great ladies were made shorter by the skirts, and were well enough served that they could keep cut no better.’ Carleton wrote to Chamberlain (S. P. D. Jac. I, xii. 6, quoted by Sullivan, 25): ‘Theyre conceit was a representacion of Junoes temple at the lower end of the great hall, which was vawted and within it the maskers seated with staves of lights about them, and it was no ill shew. They were brought in by the fower seasons of the yeare and Hymeneus: which for songs and speaches was as goode as a play. Theyre apparel was rather costly then cumly; but theyr dancing full of life and variety; onely S^r Tho: Germain had lead in his heales and sometimes forgott what he was doing.’ There was a diplomatic contretemps on this occasion. At the wedding dinner the Venetian ambassador Molin was given precedence of the Queen’s brother, the Duke of Holstein, to the annoyance of the latter. But after dinner Molin was led to a closet and forgotten there until supper was already begun. Meanwhile the Duke took his place. There was a personal apology from the King, and at the mask Molin was given a stool in the royal box to the right of the King, and the Duke one to the left of the Queen. He preferred to stand for three hours rather than make use of it (Winwood, ii. 43; Sullivan, 25; V. P. x. 206).

Carleton wrote to Winwood (ii. 44), ‘They say the Duke of Holst will come upon us with an after reckoning, and that we shall see him on Candlemas night in a mask, as he hath shewed himself a lusty reveller all this Christmas’. But if this mask ever took place, nothing is known of it.

Hymenaei. 5 Jan. 1606

1606. Hymenaei: or The Solemnities of Masque, and Barriers, Magnificently performed on the eleventh, and twelfth Nights, from Christmas; At Court: To the auspicious celebrating of the Marriage-vnion, betweene Robert, Earle of Essex, and the Lady Frances, second Daughter to the most noble Earle of Suffolke. By Ben: Ionson. Valentine Sims for Thomas Thorp.

1616. Hymenaei, or The solemnities of Masque and Barriers at a Marriage. [Part of F_{1}.]

This was a double mask of eight men and eight women. The men, in carnation cloth of silver, with variously coloured mantles and watchet cloth of silver bases, were Humours and Affections; the women, in white cloth of silver, with carnation and blue undergarments, the Powers of Juno; the presenters Hymen, with a bride, bridegroom, and bridal train, Reason, and Order; the musicians the Hours.

The locality was probably the Elizabethan banqueting-house, which seems to have been repaired in 1604 (Reyher, 340). ‘The scene being drawn’ discovered first an altar for Hymen and ‘a microcosm or globe’, which turned and disclosed the men maskers in a ‘mine’ or ‘grot’. On either side of the globe stood great statues of Hercules and Atlas. They bore up the ‘upper part of the scene’, representing clouds, which opened to disclose the upper regions, whence the women descended on nimbi.

Each set of maskers had a dance at entry. They then danced together a measure with strains ‘all notably different, some of them formed into letters very signifying to the name of the bridegroom’. This done, they ‘dissolved’ and took forth others for measures, galliards, and corantoes. After these ‘intermixed dances’ came ‘their last dances’, and they departed in a bridal procession with an epithalamion.

The mask was in honour of the wedding of the Earl of Essex and Frances Howard, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, and was probably given by their friends. The only Household expenses appear to have been for the making ready of the room (Reyher, 520), but Lady Rutland’s share seems to have cost the Earl over £100 (Hist. MSS. Rutland Accounts, iv. 457). The dancers were the Countesses of Montgomery, Bedford, and Rutland, the Ladies Knollys, Berkeley, Dorothy Hastings, and Blanch Somerset, and Mrs. A. Sackville, with the Earls of Montgomery and Arundel, Lords Willoughby and Howard de Walden, Sir James Hay, Sir Thomas Howard, Sir Thomas Somerset, and Sir John Ashley. The ‘design and act’ and the device of the costumes were by Inigo Jones, the songs by Alphonso Ferrabosco, and the dances by Thomas Giles.

On the next day followed a Barriers, in which, after a dialogue by Jonson between Truth and Opinion, sixteen knights fought on the side of either disputant (cf. vol. i, p. 146).

The following account was sent by John Pory to Sir Robert Cotton on 7 Jan. (B.M. Cotton MS. Julius C. iii. 301, printed in Goodman, ii. 124; Collier, i. 350; Birch, i. 42; Sullivan, 199):

‘I haue seen both the mask on Sunday and the barriers on Mundy night. The Bridegroom carried himself as grauely and gracefully as if he were of his fathers age. He had greater guiftes giuen him then my lord Montgomery had, his plate being valued at 3000£ and his jewels, mony and other guiftes at 1600£ more. But to returne to the maske; both Inigo, Ben, and the actors men and women did their partes with great commendation. The conceite or soule of the mask was Hymen bringing in a bride and Juno pronuba’s priest a bridegroom, proclaiming those two should be sacrificed to nuptial vnion, and here the poet made an apostrophe to the vnion of the kingdoms. But before the sacrifice could be performed, Ben Jonson turned the globe of the earth standing behind the altar, and within the concaue sate the 8 men maskers representing the 4 humours and the fower affections which leapt forth to disturb the sacrifice to vnion; but amidst their fury Reason that sate aboue them all, crowned with burning tapers, came down and silenced them. These eight together with Reason their moderatresse mounted aboue their heades, sate somewhat like the ladies in the scallop shell the last year. Aboue the globe of erth houered a middle region of cloudes in the center wherof stood a grand consort of musicians, and vpon the cantons or hornes sate the ladies 4 at one corner, and 4 at another, who descended vpon the stage, not after the stale downright perpendicular fashion, like a bucket into a well; but came gently sloping down. These eight, after the sacrifice was ended, represented the 8 nuptial powers of Juno pronuba who came downe to confirme the vnion. The men were clad in crimzon and the weomen in white. They had euery one a white plume of the richest herons fethers, and were so rich in jewels vpon their heades as was most glorious. I think they hired and borrowed all the principal jewels and ropes of perle both in court and citty. The Spanish ambassador seemed but poore to the meanest of them. They danced all variety of dances, both seuerally and promiscue; and then the women took in men as namely the Prince (who danced with as great perfection and as setled a maiesty as could be deuised) the Spanish ambassador, the Archdukes, Ambassador, the Duke, etc., and the men gleaned out the Queen, the bride, and the greatest of the ladies. The second night the barriers were as well performed by fifteen against fifteen; the Duke of Lennox being chieftain on the one side, and my Lord of Sussex on the other.’

Mask of Beauty. 10 Jan. 1608

S. R. 1608, 21 April. [See Mask of Blackness.]

N.D. [See Mask of Blackness.]

1616. The Second Masque. Which was of Beautie; Was presented in the same Court, at White-Hall, on the Sunday night after the Twelfth Night. 1608. [Part of F_{1}.] The maskers, in orange-tawny and silver and green and silver, were the twelve Daughters of Niger of the Mask of Blackness, now laved white, with four more; the torchbearers Cupids; the presenters January, Boreas, Vulturnus, Thamesis; the musicians Echoes and Shades of old Poets.

The locality was the new banqueting-house at Whitehall. January was throned in midst of the house. The curtain, representing Night, was drawn to discover the maskers on a Throne of Beauty, borne by a floating isle.

The maskers gave two dances, which were repeated at the King’s request, and then danced ‘with the lords’. They danced galliards and corantoes. They then gave a third dance, and a fourth, which took them into their throne again.

This was a Queen’s mask, danced by the Queen, Arabella Stuart, the Countesses of Arundel, Derby, Bedford, and Montgomery, and the Ladies Elizabeth Guildford, Katherine Petre, Anne Winter, Windsor, Anne Clifford, Mary Neville, Elizabeth Hatton, Elizabeth Gerard, Chichester, and Walsingham. The torchbearers were ‘chosen out of the best and ingenious youth of the Kingdom’. The scene was ‘put in act’ by the King’s master carpenter. Thomas Giles made the dances and played Thamesis.

The mask was announced by 9 Dec. (V. P. xi. 74). On 10 Dec. La Boderie (ii. 490) reported that it would cost 6,000 or 7,000 crowns, and that nearly all the ladies invited by the Queen to take part in it were Catholics. Anne’s preparations were in swing before 17 Dec. (V. P. xi. 76). On 22 Dec. La Boderie reported (iii. 6) that he had underestimated the cost, which would not be less than 30,000 crowns, and was causing much annoyance to the Privy Council. On 31 Dec. Donne (Letters, i. 182) intended to deliver a letter ‘when the rage of the mask is past’. Lord Arundel notes his wife’s practising early in Jan. (Lodge, App. 124). The original date was 6 Jan. ‘The Mask goes forward for Twelfth-day’, wrote Chamberlain to Carleton on 5 Jan. (S. P. D. Jac. I, xxxi. 2; Birch, i. 69), ‘though I doubt the new room will be scant ready’. But on 8 Jan. (S. P. D. Jac. I, xxxi. 4; Birch, i. 71) he wrote again:

‘We had great hopes of having you here this day, and then I would not have given my part of the mask for any of their places that shall be present, for I suppose you and your lady would find easily passage, being so befriended; for the show is put off till Sunday, by reason that all things are not ready. Whatsoever the device may be, and what success they may have in their dancing, yet you would have been sure to have seen great riches in jewels, when one lady, and that under a baroness, is said to be furnished far better then a hundred thousand pounds. And the Lady Arabella goes beyond her; and the queen must not come behind.’

The delay was really due to ambassadorial complications, which are reported by Giustinian (V. P. xi. 83, 86) and very fully by La Boderie (iii. 1–75; cf. Sullivan, 35, 201). The original intention was to invite the Spanish and Venetian, but not the French and Flemish ambassadors. This, according to Giustinian, offended La Boderie, because Venice was ‘the nobler company’. But the real sting lay in the invitation to Spain. This was represented to La Boderie about 23 Dec. as the personal act of Anne, in the face of a remonstrance by James on the ground of the preference already shown to Spain in 1605. La Boderie replied that he had already been slighted at the King of Denmark’s visit, that the mask was a public occasion, and that Henri would certainly hold James responsible. A few days later he was told that James was greatly annoyed at his wife’s levity, and would ask him and the Venetian ambassador to dinner; but La Boderie refused to accept this as a compliment equivalent to seeing the Queen dance, and supping with the King before 10,000 persons. He urged that both ambassadors or neither should be invited, and hinted that, if Anne was so openly Spanish in her tendencies, Henri might feel obliged to leave the mission in charge of a secretary. An offer was made to invite La Boderie’s wife, but this he naturally refused. The Council tried in vain to make Anne hear reason, but finally let the mask proceed, and countered Henri diplomatically by calling his attention to the money debts due from France to England. Meanwhile Giustinian had pressed for his own invitation in place of the Flemish ambassador, and obtained it. The Spanish and Venetian ambassadors were therefore present. La Boderie reported that much attention was paid to Giustinian, and little to the Spanish ambassador, and also that James was so angry with Anne that he left for a hunting trip the next day without seeing her. Giustinian admired the mask, which was, James told him (V. P. xi. 86), ‘to consecrate the birth of the Great Hall, which his predecessors had left him built merely in wood, but which he had converted into stone’. Probably this is the mask described in a letter of Lady Pembroke to Lord Shrewsbury calendared without date among letters of 1607–8 in Lodge, iii, App. 121. On 28 Jan. the Spanish ambassador invited the fifteen ladies who had danced to dinner (Lodge, iii. 223; La Boderie, iii. 81). On 29 Jan. Lord Lisle wrote to the Earl of Shrewsbury regretting that he could not send him the verses, because Ben Jonson was busy writing more for the Haddington wedding (Lodge, App. 102).

A warrant for expenses was signed 11 Dec. (S. P. D. Jac. I, xxviii). A payment was made to Bethell (Reyher, 520).

Lord Haddington’s Mask [The Hue and Cry after Cupid]. 9 Feb. 1608

N.D. The Description of the Masque. With the Nuptiall Songs. Celebrating the happy Marriage of Iohn, Lord Ramsey, Viscount Hadington, with the Lady Elizabeth Ratcliffe, Daughter to the right Honor: Robert, Earle of Sussex. At Court On the Shroue-Tuesday at night. 1608. Deuised by Ben: Ionson. [No imprint.]

1616. [Part of F_{1}.] The maskers were the twelve Signs of the Zodiac in carnation and silver; the antimaskers Cupid and twelve Joci and Risus, who danced ‘with their antic faces’; the presenters Venus, the Graces and Cupid, Hymen, Vulcan and the Cyclopes; the musicians Priests of Hymen, while the Cyclopes beat time with their sledges.

Pilasters hung with amorous trophies supported gigantic figures of Triumph and Victory ‘in place of the arch, and holding a gyrlond of myrtle for the key’. The scene was a steep red cliff (Radcliffe), over which clouds broke for the issue of the chariot of Venus. After the antimasque, the cliff parted, to discover the maskers in a turning sphere of silver. The maskers gave four dances, interspersed with verses of an epithalamion. The mask was given by the maskers, seven Scottish and five English lords and gentlemen, the Duke of Lennox, the Earls of Arundel, Pembroke, and Montgomery, Lords D’Aubigny, De Walden, Hay, and Sanquhar, the Master of Mar, Sir Robert Rich, Sir John Kennedy, and Mr. Erskine. (Quarto and Lodge, iii. 223.) The ‘device and act of the scene’ were supplied by Inigo Jones, the tunes by Alphonso Ferrabosco, and two dances each by Hierome Herne and Thomas Giles, who also beat time as Cyclopes.

Rowland White told Lord Shrewsbury on 26 Jan. that the mask was ‘now the only thing thought upon at court’, and would cost the maskers about £300 a man (Lodge, iii. 223). Jonson was busy with the verses on 29 Jan. (Lodge, App. 102).

Sussex and Haddington intended to ask the French ambassador both to the wedding dinner and to the mask and banquet, but the Lord Chamberlain, having Spanish sympathies, would not consent. In the end he was asked by James himself to the mask and banquet, at which Prince Henry would preside. He accepted, and suggested that Henri should present Haddington with a ring, but this was not done. He thought the mask ‘assez maigre’, but Anne was very gracious, and James regretted that etiquette did not allow him to sit at the banquet in person. La Boderie’s wife and daughter, who danced with the Duke of York, were also present. Unfortunately he did not receive in time an instruction from Paris to keep away if the Flemish ambassador was asked, and did not protest against this invitation on his own responsibility, partly out of annoyance with the Venetian for attending the Queen’s mask without him, and partly for fear of losing his own invitation. The Fleming had had far less consideration than himself (La Boderie, iii. 75–144). So both the French and the Flemish ambassador were present, with two princes of Saxony (V. P. xi. 97).

English criticisms were more kindly than La Boderie’s. Sir Henry Saville described it to Sir Richard Beaumont on the same night as a ‘singular brave mask’, at which he had been until three in the morning (Beaumont Papers, 17), and Chamberlain wrote to Carleton on 11 Feb. (S. P. D. Jac. I, xxxi. 26; Birch, i. 72): ‘I can send you no perfect relation of the marriage nor mask on Tuesday, only they say all, but especially the motions, were well performed; as Venus, with her chariot drawn by swans, coming in a cloud to seek her son; who with his companions, Lusus, Risus, and Janus [? Jocus], and four or five more wags, were dancing a matachina, and acted it very antiquely, before the twelve signs, who were the master maskers, descended from the zodiac, and played their parts more gravely, being very gracefully attired.’

Mask of Queens. 2 Feb. 1609

[MSS.] (a) B.M. Harl. MS. 6947, f. 143 (printed Reyher, 506). [Apparently a short descriptive analysis or programme, without the words of the dialogue and songs.]

(b) B.M. Royal MS. 18 A. xlv. [Holograph. Epistle to Prince Henry.]

S. R. 1609, Feb. 22 (Segar). ‘A booke called, The maske of Queenes Celebrated, done by Beniamin Johnson.’ Richard Bonion and Henry Walley (Arber, iii. 402).

1609. The Masque of Queenes Celebrated From the House of Fame: By the most absolute in all State, And Titles. Anne, Queene of Great Britaine, &c. With her Honourable Ladies. At White-Hall, Febr. 2. 1609. Written by Ben: Ionson. N. Okes for R. Bonian and H. Wally. [Epistle to Prince Henry.]

1616. [Part of F_{1}.]

Edition in J. P. Collier, Five Court Masques (1848, Sh. Soc. from Royal MS.).

Jonson prefaces that ‘because Her Majesty (best knowing that a principal part of life in these spectacles lay in their variety) had commanded me to think on some dance, or shew, that might precede hers, and have the place of a foil, or false masque: I was careful to decline, not only from others, but mine own steps in that kind, since the last year, I had an antimasque of boys; and therefore now devised that twelve women, in the habit of hags or witches, sustaining the persons of Ignorance, Suspicion, Credulity, &c., the opposites to good Fame, should fill that part, not as a masque, but as a spectacle of strangeness’ [it is called a ‘maske’ in the programme] ‘producing multiplicity of gesture, and not unaptly sorting with the current and whole fall of the device’.

The maskers, in various habits, eight designs for which are in Sh. England, ii. 311, were Bel-Anna and eleven other Queens, who were attended by torchbearers; the antimaskers eleven Hags and their dame Ate; the presenters Perseus or Heroic Virtue and Fame.

The locality was the new banqueting-house at Whitehall (T. of C. Acct., quoted by Sullivan, 54). The scene at first represented a Hell, whence the antimask issued. In the middle of a ‘magical dance’ it vanished at a blast of music, ‘and the whole face of the scene altered’, becoming the House of Fame, a ‘machina versatilis’, which showed first Perseus and the maskers and then Fame. Descending, the maskers made their entry in three chariots, to which the Hags were bound. They danced their first and second dances; then ‘took out the men, and danced the measures’ for nearly an hour. After an interval for a song, came their third dance, ‘graphically disposed into letters, and honouring the name of the most sweet and ingenious Prince, Charles Duke of York’. Galliards and corantoes followed, and after their ‘last dance’ they returned in their chariots to the House of Fame.

This was a Queen’s mask, danced by the Queen, the Countesses of Arundel, Derby, Huntingdon, Bedford, Essex, and Montgomery, the Viscountess Cranborne, and the Ladies Elizabeth Guildford, Anne Winter, Windsor, and Anne Clifford. Inigo Jones was responsible for the attire of the Hags, and ‘the invention and architecture of the whole scene and machine’; Alphonso Ferrabosco for the airs of the songs; Thomas Giles for the third dance, and Hierome Herne for the dance of Hags. John Allen, ‘her Majesty’s servant’, sang a ditty between the measures and the third dance.

As early as 14 Nov. Donne wrote to Sir Henry Goodyere (Letters, i. 199), ‘The King ... hath left with the Queen a commandment to meditate upon a masque for Christmas, so that they grow serious about that already’. The performance was originally intended for 6 Jan. (V. P. xi. 219), but on 10 Jan. Chamberlain wrote to Carleton (Birch, i. 87), ‘The mask at court is put off till Candlemas, as it is thought the Spaniard may be gone, for the French ambassador hath been so long and so much neglected, that it is doubted more would not be well endured’. The intrigues which determined this delay are described in the diplomatic correspondence of the French and Venetian ambassadors (La Boderie, iv. 104, 123, 136, 145, 175, 228; V. P. xi. 212, 219, 222, 231, 234; cf. Sullivan, 47, 212). Hints of a rapprochement between France and Spain had made James anxious to conciliate Henri IV. Even Anne had learnt discretion, and desired that La Boderie should be present at the mask. He was advised by Salisbury to ask for an invitation, which he did, through his wife and Lady Bedford. He had instructions from Henri to retire from Court and leave a secretary in charge if his master’s dignity was compromised. Unfortunately the Spanish ambassador leiger was reinforced by an ambassador extraordinary, Don Fernandez de Girone, and took advantage of this to press on his side for an invitation. Etiquette gave a precedence to ambassadors extraordinary, and all that could be done was to wait until Don Fernandez was gone. This was not until 1 Feb. La Boderie was at the mask, and treated with much courtesy. He excused himself from dancing, but the Duke of York took out his daughter, and he supped with the King and the princes. He found the mask ‘fort riche, et s’il m’est loisible de le dire, plus superbe qu’ingenieux’. He also thought that of the ‘intermédes’ there were ‘trop et d’assez tristes’. The Spanish influence, however, was sufficiently strong, when exercised on behalf of Flanders, to disappoint the Venetian ambassador of a promised invitation, and La Boderie was the only diplomatic representative present. Anne asked Correr to come privately, but this he would not do, and she said she should trouble herself no more about masks.

It was at first intended to limit the cost of the mask to £1,000, but on 27 Nov. Sir Thomas Lake wrote to Salisbury that the King would allow a ‘reasonable encrease’ upon this, and had agreed that certain lords should sign and allow bills for the charges (S. P. D. Jac. I, xxxvii. 96, printed and misdated 1607 in Sullivan, 201). This duty was apparently assigned to Lord Suffolk as Lord Chamberlain and Lord Worcester as Master of the Horse, in whose names a warrant was issued on 1 Dec. (S. P. D. Jac. I, xxxviii. 1). The financial documents cited by Reyher, 520, suggest that the actual payments passed through the hands of Inigo Jones and Henry Reynolds. Reyher, 72, reckons the total cost at near £5,000. This seems very high. A contemporary writer, W. Ffarrington (Chetham Soc. xxxix. 151), gives the estimate of ‘them that had a hand in the business as “at the leaste two thousand pounde”’.

Oberon, the Faery Prince. 1 Jan. 1611

1616. Oberon the Faery Prince. A Masque of Prince Henries. W. Stansby, sold by Richard Meighen. [Part of F_{1}.]

The maskers were Oberon and his Knights, accompanied by the Faies, ‘some bearing lights’; the antimaskers Satyrs; the presenters Sylvans; some of the musicians Satyrs and Faies.

This was ‘a very stately maske ... in the beautifull roome at Whitehall, which roome is generally called the Banquetting-house; and the King new builded it about foure yeeres past’ (Stowe, Annales, 910). ‘The first face of the scene’ was a cliff, from which the antimask issued. The scene opened to discover the front of a palace, and this again, after ‘an antick dance’ ended by the crowing of the cock, to disclose ‘the nation of Faies’, with the maskers on ‘sieges’ and Oberon in a chariot drawn by two white bears. ‘The lesser Faies’ danced; then came a first and second ‘masque-dance’, then ‘measures, corantos, galliards, etc.’, and finally a ‘last dance into the work’.

This was a Prince’s mask, and clearly Henry was Oberon, but the names of the other maskers are not preserved.

Henry’s preparation for a mask is mentioned on 15 Nov. by Correr, who reports that he would have liked it to be on horseback, if James had consented (V. P. xii. 79), on 3 Dec. by Thomas Screven (Rutland MSS. iv. 211), ‘The Prince is com to St. James and prepareth for a mask’, and on 15 Dec. by John More (Winwood, iii. 239), ‘Yet doth the Prince make but one mask’.

The diplomatic tendency at this time was to detach France from growing relations from Spain, and it was intended that both the masks of the winter 1610–11 should serve to entertain the Marshal de Laverdin, expected as ambassador extraordinary from Paris for the signature of a treaty. But the Regent Marie de Médicis was not anxious to emphasize the occasion, and the Marshal did not arrive in time for the Prince’s mask, which took place on 1 Jan. ‘It looked’, says Correr, ‘as though he did not understand the honour done him by the King and the Prince.’ The Spanish and Venetian ambassadors were therefore invited, and were present. The Dutch ambassador was invited, but professed illness, to avoid complications with the Spaniard. Correr found the mask ‘very beautiful throughout, very decorative, but most remarkable for the grace of the Prince’s every movement’ (Rutland MSS. i. 426; V. P. xii. 101, 106; cf. Sullivan, 61).

None of the above notices in fact identify Henry’s mask of 1 Jan. 1611 with the undated Oberon, but proof is forthcoming from an Exchequer payment of May 1611 for ‘the late Princes barriers and masks’ (text in Reyher, 511) which specifies ‘the Satires and faeries’. The amount was £247 9_s._, and the items include payments to composers, musicians, and players. We learn that [Robert] Johnson and [Thomas] Giles provided the dances, and Alphonse [Ferrabosco] singers and lutenists, that the violins were Thomas Lupo the elder, Alexander Chisan, and Rowland Rubidge, and that ‘xiij^n Holt boyes’ were employed, presumably as fays. There is a sum of £15 for ‘players imployed in the maske’ and £15 more for ‘players imployed in the barriers’, about which barriers no more is known. This account, subscribed by Sir Thomas Chaloner, by no means exhausts the expense of the mask. Other financial documents (Devon, 131, 134, 136; cf. Reyher, 521) show payments of £40 each to Jonson and Inigo Jones, and £20 each to Ferrabosco, Jerome Herne, and Confess. These were from the Exchequer. An additional £16 to Inigo Jones ‘devyser for the saide maske’ fell upon Henry’s privy purse, together with heavy bills to mercers and other tradesmen, amounting to £1,076 6_s._ 10_d._ (Cunningham, viii, from Audit Office Declared Accts.). Correr had reported on 22 Nov. that neither of the masks of this winter was to ‘be so costly as last year’s, which to say sooth was excessively costly’ (V. P. xii. 86). The anticipation can hardly have been fulfilled. I suppose that ‘last year’s’ means the Tethys’ Festival of June 1610, as no mask during the winter of 1609–10 is traceable.

Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly. 3 Feb. 1611

1616. A Masque of her Maiesties. Love freed from Ignorance and Folly. W. Stansby, sold by Richard Meighen. [Part of F_{1}.]

The maskers were eleven Daughters of the Morn, led by the Queen of the Orient; the antimaskers twelve Follies or She-Fools; the presenters Cupid and Ignorance, a Sphinx; the musicians twelve Priests of the Muses, who also danced a measure, and three Graces, with others.

The locality was probably the banqueting-hall. The scene is not described. There were two ‘masque-dances’, with ‘measures and revels’ between them. This was a Queen’s mask, but the names of the maskers are not preserved.

John More wrote on 15 Dec. (Winwood, iii. 239), ‘Yet doth the Prince make but one mask, and the Queen but two, which doth cost her majesty but £600.’ Perhaps the writer was mistaken. Anne had not given more than one mask in any winter, nor is there any trace of a second in that of 1610–11. Correr, on 22 Nov., anticipates one only, not to be so costly as last year’s. It was to precede the Prince’s. It was, however, put off to Twelfth Night, and then again to Candlemas, ‘either because the stage machinery is not in order, or because their Majesties thought it well to let the Marshal depart first’. This was Marshal de Laverdin, whose departure from France as ambassador extraordinary was delayed (cf. Mask of Oberon). He was present at the mask when it actually took place on 3 Feb., the day after Candlemas. Apparently the Venetian ambassador was also invited. (V. P. xii. 86, 101, 106, 110, 115.)

Several financial documents bearing on the mask exist (S. P. D. Jac. I, lvii, Nov.; Devon, 135; Reyher, 509, 521), and show that the contemplated £600 was in fact exceeded. An account signed by the Earls of Suffolk and Worcester, to whom the oversight of the charges was doubtless assigned as Household officers, shows that in addition to £600 14_s._ 3_d._ spent in defraying the bills of Inigo Jones and others and in rewards, there was a further expenditure of £118 7_s._ by the Wardrobe, and even then no items are included for the dresses of the main maskers, which were probably paid for by the wearers. The rewards include £2 each to five boys who played the Graces, Sphinx, and Cupid, and £1 each to the twelve Fools. This enables us to identify Jonson’s undated mask with that of 1611. Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones had £40 each; Alphonso [Ferrabosco] £20 for the songs; [Robert] Johnson and Thomas Lupo £5 each for setting the songs to lutes and setting the dances to violins, and Confess and Bochan £50 and £20 for teaching the dances.

Love Restored. 6 Jan. 1612

1616. Love Restored, In a Masque at Court, by Gentlemen the Kings Seruants. W. Stansby, sold by Richard Meighen. [Part of F_{1}.]

The maskers were the ten Ornaments of Court--Honour, Courtesy, Valour, Urbanity, Confidence, Alacrity, Promptness, Industry, Hability, Reality; the presenters Masquerado, Plutus, Robin Goodfellow, and Cupid, who entered in a chariot attended by the maskers. There were three dances. Jonson’s description is exceptionally meagre.

The dialogue finds its humour in the details of mask-presentation themselves. Masquerado, in his vizard, apologizes for the absence of musicians and the hoarseness of ‘the rogue play-boy, that acts Cupid’. Plutus criticizes the expense and the corruption of manners involved in masks. Robin Goodfellow narrates his difficulties in obtaining access. He has tried in vain to get through the Woodyard on to the Terrace, but the Guard pushed him off a ladder into the Verge. The Carpenters’ way also failed him. He has offered, or thought of offering, himself as an ‘enginer’ belonging to the ‘motions’, but they were ‘ceased’; as an old tire-woman; as a musician; as a feather-maker of Blackfriars; as a ‘bombard man’, carrying ‘bouge’ to country ladies who had fasted for the fine sight since seven in the morning; as a citizen’s wife, exposed to the liberties of the ‘black-guard’; as a wireman or a chandler; and finally in his own shape as ‘part of the Device’.

There are several financial documents relating to a mask at Christmas 1611, for which funds were issued to one Meredith Morgan (S. P. D. Jac. I, lxvii, Dec.; lxviii, Jan.; Reyher, 521). The Revels Account (Cunningham, 211) records a ‘princes Mask performed by Gentelmen of his High [ ]’ on 6 Jan. 1612. According to Chamberlain, the Queen was at Greenwich ‘practising for a new mask’ on 20 Nov., but this was put off in December as ‘unseasonable’ so soon after the death of the Queen of Spain (Birch, i. 148, 152). Jonson does not date Love Restored, but Dr. Brotanek has successfully assigned it to 1611–12 on the ground of its reference to ‘the Christmas cut-purse’, of whom Chamberlain wrote to Carleton on 31 Dec. 1611 that ‘a cut-purse, taken in the Chapel Royal, will be executed’ (Brotanek, 347; cf. S. P. D. Jac. I, lxvii. 117, and Bartholomew Fair (1614), III. v. 132). This was one John Selman, executed on 7 Jan. 1612 for picking the pocket of Leonard Barry, servant to Lord Harington, on Christmas Day (Rye, 269). I may add that Robin Goodfellow, when pretending to be concerned with the motions, was asked if he were ‘the fighting bear of last year’, and that the chariot of Oberon on 1 Jan. 1611 was drawn by white bears. There is, of course, nothing inconsistent in a Prince’s mask being performed by King’s servants, and the ‘High[ness]’ of the Revels Account may mean James, just as well as Henry. Simpson (E. M. 1. xxxiv) puts Love Restored in 1613–14, as connected with the tilt (cf. p. 393), but there is no room for it (cf. p. 246).

The Irish Mask. 29 Dec. 1613

1616. The Irish Masque at Court, by Gentlemen the Kings Servants. W. Stansby, sold by Richard Meighen. [Part of F_{1}.]

The maskers were twelve Irish Gentlemen, first in mantles, then without; the antimaskers their twelve Footmen; the presenters a Citizen and a Gentleman; one of the musicians an Irish bard. The Footmen dance ‘to the bag-pipe and other rude music’, after which the Gentlemen ‘dance forth’ twice.

The antimaskers say that their lords have come to the bridal of ‘ty man Robyne’ to the daughter of ‘Toumaish o’ Shuffolke’, who has knocked them on the pate with his ‘phoyt stick’, as they came by. There are also compliments to ‘King Yamish’, ‘my Mistresh tere’, ‘my little Maishter’, and ‘te vfrow, ty daughter, tat is in Tuchland’. It is therefore easy to supply the date which Jonson omits, as the mask clearly belongs to the series presented in honour of the wedding of Robert Earl of Somerset with the Earl of Suffolk’s daughter during the Christmas of 1613–14. The list in Stowe, Annales, 928 (cf. s.v. Campion), includes one on 29 Dec. by ‘the Prince’s Gentlemen, which pleased the King so well that hee caused them to performe it againe uppon the Monday following’. This was 3 Jan.; the 10 Jan. in Nichols, ii. 718, is a misreading of the evidence in Chamberlain’s letters, which identify the mask as Jonson’s by a notice of the Irish element. On 30 Dec. Chamberlain wrote to Alice Carleton (Birch, i. 285), ‘yesternight there was a medley mask of five English and five Scots, which are called the high dancers, amongst whom Sergeant Boyd, one Abercrombie, and Auchternouty, that was at Padua and Venice, are esteemed the most principal and lofty, but how it succeeded I know not’. Later in the letter he added, probably in reference to this and not Campion’s mask, ‘Sir William Bowyer hath lost his eldest son, Sir Henry. He was a fine dancer, and should have been of the masque, but overheating himself with practising, he fell into the smallpox and died.’ On 5 Jan. he wrote to Dudley Carleton (Birch, i. 287), ‘The---- maskers were so well liked at court the last week that they were appointed to perform again on Monday: yet their device, which was a mimical imitation of the Irish, was not pleasing to many, who think it no time, as the case stands, to exasperate that nation, by making it ridiculous’. On the finance cf. s.v. Campion.

Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists. 6 Jan. 1615

1616. Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists at Court by Gentlemen the Kings Seruants. W. Stansby, sold by Richard Meighen. [Part of F_{1}.]

The maskers were twelve Sons of Nature; the first antimaskers Alchemists, the second Imperfect Creatures, in helms of limbecs; the presenters Vulcan, Cyclops, Mercury, Nature, and Prometheus, with a chorus of musicians.

The locality was doubtless Whitehall. The scene first discovered was a laboratory. After the antimasks it changed to a bower, whence the maskers descended for ‘the first dance’, ‘the main dance’, and, after dancing with the ladies, ‘their last dance’. Donne (Letters, ii. 65) wrote to Sir Henry Goodyere on 13 Dec. [1614], ‘They are preparing for a masque of gentlemen, in which M^r. Villiers is and M^r. Karre whom I told you before my Lord Chamberlain had brought into the bedchamber’. On 18 Dec. [1614] (ii. 66) he adds, ‘M^r. Villiers ... is here, practising for the masque’. The year-dates can be supplied by comparison with Chamberlain’s letters to Carleton. On 1 Dec. 1614 (S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxviii. 65) Chamberlain wrote, ‘And yet for all this penurious world we speake of a maske this Christmas toward which the King gives 1500£ the principall motiue wherof is thought to be the gracing of younge Villers and to bring him on the stage’. It should be borne in mind that there was at this time an intrigue amongst the Court party opposed to Somerset and the Howards, including Donne’s patroness Lady Bedford, to put forward George Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buckingham, as a rival to the Earl of Somerset in the good graces of James I. On 5 Jan. Chamberlain wrote again (S. P. D. Jac. I, lxxx. 1; Birch, i. 290, but there misdated), ‘Tomorrow night there is a mask at court, but the common voice and preparations promise so little, that it breeds no great expectation’; and on 12 Jan. (S. P. D. lxxx. 4; Birch, i. 356), ‘The only matter I can advertise ... is the success of the mask on Twelfth Night, which was so well liked and applauded, that the King had it represented again the Sunday night after [8 Jan.] in the very same manner, though neither in device nor show was there anything extraordinary, but only excellent dancing; the choice being made of the best, both English and Scots’. He then describes an ambassadorial incident, which is also detailed in a report by Foscarini (V. P. xiii. 317) and by Finett, 19 (cf. Sullivan, 95). The Spanish ambassador refused to appear in public with the Dutch ambassador, although it was shown that his predecessor had already done so, and in the end both withdrew. The Venetian ambassador and Tuscan agent were alone present. An invitation to the French ambassador does not appear to have been in question.

Financial documents (Reyher, 523; S. P. D. lxxx, Mar.) show that one Walter James received Exchequer funds for the mask.

I am not quite sure that Brotanek, 351, is right in identifying Mercury Vindicated with the mask of January 1615 and The Golden Age Restored with that of January 1616, but the evidence is so inconclusive that it is not worth while to disturb his chronology. Mercury Vindicated is not dated in the Folio, but it is printed next before The Golden Age Restored, which is dated ‘1615’. Now it is true that the order of the Folio, as Brotanek points out, appears to be chronological; but it is also true that, at any rate for the masks, the year-dates, by a practice characteristic of Jonson, follow Circumcision and not Annunciation style. One or other principle seems to have been disregarded at the end of the Folio, and who shall say which? Brotanek attempts to support his arrangement by tracing topical allusions (a) in Mercury Vindicated to Court ‘brabbles’ of 1614–15, (b) in The Golden Age Restored to the Somerset esclandre. But there are always ‘brabbles’ in courts, and I can find no references to Somerset at all. Nor is it in the least likely that there would be any. Per contra, I may note that Chamberlain’s description of the ‘device’ in 1615 as not ‘extraordinary’ applies better to The Golden Age Restored than to Mercury Vindicated.

The Golden Age Restored. 1 Jan. 1616

1616. The Golden Age Restor’d. In a Maske at Court, 1615. by the Lords, and Gentlemen, the Kings Seruants. W. Stansby, sold by Richard Meighen. [Part of F_{1}.]

The maskers were Sons of Phoebus, Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, Spenser, and presumably others; the antimaskers twelve Evils; the presenters Pallas, Astraea, the Iron Age, and the Golden Age, with a chorus of musicians.

The locality was doubtless Whitehall. Pallas descended, and the Evils came from a cave, danced to ‘two drums, trumpets, and a confusion of martial music’, and were turned to statues. The scene changed, and later the scene of light was discovered. After ‘the first dance’ and ‘the main dance’, the maskers danced with the ladies, and then danced ‘the galliards and corantos’.

Finett, 31 (cf. Sullivan, 237), tells us that ‘The King being desirous that the French, Venetian, and Savoyard ambassadors should all be invited to a maske at court prepared for New-years night, an exception comming from the French, was a cause of deferring their invitation till Twelfe night, when the Maske was to be re-acted, ... [They] were received at eight of the clock, the houre assigned (no supper being prepared for them, as at other times, to avoid the trouble incident) and were conducted to the privy gallery by the Lord Chamberlaine and the Lord Danvers appointed (an honour more than had been formerly done to Ambassadors Ordinary) to accompany them, the Master of the Ceremonies being also present. They were all there placed at the maske on the Kings right hand (not right out, but byas forward) first and next to the King the French, next him the Venetian, and next him the Savoyard. At his Majesties left hand sate the Queen, and next her the Prince. The maske being ended, they followed his Majesty to a banquet in the presence, and returned by the way they entered: the followers of the French were placed in a seate reserved for them above over the Kings right hand; the others in one on the left. The Spanish ambassadors son, and the agent of the Arch-Duke (who invited himselfe) were bestowed on the forme where the Lords sit, next beneath the Barons, English, Scotish, and Irish as the sonns of the Ambassador of Venice, and of Savoy had been placed the maske night before, but were this night placed with their countreymen in the gallery mentioned.’

Financial documents (Reyher, 523; S. P. D. lxxxix. 104) show Exchequer payments for the mask to Edmund Sadler and perhaps Meredith Morgan.

On the identification of the mask of 1 and 6 Jan. 1616 with The Golden Age Restored, s.v. Mercury Vindicated.

ENTERTAINMENTS

Althorp Entertainment [The Satyr]. 1603

S. R. 1604, March 19. [See Coronation Entertainment.]

1604. A particular Entertainment of the Queene and Prince their Highnesse to Althrope, at the Right Honourable the Lord Spencers, on Saterday being the 25. of Iune 1603. as they come first into the Kingdome; being written by the same Author [B. Jon:], and not before published. V.S. for Edward Blount. [Appended to the Coronation Entertainment.]

Editions in Works and by Nichols, James (1828), i. 176.

The host, Sir Robert Spencer, of Althorp, Northants, was created Lord Spencer of Wormleighton on 21 July 1603. On arrival (25 June) the Queen and Prince were met in the park by a Satyr, Queen Mab, and a bevy of Fairies, who after a dialogue and song, introduced Spencer’s son John, as a huntsman, to Henry; and a hunt followed. On Monday afternoon (27 June) came Nobody with a speech to introduce ‘a morris of the clowns thereabout’, but this and a parting speech by a youth could not be heard for the throng.

Coronation Entertainment. 1604

S. R. 1604, March 19 (Pasfield). ‘A Parte of the Kinges Maiesties ... Entertainement ... done by Beniamin Johnson.’ Edward Blunt (Arber, iii. 254).

1604. B. Jon: his part of King James his Royall and Magnificent Entertainement through his Honorable Cittie of London, Thurseday the 15. of March, 1603. So much as was presented in the first and last of their Triumphall Arch’s. With his speach made to the last Presentation, in the Strand, erected by the inhabitants of the Dutchy, and Westminster. Also, a briefe Panegyre of his Maiesties first and well auspicated entrance to his high Court of Parliament, on Monday, the 19. of the same Moneth. With other Additions. V.S. for Edward Blount. [This also includes the Althorp Entertainment.]

Editions in Works of Jonson, and by Nichols, James (1828), i. 377.

For other descriptions of the triumph and Jonson’s speeches cf. ch. xxiv, C.

Highgate Entertainment [The Penates]. 1604

1616. [Head-title] A Priuate Entertainment of the King and Queene, on May Day in the Morning, At Sir William Cornwalleis his house, at Highgate. 1604. [Part of F_{1}.]

Editions in Works and by Nichols, James (1828), i. 431.

The host was Sir William Cornwallis, son of Sir Thomas, of Brome Hall, Suffolk. On arrival, in the morning (1 May), the King and Queen were received by the Penates, and led through the house into the garden, for speeches by Mercury and Maia, and a song by Aurora, Zephyrus, and Flora. In the afternoon was a dialogue in the garden by Mercury and Pan, who served wine from a fountain.

Entertainment of King of Denmark. 1606

1616. [Head-title] The entertainment of the two Kings of Great Brittaine and Denmarke at Theobalds, Iuly 24, 1606. [Part of F_{1}.]

Editions in Works and by Nichols, James, ii. 70.

This consists only of short speeches by the three Hours to James (in English) and Christian (in Latin) on their entry into the Inner Court at Lord Salisbury’s house of Theobalds, Herts. (24 July), and some Latin inscriptions and epigrams hung on the walls. But the visit lasted until 28 July, and further details are given, not only in the well-known letter of Sir John Harington (cf. ch. vi) but also in The King of Denmarkes Welcome (1606; cf. ch. xxiv), whose author, while omitting to describe ‘manie verie learned, delicate and significant showes and deuises’, because ‘there is no doubt but the author thereof who hath his place equall with the best in those Artes, will himselfe at his leasurable howers publish it in the best perfection’, gives a Song of Welcome, sung under an artificial oak of silk at the gates. Probably this was not Jonson’s, as he did not print it. Bond, i. 505, is hardly justified in reprinting it as Lyly’s.

Theobalds Entertainment. 1607

1616. An Entertainment of King Iames and Queene Anne, at Theobalds, When the House was deliuered vp, with the posession, to the Queene, by the Earle of Salisburie, 22. of May, 1607. The Prince Ianvile, brother to the Duke of Guise, being then present. [Part of F_{1}.]

Editions in Works and by Nichols, James (1828), ii. 128.

The Genius of the house mourns the departure of his master, but is consoled by Mercury, Good Event, and the three Parcae, and yields the keys to Anne. The performance took place in a gallery, known later as the green gallery, 109 feet long by 12 wide. Boderie, ii. 253, notes the ‘espéce de comedie’, and the presence of Prince de Joinville.

Prince Henry’s Barriers. 6 Jan. 1610

1616. The Speeches at Prince Henries Barriers. [Part of F_{1}.]

Editions in Works and by Nichols, James (1828), ii. 271.

The barriers had a spectacular setting. The Lady of the Lake is ‘discovered’ and points to her lake and Merlin’s tomb. Arthur is ‘discovered as a star above’. Merlin rises from his tomb. Their speeches lament the decay of chivalry, and foretell its restoration, now that James ‘claims Arthur’s seat’, through a knight, for whom Arthur gives the Lady a shield. The Knight, ‘Meliadus, lord of the isles’, is then ‘discovered’ with his six assistants in a place inscribed ‘St. George’s Portico’. Merlin tells the tale of English history. Chivalry comes forth from a cave, and the barriers take place, after which Merlin pays final compliments to the King and Queen, Henry, Charles, and Elizabeth.

Jonson does not date the piece, but it stands in F_{1} between the Masque of Queens (2 Feb. 1609) and Oberon (1 Jan. 1611), and this, with the use of the name Meliadus, enables us to attach it to the barriers of 6 Jan. 1610, of which there is ample record (Stowe, Annales, 574; Cornwallis, Life of Henry, 12; Birch, i. 102; Winwood, iii. 117; V. P. xi. 400, 403, 406, 410, 414). It was Henry’s first public appearance in arms, and he had some difficulty in obtaining the King’s consent, but His Majesty did not wish to cross him. The challenge, speeches for which are summarized by Cornwallis, was on 31 Dec. in the presence-chamber, and until 6 Jan. Henry kept open table at St. James’s at a cost of £100 a day. With him as challengers were the Duke of Lennox, the Earls of Arundel and Southampton, Lord Hay, Sir Thomas Somerset, and Sir Richard Preston. There were fifty-eight defendants, of whom prizes were adjudged to the Earl of Montgomery, Thomas Darcy, and Sir Robert Gordon. Each bout consisted of two pushes with the pike and twelve sword-strokes, and the young prince gave or received that night thirty-two pushes and about 360 strokes. Drummond of Hawthornden, who called his elegy on Henry Tears on the Death of Moeliades, explains the name as an anagram, Miles a Deo.

A Challenge at Tilt. 1 Jan. 1614

1616. A Challenge at Tilt, at a Marriage. [Part of F_{1} where it follows upon the mask Love Restored (q.v.), and the type is perhaps arranged so as to suggest a connexion, which can hardly have existed.]

Editions in Works and by Nichols, James (1828), ii. 716.

On the day after the marriage, two Cupids, as pages of the bride and bridegroom, quarrelled and announced the tilt. On 1 Jan. each came in a chariot, with a company of ten knights, of whom the Bride’s were challengers, and introduced and followed the tilting with speeches. Finally, Hymen resolved the dispute.

This tilt was on 1 Jan. 1614, after the wedding of the Earl of Somerset on 26 Dec. 1613, as is clearly shown by a letter of Chamberlain (Birch, i. 287). The bride’s colours were murrey and white, the bridegroom’s green and yellow. The tilters included the Duke of Lennox, the Earls of Rutland, Pembroke, Montgomery, and Dorset, Lords Chandos, Scrope, Compton, North, Hay, Norris, and Dingwall, Lord Walden and his brothers, and Sir Henry Cary.

Lost Entertainment

When James dined with the Merchant Taylors on 16 July 1607 (cf. ch. iv), Jonson wrote a speech of eighteen verses, for recitation by an Angel of Gladness. This ‘pleased his Majesty marvelously well’, but does not seem to have been preserved (Nichols, James, ii. 136; Clode, i. 276).

FRANCIS KINWELMERSHE (>1577–?1580).

A Gray’s Inn lawyer, probably of Charlton, Shropshire, verses by whom are in The Paradise of Dainty Devices (1576).

Jocasta. 1566

Translated with George Gascoigne (q.v.).

THOMAS KYD (1558–94).

Kyd was baptized on 6 Nov. 1558. His father, Francis Kyd, was a London citizen and a scrivener. John Kyd, a stationer, may have been a relative. Thomas entered the Merchant Taylors School in 1565, but there is no evidence that he proceeded to a university. It is possible that he followed his father’s profession before he drifted into literature. He seems to be criticized as translator and playwright in Nashe’s Epistle to Greene’s Menaphon in 1589 (cf. App. C), and a reference there has been rather rashly interpreted as implying that he was the author of an early play on Hamlet. About the same time his reputation was made by The Spanish Tragedy, which came, with Titus Andronicus, to be regarded as the typical drama of its age. Ben Jonson couples ‘sporting Kyd’ with ‘Marlowe’s mighty line’ in recording the early dramatists outshone by Shakespeare. Towards the end of his life Kyd’s relations with Marlowe brought him into trouble. During the years 1590–3 he was in the service of a certain noble lord for whose players Marlowe was in the habit of writing. The two sat in the same room and certain ‘atheistic’ papers of Marlowe’s got mixed up with Kyd’s. On 12 May 1593 Kyd was arrested on a suspicion of being concerned in certain ‘lewd and mutinous libels’ set up on the wall of the Dutch churchyard; the papers were discovered and led to Marlowe (q.v.) being arrested also. Kyd, after his release, wrote to the Lord Keeper, Sir John Puckering, to repudiate the charge of atheism and to explain away his apparent intimacy with Marlowe. It is not certain who the ‘lord’ with whom the two writers were connected may have been; possibly Lord Pembroke or Lord Strange, for whose players Marlowe certainly wrote; possibly also Henry Radcliffe, fourth Earl of Sussex, to whose daughter-in-law Kyd dedicated his translation of Cornelia, after his disgrace, in 1594. Before the end of 1594 Kyd had died intestate in the parish of St. Mary Colchurch, and his parents renounced the administration of his goods.

Collection

1901. F. S. Boas, The Works of T. K. [Includes 1 Jeronimo and Soliman and Perseda.]

Dissertations: K. Markscheffel, T. K.’s Tragödien (1886–7, Jahresbericht des Realgymnasiums zu Weimar); A. Doleschal, Eigenthümlichkeiten der Sprache in T. K.’s Dramen (1888), Der Versbau in T. K.’s Dramen (1891); E. Ritzenfeldt, Der Gebrauch des Pronomens, Artikels und Verbs bei T. K.; G. Sarrazin, T. K. und sein Kreis (1892, incorporating papers in Anglia and E. S.); J. Schick, T. K.’s Todesjahr (1899, Jahrbuch, xxxv. 277); O. Michael, Der Stil in T. K.’s Originaldramen (1905, Berlin diss.); C. Crawford, Concordance to the Works of T. K. (1906–10, Materialien, xv); F. C. Danchin, Études critiques sur C. Marlowe (1913, Revue Germanique, ix. 566); T. L. S. (June, 1921).

The Spanish Tragedy, c. 1589

S. R. 1592, Oct. 6 (Hartwell). ‘A booke whiche is called the Spanishe tragedie of Don Horatio and Bellmipeia.’ Abel Jeffes (Arber, ii. 621). [Against the fee is a note ‘Debitum hoc’. Herbert-Ames, Typographical Antiquities, ii. 1160, quotes from a record in Dec. 1592 of the Stationers’ Company, not given by Arber: ‘Whereas Edw. White and Abell Jeffes have each of them offended, viz. E. W. in having printed the Spanish tragedie belonging to A. J. And A. J. in having printed the Tragedie of Arden of Kent, belonginge to E. W. It is agreed that all the bookes of each impression shalbe confiscated and forfayted according to thordonances to thuse of the poore of the company ... either of them shall pay for a fine 10_s._ a pece.’]

N.D. The Spanish Tragedie, Containing the lamentable end of Don Horatio, and Bel-Imperia: with the pittiful death of olde Hieronimo. Newly corrected, and amended of such grosse faults as passed in the first impression. Edward Allde for Edward White. [Induction. Greg, Plays, 61, and Boas, xxvii, agree in regarding this as the earliest extant edition. Boas suggests that either it may be White’s illicit print, or, if that print was the ‘first impression’, a later one printed for him by arrangement with Jeffes.]

1594. Abell Jeffes, sold by Edward White.

S. R. 1599, Aug. 13. Transfer ‘salvo iure cuiuscunque’ from Jeffes to W. White (Arber, iii. 146).

1599. William White.

S. R. 1600, Aug. 14. Transfer to Thomas Pavier (Arber, iii. 169).

1602.... Newly corrected, amended, and enlarged with new additions of the Painters part, and others, as it hath of late been diuers times acted. W. White for Thomas Pavier.

1602 (colophon 1603); 1610 (colophon 1611); 1615 (two issues); 1618; 1623 (two issues); 1633.

Editions in Dodsley^{1–4} (1744–1874, v), and by T. Hawkins (1773, O. E. D. ii), W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. i), J. M. Manly (1897, Specimens, ii), J. Schick (1898, T. D.; 1901, Litterarhistorische Forschungen, xix). Dissertations: J. A. Worp, Die Fabel der Sp. T. (1894, Jahrbuch, xxix, 183); G. O. Fleischer, Bemerkungen über Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy (1896).

Kyd’s authorship of the play is recorded by Heywood, Apology, 45 (cf. App. C, No. lvii). The only direct evidence as to the date is Ben Jonson’s statement in the Induction to Bartholomew Fair (1614), ‘He that will swear Ieronimo or Andronicus are the best plays yet, shall pass unexcepted at here as a man whose judgment shows it is constant, and hath stood still these five and twenty or thirty years’. This yields 1584–9. Boas, xxx, argues for 1585–7; W. Bang in Englische Studien, xxviii. 229, for 1589. The grounds for a decision are slight, but the latter date seems to me the more plausible in the absence of any clear allusion to the play in Nashe’s (q.v.) Menaphon epistle of that year.

Strange’s men revived Jeronymo on 14 March 1592 and played it sixteen times between that date and 22 Jan. 1593. I agree with Greg (Henslowe, ii. 150, 153) that by Jeronymo Henslowe meant The Spanish Tragedy, and that the performances of it are distinguishable from those which the company was concurrently giving of a related piece called Don Horatio or ‘the comedy of Jeronimo’, which is probably not to be identified with the extant anonymous 1 Jeronimo (q.v.). On 7 Jan. 1597 the play was revived by the Admiral’s and given twelve times between that date and 19 July. Another performance, jointly with Pembroke’s, took place on 11 Oct. Finally, on 25 Sept. 1601 and 22 June 1602, Henslowe made payments to Jonson, on behalf of the Admiral’s, for ‘adicyons’ to the play. At first sight, it would seem natural to suppose that these ‘adicyons’ are the passages (II. v. 46–133; III. ii. 65–129; III. xii^a. 1–157; IV. iv. 168–217) which appear for the first time in the print of 1602. But many critics have found it difficult to see Jonson’s hand in these, notably Castelain, 886, who would assign them to Webster. And as Henslowe marked the play as ‘n. e.’ in 1597, it is probable that there was some substantial revision at that date. There is a confirmation of this view in Jonson’s own mention of ‘the old Hieronimo (as it was first acted)’ in the induction to Cynthia’s Revels (1600). Perhaps the 1597 revival motived Jonson’s quotation of the play by the mouth of Matheo in E. M. I. I. iv, and in Satiromastix, 1522, Dekker suggests that Jonson himself ‘took’st mad Ieronimoes part, to get service among the Mimickes’. Lines from the play are also recited by the page in Poetaster, III. iv. 231. In the Induction, 84, to Marston’s Malcontent (1604) Condell explains the appropriation of that play by the King’s from the Chapel with this retort, ‘Why not Malevole in folio with us, as well as Jeronimo in decimo sexto with them’. Perhaps 1 Jeronimo is meant; in view of the stage history of The Spanish Tragedy, as disclosed by Henslowe’s diary, the King’s could hardly have laid claim to it.

The play was carried by English actors to Germany (Boas, xcix; Creizenach, xxxiii; Herz, 66, 76), and a German adaptation by Jacob Ayrer is printed by Boas, 348, and with others in German and Dutch, in R. Schönwerth, Die niederländischen und deutschen Bearbeitungen von T. K.’s Sp. T. (1903, Litterarhistorische Forschungen, xxvi).

Cornelia. 1593

S. R. 1594, Jan. 26 (Dickins). ‘A booke called Cornelia, Thomas Kydd beinge the Authour.’ Nicholas Ling and John Busbye (Arber, ii. 644).

1594. Cornelia. James Roberts for N. L. and John Busby. [‘Tho. Kyd’ at end of play.]

1595. Pompey the Great, his fair Corneliaes Tragedie. Effected by her Father and Husbandes downe-cast, death, and fortune. Written in French, by that excellent Poet Ro: Garnier; and translated into English by Thomas Kid. For Nicholas Ling. [A reissue of the 1594 sheets with a new title-page.]

Editions in Dodsley^4, iv. 5 (1874) and by H. Gassner (1894).

A translation of the Cornélie (1574) of Robert Garnier, reissued in his Huit Tragédies (1580). In a dedication to the Countess of Sussex Kyd expressed his intention of also translating the Porcie (1568) of the same writer, but this he did not live to do. He speaks of ‘bitter times and privy broken passions’ endured during the writing of Cornelia which suggests a date after his arrest on 12 May 1593.

Lost and Doubtful Plays

The ‘Ur-Hamlet’

Dissertations: J. Corbin, The German H. and Earlier English Versions (1896, Harvard Studies, v); J. Schick, Die Entstehung des H. (1902, Jahrbuch, xxxviii. xiii); M. B. Evans, Der bestrafte Brudermord, sein Verhältniss zu Shakespeare’s H. (1902); K. Meier (1904, Dresdner Anzeiger); W. Creizenach, Der bestrafte Brudermord and its Relation to Shakespeare’s H. (1904, M. P. ii. 249), Die vorshakespearesche Hamlettragödie (1906, Jahrbuch, xlii. 76); A. E. Jack, Thomas Kyd and the Ur-Hamlet (1905, M. L. A. xx. 729); J. W. Cunliffe, Nash and the Earlier Hamlet (1906, M. L. A. xxi. 193); J. Allen, The Lost H. of K. (1908, Westminster Review); J. Fitzgerald, The Sources of the H. Tragedy (1909); M. J. Wolff, Zum Ur-Hamlet (1912, E. S. xlv. 9); J. M. Robertson, The Problem of Hamlet (1919).

The existence of a play on Hamlet a decade or more before the end of the sixteenth century is established by Henslowe’s note of its revival by the Admiral’s and Chamberlain’s on 11 June 1594 (cf. Greg, Henslowe, ii. 164), and some corroborative allusions, but its relationship to Shakespeare’s play is wholly conjectural. The possible coupling of ‘Kidde’ and ‘Hamlet’ in Nashe’s epistle to Menaphon has led to many speculations as to Kyd’s authorship and as to the lines on which the speculators think he would have treated the theme. Any discussion of these is matter for an account of Hamlet.

Kyd’s hand has also been sought in Arden of Feversham, Contention of York and Lancaster, Edward III, 1 Jeronimo, Leire, Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune, Soliman and Perseda, Taming of A Shrew, and True Tragedy of Richard III (cf. ch. xxiv), and in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus.

MAURICE KYFFIN (?-1599).

A Welshman by birth, he left the service of John Dee, with whom he afterwards kept up friendly relations, on 25 Oct. 1580 (Diary, 10, 15, 48). His epistles suggest that in 1587 he was tutor to Lord Buckhurst’s sons. In 1592 he was vice-treasurer in Normandy. His writings, other than the translation, are unimportant.

Andria of Terence > 1587

1588. Andria The first Comoedie of Terence, in English. A furtherance for the attainment vnto the right knowledge, & true proprietie, of the Latin Tong. And also a commodious meane of help, to such as haue forgotten Latin, for their speedy recouering of habilitie, to vnderstand, write, and speake the same. Carefully translated out of Latin, by Maurice Kyffin. T. E. for Thomas Woodcocke. [Epistle by Kyffin to Henry and Thomas Sackville; commendatory verses by ‘W. Morgan’, ‘Th. Lloid’, ‘G. Camdenus’, ‘Petrus Bizarus’, ‘R. Cooke’; Epistle to William Sackville, dated ‘London, Decemb. 3, 1587’, signed ‘Maurice Kyffin’; Preface to the Reader; Preface by Kyffin to all young Students of the Latin Tongue, signed ‘M. K.’; Argument.]

S. R. 1596, Feb. 9. Transfer of Woodcock’s copies to Paul Linley (Arber, iii. 58).

S. R. 1597, Apr. 21 (Murgetrode). ‘The second Comedy of Terence called Eunuchus.’ Paul Lynley (Arber, iii. 83).

S. R. 1600, June 26. Transfer of ‘The first and second commedie of Terence in Inglishe’ from Paul Linley to John Flasket (Arber, iii. 165).

Presumably the Andria is the ‘first’ comedy of the 1600 transfer, and if so the lost Eunuchus may also have been by Kyffin. The Andria is in prose; Kyffin says he had begun seven years before, nearly finished, and abandoned a version in verse.

JOHN LANCASTER (c. 1588).

A Gray’s Inn lawyer, one of the devisers of dumb-shows and director for the Misfortunes of Arthur of Thomas Hughes (q.v.) in 1588.

SIR HENRY LEE (1531–1611).

[The accounts of Lee in D. N. B. and by Viscount Dillon in Bucks., Berks. and Oxon. Arch. Journ., xii (1906) 65, may be supplemented from Aubrey, ii. 30, J. H. Lea, Genealogical Notes on the Family of Lee of Quarrendon (Genealogist, n.s. viii-xiv), and F. G. Lee in Bucks. Records, iii. 203, 241; iv. 189, The Lees of Quarrendon (Herald and Genealogist, iii. 113, 289, 481), and Genealogy of the Family of Lee (1884).]

Lee belonged to a family claiming a Cheshire origin, which had long been settled in Bucks. From 1441 they were constables and farmers of Quarrendon in the same county, and the manor was granted by Henry VIII to Sir Robert Lee, who was Gentleman Usher of the Chamber and afterwards Knight of the Body. His son Sir Anthony married Margaret, sister of Sir Thomas Wyatt, the poet. Their son Henry was born in 1531, and Aubrey reports the scandal that he was ‘supposed brother to Elizabeth’. He was page of honour to the King, and by 1550 Clerk of the Armoury. He was knighted in 1553. By Sept. 1575 he was Master of the Game at Woodstock (Dasent, ix. 23), and by 1577 Lieutenant of the manor and park (Marshall, Woodstock, 160), holding ‘le highe lodge’ and other royal houses in the locality. Probably he was concerned with the foundation of Queen’s Day (cf. ch. i) in 1570, which certainly originated near Oxford, and when the annual tilting on this day at Whitehall was instituted, Lee acted as Knight of the Crown until his retirement in 1590. He used as his favourite device a crowned pillar. He took some part in the military enterprises of the reign, and in 1578 became Master of the Armoury. In 1597 he was thought of as Vice-Chamberlain, and on 23 April was installed as K.G. He was a great sheep-farmer and encloser of land, and a great builder or enlarger of houses, including Ditchley Hall, four or five miles from Woodstock, in the parish of Spelsbury, where he died on 12 Feb. 1611. By his wife, Anne, daughter of William Lord Paget, who died in 1590, he had two sons and a daughter, who all predeceased him. His will of 6 Oct. 1609 provides for the erection of a tomb in Quarrendon Chapel near his own for ‘M^{rs}. Ann Vavasor alias Finch’. There are no tombs now, but the inscriptions on Lee’s tomb and on a tablet in the chancel, also not preserved, are recorded. The former says:

‘In courtly justs his Soveraignes knight he was’,

and the latter adds:

‘He shone in all those fayer partes that became his profession and vowes, honoring his highly gracious Mistris with reysing those later Olympiads of her Courte, justs and tournaments ... wherein still himself lead and triumphed.’

The writer is William Scott, who also, with Richard Lee, witnessed the will. Anne Vavasour does not in fact appear to have been buried at Quarrendon. Aubrey describes her as ‘his dearest deare’, and says that her effigy was placed at the foot of his on the tomb, and that the bishop threatened to have it removed. Anne’s tomb was in fact defaced as early as 1611. Anne was daughter of Sir Henry and sister of Sir Thomas Vavasour of Copmanthorpe, Yorks. She was a new maid of honour who ‘flourished like the lily and the rose’ in 1590 (Lodge, ii. 423). Another Anne Vavasour came to Court as ‘newly of the beddchamber’ after being Lady Bedford’s ‘woman’, about July 1601 (Gawdy, 112, conjecturally dated; cf. vol. iv, p. 67). Anne Clifford tells us that ‘my cousin Anne Vavisour’ was going with her mother Lady Cumberland and Lady Warwick and herself to meet Queen Anne in 1603, and married Sir Richard Warburton the same year (Wiffen, ii. 69, 72). The Queen is said to have visited Sir Henry and his mistress at a lodge near Woodstock called ‘Little Rest’, now ‘Lee’s Rest’, in 1608. After Lee’s death his successor brought an action against Anne and her brother for illegal detention of his effects (5 N. Q. iii. 294), and the feud was still alive and Anne had added other sins to her score in 1618, when Chamberlain wrote (Birch, ii. 86):

‘M^{rs}. Vavasour, old Sir Henry Lee’s woman, is like to be called in question for having two husbands now alive. Young Sir Henry Lee, the wild oats of Ireland, hath obtained the confiscation of her, if he can prove it without touching her life.’

Aubrey’s story that Lee’s nephew was disinherited in favour of ‘a keeper’s sonne of Whitchwood-forest of his owne name, a one-eied young man, no kinne to him’, is exaggerated gossip. Lee entailed his estate on a second cousin.

I have brought together under Lee’s name two entertainments and fragments of at least one other, which ought strictly to be classed as anonymous, but with which he was certainly concerned, and to which he may have contributed some of the ‘conceiptes, Himmes, Songes & Emblemes’, of which one of the fragments speaks.

The Woodstock Entertainment. Sept. 1575

[MS.] Royal MS. 18 A. xlviii (27). ‘The Tale of Hemetes the Heremyte.’ [The tale is given in four languages, English, Latin, Italian, and French. It is accompanied by pen-and-ink drawings, and preceded by verses and an epistle to Elizabeth. The latter is dated ‘first of January, 1576’ and signed ‘G. Gascoigne’. The English text is, with minor variations, that of the tale as printed in 1585. Its authorship is not claimed by Gascoigne, who says that he has ‘turned the eloquent tale of Hemetes the Heremyte (wherw^{th} I saw yo^r lerned judgment greatly pleased at Woodstock) into latyne, Italyan and frenche’, and contrasts his own ignorance with ‘thaucto^{rs} skyll’.]

S. R. 1579, Sept. 22. ‘A paradox provinge by Reason and Example that Baldnes is muche better than bushie heare.’ H. Denham (Arber, ii. 360).

1579. A Paradoxe, Proving by reason and example, that Baldnesse is much better than bushie haire.... Englished by Abraham Fleming. Hereunto is annexed the pleasant tale of Hemetes the Heremite, pronounced before the Queenes Majestie. Newly recognized both in Latine and Englishe, by the said A. F. H. Denham. [Contains the English text of the Tale and Gascoigne’s Latin version.]

1585. Colophon: ‘Imprinted at London for Thomas Cadman, 1585.’ [Originally contained a complete description of an entertainment, of which the tale of Hemetes only formed part; but sig. A, with the title-page, is missing. The unique copy, formerly in the Rowfant library, is now in the B.M. The t.p. is a modern type-facsimile, based on the head-line and colophon (McKerrow, Bibl. Evidence, 306).]

Editions (a) from 1579, by J. Nichols, Eliz. i. 553 (1823), and W. C. Hazlitt, Gascoigne, ii. 135 (1870); (b) from MS. by J. W. Cunliffe, Gascoigne, ii. 473 (1910); (c) from 1585, by A. W. Pollard (1910, partly printed 1903) and J. W. Cunliffe (1911, _M. L. A._ xxvi. 92).

Gascoigne’s manuscript is chiefly of value as fixing the locality of the entertainment, which is not mentioned in the mutilated print of 1585. The date can hardly be doubtful. Elizabeth spent considerable periods at Woodstock in 1572, 1574, and 1575, but it so happens that only in 1575 was she there on the 20th of a month (vide infra and App. B). Moreover, Laurence Humphrey’s Oratio delivered at Woodstock on 11 Sept. 1575 (Nichols, i. 590) refers to the entertainment in the phrase ‘an ... Gandina spectacula ... dabit’. The description takes the form of a letter from an eyewitness, evidently not the deviser, and professing ignorance of Italian; not, therefore, Gascoigne, as pointed out by Mr. Pollard. At the beginning of sig. B, Hemetes, a hermit, has evidently just interrupted a fight between Loricus and Contarenus. He brings them, with the Lady Caudina, to a bower, where Elizabeth is placed, and tells his Tale, of which the writer says, ‘hee shewed a great proofe of his audacity, in which tale if you marke the woords with this present world, or were acquainted with the state of the deuises, you should finde no lesse hidden then vttered, and no lesse vttered then shoulde deserue a double reading ouer, euen of those (with whom I finde you a companion) that haue disposed their houres to the study of great matters’. The Tale explains how the personages have come together. Contarenus loved Caudina, daughter of Occanon Duke of Cambia. At Occanon’s request, an enchantress bore him away, and put him in charge of the blind hermit, until after seven years he should fight the hardiest knight and see the worthiest lady in the world. Caudina, setting out with two damsels to seek him, met at the grate of Sibilla with Loricus, a knight seeking renown as a means to his mistress’s favour. Sibilla bade them wander, till they found a land in all things best, and with a Princess most worthy. Hemetes himself has been blinded by Venus for loving books as well as a lady, and promised by Apollo the recovery of his sight, where most valiant knights fight, most constant lovers meet, and the worthiest lady looks on. Obviously it is all a compliment to the worthiest lady. Thus the Tale ends. The Queen is now led to the hermit’s abode, an elaborate sylvan banqueting-house, built on a mound forty feet high, roofed by an oak, and hung with pictures and posies of ‘the noble or men of great credite’, some of which the French ambassador made great suit to have. Here Elizabeth was visited by ‘the Queen of the Fayry drawen with 6 children in a waggon of state’, who presented her with an embroidered gown. Couplets or ‘posies’ set in garlands were also given to the Queen, to the Ladies Derby, Warwick, Hunsdon, Howard, Susan and Mary Vere, and to Mistresses Skidmore, Parry, Abbington, Sidney, Hopton, Katherine Howard, Garret, Bridges, Burrough, Knowles, and Frances Howard. After a speech from Caudina, Elizabeth departed, as it was now dark, well pleased with her afternoon, and listening to a song from an oak tree as she went by. A somewhat cryptic passage follows. Elizabeth is said to have left ‘earnest command that the whole in order as it fell, should be brought her in writing, which being done, as I heare, she vsed, besides her owne skill, the helpe of the deuisors, & how thinges were made I know not, but sure I am her Maiesty hath often in speech some part hereof with mirth at the remembrance.’ Then follows a comedy acted on ‘the 20 day of the same moneth’, which ‘was as well thought of, as anye thing ever done before her Maiestie, not onely of her, but of the rest: in such sort that her Graces passions and other the Ladies could not [? but] shew it selfe in open place more than euer hath beene seene’. The comedy, in 991 lines of verse, is in fact a sequel to the Tale. In it Occanon comes to seek Caudina, who is persuaded by his arguments and the mediation of Eambia, the Fairy Queen, to give up her lover for her country’s sake.

Pollard suggests Gascoigne as the author of the comedy, but of this there is no external evidence. He also regards the intention of the whole entertainment as being the advancement of Leicester’s suit. Leicester was no doubt at Woodstock, even before the Queen, for he wrote her a letter from there on 4 Sept. (S. P. D. Eliz. cv. 36); but the undated letter which Pollard cites (cv. 38), and in which Leicester describes himself as ‘in his survey to prepare for her coming’, probably precedes the Kenilworth visit. Pollard dates it 6 Sept., but Elizabeth herself seems to have reached Woodstock by that date. Professor Cunliffe, on the other hand, thinks that the intention was unfavourable to Leicester’s suit, and thus explains the stress laid on Caudina’s renunciation of her lover for political reasons. I doubt if there is any reference to the matter at all; it would have been dangerous matter for a courtly pen. Doubtless the writer of the description talks of ‘audacity’, in the Tale, not the comedy. But has he anything more in mind than Sir Henry Lee, whom we are bound to find, here as elsewhere, in Loricus, and his purely conventional worship of Elizabeth?

The Tilt Yard Entertainment. 17 Nov. 1590

There are two contemporary descriptions, viz.:

1590. Polyhymnia Describing, the Honourable Triumph at Tylt, before her Maiestie, on the 17 of Nouember last past, being the first day of the three and thirtith yeare of her Highnesse raigne. With Sir Henrie Lea, his resignation of honour at Tylt, to her Maiestie, and receiued by the right honorable, the Earle of Cumberland. R. Jones. [Dedication by George Peele to Lord Compton on verso of t.p.]

1602. W. Segar, Honor, Military and Ciuill, Book iii, ch. 54, ‘The Originall occasions of the yeerely Triumphs in England’.

Segar’s account is reproduced by Nichols, Eliz. iii. 41, and both in the editions of Peele (q.v.) by Dyce and Bullen. A manuscript copy with variants from the Q. is at St. John’s College, Oxford (F. S. Boas in M. L. R. xi. 300). Polyhymnia mainly consists of a blank verse description and eulogy of the twenty-six tilters, in couples according to the order of the first running of six courses each, viz. Sir Henry Lee and the Earl of Cumberland, Lord Strange and Thomas Gerrard, Lord Compton and Henry Nowell, Lord Burke and Sir Edward Denny, the Earl of Essex and Fulk Greville, Sir Charles Blount and Thomas Vavasor, Robert Carey and William Gresham, Sir William Knowles and Anthony Cooke, Sir Thomas Knowles and Sir Philip Butler, Robert Knowles and Ralph Bowes, Thomas Sidney and Robert Alexander, John Nedham and Richard Acton, Charles Danvers and Everard Digby. The colours and in some cases the ‘device’ or ‘show’ are indicated. Lee is described as

Knight of the crown, in rich embroidery, And costly fair caparison charged with crowns, O’ershadowed with a withered running vine, As who would say, ‘My spring of youth is past’, In corselet gilt of curious workmanship.

Strange entered ‘in costly ship’, with the eagle for his device; Essex

In stately chariot full of deep device, Where gloomy Time sat whipping on the team, Just back to back with this great champion.

Blount’s badge was the sun, Carey’s a burning heart, Cooke’s a hand and heart,

And Life and Death he portray’d in his show.

The three Knowles brothers bore golden boughs. A final section of the poem describes how, after the running, Sir Henry Lee, ‘knight of the Crown’, unarmed himself in a pavilion of Vesta, and petitioned the Queen to allow him to yield his ‘honourable place’ to Cumberland, to whom he gave his armour and lance, vowing to betake himself to orisons.

Segar gives a fuller account of Lee’s fantasy. He had vowed, ‘in the beginning of her happy reigne’, to present himself yearly in arms on the day of Elizabeth’s accession. The courtiers, incited by his example, had yearly assembled, ‘not vnlike to the antient Knighthood della Banda in Spaine’, but in 1590, ‘being now by age ouertaken’, Lee resigned his office to Cumberland. The ceremony took place ‘at the foot of the staires vnder her gallery-window in the Tilt-yard at Westminster’, where Elizabeth sat with the French ambassador, Viscount Turenne. A pavilion, representing the Temple of the Vestal Virgins, arose out of the earth. Within was an altar, with gifts for the queen; before the door a crowned pillar, embraced by an eglantine, and bearing a complimentary inscription. As the knights approached, ‘M. Hales her maiesties seruant’ sang verses beginning:

My golden locks time hath to siluer turned.

The vestals then gave the Queen a veil and a cloak and safeguard, the buttons of which bore the ‘emprezes’ or ‘badges’ of many nobles, friends of Lee, each fixed to an embroidered pillar, the last being ‘like the character of &c.’ Finally Lee doffed his armour, presented Cumberland, armed and horsed him, and himself donned a side-coat of black velvet and a buttoned cap of the country fashion. ‘After all these ceremonies, for diuers dayes hee ware vpon his cloake a crowne embrodered, with a certaine motto or deuice, but what his intention therein was, himselfe best knoweth.’

The Queen appointed Lee to appear yearly at the exercises, ‘to see, suruey, and as one most carefull and skilfull to direct them’. Segar dwells on Lee’s virtues and valour, and concludes by stating that the annual actions had been performed by 1 Duke, 19 Earls, 27 Barons, 4 Knights of the Garter, and above 150 other Knights and Esquires.

On 20 Nov. 1590 Richard Brakinbury wrote to Lord Talbot (Lodge, ii. 419): ‘These sports were great, and done in costly sort, to her Majesty’s liking, and their great cost. To express every part, with sundry devices, is more fit for them that delight in them, than for me, who esteemeth little such vanities, I thank God.’

P. A. Daniel (Athenaeum for 8 Feb. 1890) notes that a suit of armour in Lord Hothfield’s collection, which once belonged to Cumberland and is represented in certain portraits of him, is probably the identical suit given him by Lee, as it bears a monogram of Lee’s name.

There has been some controversy about the authorship of the verses sung by ‘M. Hales’, who was Robert Hales, a lutenist. They appear, headed ‘A Sonnet’, and unsigned, on a page at the end of Polyhymnia, and have therefore been ascribed to Peele. The evidence, though inconclusive, is better than the wanton conjecture which led Mr. Bond to transfer them to Lyly (Works, i. 410). But a different version in Rawl. Poet. MS. 148, f. 19, is subscribed ‘q^d S^r Henry Leigh’, and some resemblances of expression are to be found in other verses assigned to Lee in R. Dowland, Musicall Banquet (1610), No. 8 (Bond, i. 517; Fellowes, 459). It is not impossible that Lee himself may have been the author. One of the pieces in the Ferrers MS. (vide p. 406 infra) refers to his ‘himmes & songes’. If the verses, which also appear anonymously in J. Dowland, First Booke of Songs or Ayres (1597, Fellowes, 418), are really Lee’s, Wyatt’s nephew was no contemptible poet. Finally, there are echoes of the same theme in yet another set of anonymous verses in J. Dowland, Second Book of Airs (1600, Fellowes, 422), which are evidently addressed to Lee.

_The Second Woodstock Entertainment, 20 Sept. 1592, and Other Fragments_

[MSS.] (a) Ferrers MS., a collection made by Henry Ferrers of Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire (1549–1633).

(b) Inner Temple Petyt MS. 538, 43, ff. 284–363.

[A collection of verses by Lady Pembroke, Sir John Harington, Francis Bacon (q.v.) and others, bound as part of a composite MS.]

(c) Viscount Dillon kindly informs me that a part of the entertainment, dated ‘20 Sept.’, is in his possession.

Editions (Ferrers MS. only) by W. Hamper, Masques: Performed before Queen Elizabeth (1820), and in Kenilworth Illustrated (1821), Nichols, Eliz.^2 iii. 193 (1828), and R. W. Bond, Lyly, i. 412, 453 (1902).

The Ferrers MS. seems to contain ten distinct pieces, separated from each other only by headings, to which I have prefixed the numbers.

(i) ‘A Cartell for a Challeng.’

Three ‘strange forsaken knightes’ offer to maintain ‘that Loue is worse than hate, his Subiectes worse than slaues, and his Rewarde worse than naught: And that there is a Ladie that scornes Loue and his power, of more vertue and greater bewtie than all the Amorouse Dames that be at this day in the worlde’. This cannot be dated. Sir Robert Carey (Memoirs, 33) tilted as a ‘forsaken knight’ on 17 Nov. 1593 (not 1592, as stated by Brotanek, 60), but he was not a challenger, and was alone. The tone resembles that of Sir Henry Lee, and if he took part, the date must be earlier than 1590.

(ii) ‘Sir Henry Lee’s challenge before the Shampanie.’

A ‘strange knight that warres against hope and fortune’ will maintain the cause of Despair in a green suit.

Hamper explained ‘Shampanie’ as ‘the lists or field of contention, from the French campagne’; but Segar, Honor, Military and Ciuill, 197, records, from an intercepted letter of ‘Monsieur de Champany ... being ambassador in England for causes of the Low Countreys’, an occasion on which Sir Henry Lee, ‘the most accomplished cavaliero I had euer seene’, broke lances with other gentlemen in his honour at Greenwich. M. de Champagny was an agent of the native Flemish Catholics, and visited England in 1575 and 1585 (Froude, x. 360; xii. 39). As his letter named ‘Sir’ C. Hatton, who was knighted in 1578, the visit of 1585 must be in question. The Court was at Greenwich from March to July of that year.

(iii) ‘The Supplication of the Owld Knight.’

A speech to the ‘serveres of this English Holiday, or rather Englandes Happie Daye’, in which a knight disabled by age, ‘yet once (thowe unwoorthie) your fellowe in armes, and first celebrator, in this kinde, of this sacred memorie of that blessed reigne’, begs them to ‘accepte to your fellowshippe this oneley sonne of mine’.

This is evidently a speech by Lee, on some 17 Nov. later than 1590. Lee’s own sons died in childhood; probably the ‘son’ introduced was a relative, but possibly only a ‘son’ in chivalry.

(iv) ‘The Message of the Damsell of the Queene of Fayries.’

An ‘inchanted knight’ sends the Queen an image of Cupid. She is reminded how ‘at the celebrating the joyfull remembraunce of the most happie daye of your Highnes entrance into Gouerment of this most noble Islande, howe manie knightes determined, not far hence, with boulde hartes and broken launces, to paye there vowes and shewe theire prowes’. The ‘inchanted knight’ could not ‘chardge staffe, nor strike blowe’, but entered the jousts, and bore the blows of others.

If this has reference to the first celebration of 17 Nov., it may be of near date to the Woodstock Entertainment of 1575 in which the fairy queen appeared. The knight, ‘full hardie and full haples’, is enchanted, but is not said to be old.

(v) ‘The Olde Knightes Tale.’

‘Not far from hence, nor verie long agoe,’ clearly in 1575, ‘the fayrie Queene the fayrest Queene saluted’, and the pleasures included ‘justes and feates of armed knightes’, and ‘enchaunted pictures’ in a bower. The knight was bidden by the fairy queen to guard the pictures and keep his eyes on the crowned pillar. He became ‘a stranger ladies thrall’, neglected this duty, and was cast into a deadly sleep. Now he is freed, apparently through the intervention of Elizabeth, to whom the verses are addressed.

(vi) ‘The Songe after Dinner at the two Ladies entrance.’

Celebrates the setting free by a prince’s grace, of captive knights and ladies, and bids farewell to inconstancy.

(vii) ‘The Ladies Thankesgeuing for theire Deliuerie from Unconstancie.’

A speech to the Queen, in the same vein as (vi), followed by a dialogue between Li[berty], or Inconstancy, and Constancy. This is datable in 1592 from another copy printed in The Phoenix Nest (1593), with the title ‘An Excellent Dialogue betweene Constancie and Inconstancie: as it was by speech presented to her maiestie, in the last Progresse at Sir Henrie Leighes house’. Yet another copy, in Inner Temple Petyt MS. 538, 43, f. 299. ‘A Dialogue betweene Constancie and Inconstancie spoken before the Queenes Majestie at Woodstock’ is ascribed to ‘Doctor Edes’.

(viii) ‘The last Songe.’

A rejoicing on the coming of Eliza, with references to constancy and inconstancy, the aged knight, and the pillar and crown.

(ix) ‘The second daies woorke where the Chaplayne maketh this Relation.’

An Oration to the Queen by the chaplain of Loricus, ‘an owlde Knight, now a newe religiouse Hermite’. The story of Loricus was once told [in 1575] ‘by a good father of his owne coate, not farr from this coppies’. Once he ‘rann the restles race of desire.... Sometymes he consorted with couragious gentelmen, manifesting inward joyes by open justes, the yearly tribute of his dearest Loue. Somtimes he summoned the witnesse of depest conceiptes, Himmes & Songes & Emblemes, dedicating them to the honor of his heauenlye mistres’. Retiring, through envy and age, to the country, he found the speaker at a homely cell, made him his chaplain, and built for their lodging and that of a page ‘the Crowne Oratory’, with a ‘Piller of perpetual remembraunce’ as his device on the entrance. Here he lies, at point of death, and has addressed his last testament to the Queen. This is in verse, signed ‘Loricus, columnae coronatae custos fidelissimus’, and witnessed by ‘Stellatus, rectoriae coronatae capellanus’, and ‘Renatus, equitis coronatae servus obseruantissimus’.

(x) ‘The Page bringeth tydings of his Maister’s Recouerie & presenteth his Legacie.’

A further address to the Queen, with a legacy in verse of the whole Mannor of Loue, signed by Loricus and witnessed by Stellatus and Renatus.

This exhausts the Ferrers MS., but I can add from the _Petyt MS._ f. 300^v--

(xi) ‘The melancholie Knights complaint in the wood.’

This, like (vii), is ascribed in the MS. to ‘Doctor Edes’. It consists of 35 lines in 6 stanzas of 6 lines each (with one line missing) and begins:

What troupes are theis, which ill aduised, presse Into this more than most vnhappie place.

Allusions to the freeing of enchanted knights and ladies and to constancy and inconstancy connect it closely with (vi)-(viii).

Obviously most of these documents, and therefore probably all, belong to devices presented by Sir Henry Lee. But they are of different dates, and not demonstrably in chronological order. A single occasion accounts for (vi)-(viii) and (xi), and a single occasion, which the mention of ‘the second daie’ suggests may have been the same, for (ix) and (x); and probably Mr. Bond is justified in regarding all these as forming part with (vii) of the entertainment at Lee’s house in the progress of 1592. But I do not see his justification for attaching (iv) and (v) to them, and I think that these are probably fragments of the Woodstock Entertainment of 1575, or not far removed from that in time. Nor has he any evidence for locating the entertainment of 1592 at Quarrendon, which was only one of several houses belonging to Sir Henry Lee, and could not be meant by the ‘coppies’ near Woodstock of (ix). It was doubtless, as the Petyt MS. version of (vii) tells us, at Woodstock, either at one of Lee’s lodges, or at Ditchley, during the royal visit to Woodstock of 18–23 Sept. 1592. I learn from Viscount Dillon that a MS. of part of this entertainment, dated 20 Sept., is still at Ditchley. Finally, Bond’s attribution of all the pieces (i)-(x) to Lyly is merely guesswork. Hamper assigned them to George Ferrers, probably because the owner of his MS. was a Ferrers. George Ferrers did in fact help in the Kenilworth Entertainment of 1575, and might therefore have helped in that at Woodstock; but he died in 1579, too early for (vi)-(xi). No doubt (vii) and (xi) are by Richard Edes (q.v.). He may have written the whole of this Woodstock Entertainment. On the other hand, a phrase in (ix) suggests that Lee may have penned some of his own conceits. Brotanek, 62, suggests that the two ladies of (vi) are Lee’s wife and his mistress Anne Vavasour, and that Elizabeth came to Lee’s irregular household to set it in order. This hardly needs refuting, but in fact Lee’s wife died in 1590 and his connexion with Anne Vavasour was probably of later date.

ROBERT LEE.

For his career as an actor, see ch. xv.

He may have been, but was not necessarily, the author of The Miller which the Admiral’s bought from him for £1 on 22 Feb. 1598 (Greg, Henslowe, ii. 191).

THOMAS LEGGE (1535–1607).

Of Norwich origin, Legge entered Corpus Christi, Cambridge, in 1552, and took his B.A. in 1557, his M.A. in 1560, and his LL.D. in 1575. After migration to Trinity and Jesus, he had become Master of Caius in 1573. In 1593 he was Vice-Chancellor, and in that capacity took part in the negotiations of the University with the Privy Council for a restraint of common plays in Cambridge (M. S. C. i. 200). His own reputation as a dramatist is acknowledged by Meres, who in 1598 placed him among ‘our best for Tragedie’, and added that, ‘as M. Anneus Lucanus writ two excellent Tragedies, one called Medea, the other de Incendio Troiae cum Priami calamitate: so Doctor Leg hath penned two famous tragedies, y^e one of Richard the 3, the other of The destruction of Ierusalem’.

Richardus Tertius. March 1580

[MSS.] Cambridge Univ. Libr. MS. M^m iv. 40, ‘Thome Legge legum doctoris Collegij Caiogonevilensis in Academia Cantabrigiensi magistri ac Rectoris Richardus tertius Tragedia trivespera habita Collegij divi Johannis Evangeliste Comitiis Bacchelaureorum Anno Domini 1579 Tragedia in tres acciones diuisa.’ [Argumentum to each Actio; Epilogue.]

Emmanuel, Cambridge, MS. 1. 3. 19, with date ‘1579’ and actor-list.

Clare, Cambridge, MS. Kk, 3, 12, with date ‘1579’.

Caius, Cambridge, MS. 62, ‘tragoedia trium vesperum habita in collegio Divi Johannis Evangelistae, Comitiis Bacchalaureorum Anno 1573.’

Bodl. Tanner MS. 306, including first Actio only, with actor-list and note, ‘Acted in St. John’s Hall before the Earle of Essex’, to which has been apparently added later, ‘17 March, 1582’.

Bodl. MS. 29448, dated α, φ, π, γ (= 1583).

Harl. MS. 6926, a transcript by Henry Lacy, dated 1586.

Harl. MS. 2412, a transcript dated 1588.

Hatton MS. (cf. Hist. MSS. i. 32).

Editions by B. Field (1844, Sh. Soc.) and W. C. Hazlitt (1875, Sh. L. ii. 1).--Dissertation: G. B. Churchill, _Richard III bis Shakespeare_ (1897, 1900).

The names in the actor-lists, which agree, confirm those MSS. which date a production in March 1580 (Boas, 394), and as Essex left Cambridge in 1581, the date in the Tanner MS., in so far as it relates to a performance before him, is probably an error. It does not seem so clear to me that the Caius MS. may not point to an earlier production in 1573. And it is quite possible that there may have been revivals in some or all of the later years named in the MSS. The reputation of the play is indicated, not only by the notice of it by Meres (vide supra), but also by allusions in Harington’s Apologie of Poetrie (1591); cf. App. C, No. xlv. and Nashe’s Have With You to Saffron Walden (1596, Works, iii. 13). It may even, directly or indirectly, have influenced Richard III. The argument to the first Actio is headed ‘Chapman, Argumentum primae actionis’, but it seems difficult to connect George Chapman with the play.

Lost Play

The Destruction of Jerusalem

Meres calls this tragedy ‘famous’. Fuller, Worthies (1662), ii. 156, says that ‘Having at last refined it to the purity of the publique standard, some Plageary filched it from him, just as it was to be acted’. Apparently it was in English and was printed, as it appears in the lists of Archer and Kirkman (Greg, Masques, lxii). It can hardly have been the Jerusalem revived by Strange’s in 1592 (Greg, Henslowe, ii. 155). Can any light be thrown on Fuller’s story by the fact that in 1584 a ‘new Play of the Destruction of Jerusalem’ was adopted by the city of Coventry as a craft play in place of the old Corpus Christi cycle, and a sum of £13 6_s._ 8_d._ paid to John Smythe of St. John’s, Oxford, ‘for hys paynes for writing of the tragedye’ (Mediaeval Stage, ii. 361; H. Craig, Coventry Corpus Christi Plays (E. E. T. S.), 90, 92, 93, 102, 103, 109)?

THOMAS LODGE (c. 1557–1625).

Lodge, who uses the description ‘gentleman’, was son of Sir Thomas Lodge, a Lord Mayor of London. His elder brother, William, married Mary, daughter of Thomas Blagrave, Clerk of the Revels (cf. ch. iii). He entered Merchant Taylors in 1571, Trinity College, Oxford, in 1573, whence he took his B.A. in 1577, and Lincoln’s Inn in 1578. In 1579 (cf. App. C, No. xxiii) he plunged into controversy with a defence of the stage in reply to Stephen Gosson’s Schoole of Abuse. Gosson speaks slightingly of his opponent as ‘hunted by the heavy hand of God, and become little better than a vagrant, looser than liberty, lighter than vanity itself’, and although Lodge took occasion to defend his moral character from aspersion, it is upon record that he was called before the Privy Council ‘to aunswere certen maters to be by them objected against him’, and was ordered on 27 June 1581 to give continued attendance (Dasent, xiii. 110). By 1583 he had married. His literary work largely took the form of romances in the manner of Lyly and Greene. Rosalynde: Euphues’ Golden Legacy, published (S. R. 6 Oct. 1590) on his return from a voyage to Terceras and the Canaries with Captain Clarke, is typical and was Shakespeare’s source for As You Like It. His acknowledged connexion with the stage is slight; and the attempt of Fleay, ii. 43, to assign to him a considerable share in the anonymous play-writing of his time must be received with caution, although he was still controverting Gosson in 1583 (cf. App. C, No. xxxv), and too much importance need not be attached to his intention expressed in Scylla’s Metamorphosis (S. R. 22 Sept. 1589):

To write no more of that whence shame doth grow, Or tie my pen to penny knaves’ delight, But live with fame, and so for fame to write.

He is less likely than Nashe to be the ‘young Juvenal, that biting satirist, that lastly with me together writ a Comedy’ of Greene’s Groats-worth of Wit epistle in 1592 (cf. App. C, No. xlviii). I should not cavil at the loose description of A Looking Glass for London and England as a comedy; but ‘biting satirist’ hardly suits Lodge; and at the time of Greene’s last illness he was out of England on an expedition led by Thomas Cavendish to South America and the Pacific, which started on 26 Aug. 1591 and returned on 11 June 1593. After his return Lodge essayed lyric in Phillis (1593) and satire in A Fig for Momus (1595); but he cannot be shown to have resumed writing for the stage, although the Dulwich records make it clear that he had relations with Henslowe, who had in Jan. 1598 to satisfy the claims which Richard Topping, a tailor, had made against him before three successive Lord Chamberlains, as Lodge’s security for a long-standing debt (Greg, Henslowe Papers, 44, 172). Lodge himself was then once more beyond the seas. One of the documents was printed by Collier, Memoirs of Alleyn, 45, with forged interpolations intended to represent Lodge as an actor, for which there is no other evidence. Subsequently Lodge took a medical degree at Avignon, was incorporated at Oxford in 1602, and obtained some reputation as a physician. He also became a Catholic, and had again to leave the country for recusancy, but was allowed to return in Jan. 1610 (cf. F. P. Wilson in M. L. R. ix. 99). About 1619 he was engaged in legal proceedings with Alleyn, and for a time practised in the Low Countries, returning to London before his death in 1625. Small, 50, refutes the attempts of Fleay, i. 363, and Penniman, War, 55, 85, to identify him with Fungoso in E. M. O. and Asotus in Cynthia’s Revels. Fleay, ii. 158, 352, adds Churms and Philomusus in the anonymous Wily Beguiled and Return from Parnassus.

Collection

1878–82. E. Gosse, The Works of Thomas Lodge (Hunterian Club). [Introduction reprinted in E. Gosse, Seventeenth Century Studies (1883).]

Dissertations: D. Laing, L.’s Defence of Poetry, Music, and Stage Plays (1853, Sh. Soc.); C. M. Ingleby, Was T. L. an Actor? (1868) and T. L. and the Stage (1885, 6 N. Q. xi, 107, 415); R. Carl, Ueber T. L.’s Leben und Werke (1887, Anglia, x. 235); E. C. Richard, Ueber T. L.’s Leben und Werke (1887, Leipzig diss.).

The Wounds of Civil War. c. 1588

S. R. 1594, May 24. ‘A booke intituled the woundes of Civill warre lively sett forthe in the true Tragedies of Marius and Scilla.’ John Danter (Arber, ii. 650).

1594. The Wounds of Ciuill War. Liuely set forth in the true Tragedies of Marius and Scilla. As it hath beene publiquely plaide in London, by the Right Honourable the Lord high Admirall his Seruants. Written by Thomas Lodge Gent. John Danter.

Editions in Dodsley^{3, 4} (1825–75) and by J. D. Wilson (1910, M. S. R.).

The play contains a clear imitation of Marlowe’s Tamburlaine in the chariot drawn by four Moors of Act III, and both Fleay, ii. 49, and Ward, i. 416, think that it was written shortly after its model, although not on very convincing grounds. No performance of it is recorded in Henslowe’s diary, which suggests a date well before 1592.

A Looking Glass for London and England, c. 1590

With Robert Greene (q.v.).

Doubtful Plays

Lodge’s hand has been sought in An Alarum for London, Contention of York and Lancaster, George a Greene, Leire, Mucedorus, Selimus, Sir Thomas More, Troublesome Reign of King John, and Warning for Fair Women (cf. ch. xxiv), and in Greene’s James IV and Shakespeare’s Henry VI.

JANE, LADY LUMLEY (c. 1537–77).

Jane, daughter of Henry Fitzalan, 12th Earl of Arundel, married John, Lord Lumley, c. 1549.

Iphigenia (?)

[MS.] Brit. Mus. MS. Reg. 15 A. ix, ‘The doinge of my Lady Lumley dowghter to my L. Therle of Arundell ... [f. 63] The Tragedie of Euripides called Iphigeneia translated out of Greake into Englisshe.’

Editions by H. H. Child (1909, M. S. R.) and G. Becker (1910, Jahrbuch, xlvi. 28).

The translation is from the Iphigenia in Aulis. It is likely to be pre-Elizabethan, but I include it here, as it is not noticed in The Mediaeval Stage.

THOMAS LUPTON (?-?).

Several miscellaneous works by Lupton appeared during 1572–84. He may be the ‘Mr. Lupton’ whom the Corporation of Worcester paid during the progress of 1575 (Nichols, i. 549) ‘for his paynes for and in devising [and] instructing the children in their speeches on the too Stages’.

All For Money. 1558 < > 77

S. R. 1577, Nov. 25. ‘An Enterlude intituled all for money.’ Roger Ward (Arber, ii. 321).

1578. A Moral and Pitieful Comedie, Intituled, All for Money. Plainly representing the manners of men, and fashion of the world noweadayes. Compiled by T. Lupton. Roger Ward and Richard Mundee.

Editions by J. O. Halliwell (1851, Literature of Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries), E. Vogel (1904, Jahrbuch, xl. 129), J. S. Farmer (1910, T. F. T.).

A final prayer for the Queen who ‘hath begon godly’ suggests an earlier date than that of Lupton’s other recorded work. Fleay, ii. 56, would identify the play with The Devil and Dives named in the anonymous Histriomastix, but Dives only appears once, and not with Satan.

JOHN LYLY (1554?-1606).

Lyly was of a gentle Hampshire family, the grandson of William, high master of St. Paul’s grammar school, and son of Peter, a diocesan official at Canterbury, where he was probably born some seventeen years before 8 Oct. 1571, when he matriculated from Magdalen College, Oxford. He took his B.A. in 1573 and his M.A. in 1575, after a vain attempt in 1574 to secure a fellowship through the influence of Burghley. He went to London and dwelt in the Savoy. By 1578, when he published Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit, he was apparently in the service of Lord Delawarr, and by 1580 in that of Burghley’s son-in-law, Edward, Earl of Oxford. It is a pleasing conjecture that he may have been the author of ‘the two prose books played at the Belsavage, where you shall find never a word without wit, never a line without pith, never a letter placed in vain’, thus praised in The Schoole of Abuse (1579) of his fellow euphuist, Stephen Gosson. He incurred the enmity of Gabriel Harvey by suggesting to Oxford that he was aimed at in the Speculum Tuscanismi of Harvey’s Three Letters (1580). In 1582 he had himself incurred Oxford’s displeasure, but the trouble was surmounted, and about 1584 he held leases in the Blackfriars (cf. ch. xvii), one at least of which he obtained through Oxford, for the purposes of a theatrical speculation, in the course of which he took to Court a company which bore Oxford’s name, but was probably made up of boys from the Chapel and St. Paul’s choirs. Presumably the speculation failed, for in June 1584 Lyly, who on 22 Nov. 1583 had married Beatrice Browne of Mexborough, Yorks., was in prison for debt, whence he was probably relieved by a gift from Oxford, in reward for his service, of a rent-charge which he sold for £250. His connexion with the stage was not, however, over, for he continued to write for the Paul’s boys until they stopped playing about 1591. Harvey calls Lyly the ‘Vicemaster of Paules and the Foolemaster of the Theatre’. From this it has been inferred that he held an ushership at the Paul’s choir school. But ‘vice’ is a common synonym for ‘fool’ and ‘vicemaster’, like ‘foolemaster’, probably only means ‘playwright’. Nothing written by Lyly for the Theater in particular or for any adult stage is known to exist, but he seems to have taken part with Nashe in the retorts of orthodoxy during 1589 and 1590 to the Martin Marprelate pamphleteers, probably writing the tract called Pappe with a Hatchett (1589), and he may have been responsible for some of the plays which certainly formed an element in that retort. Lyly’s ambitions were in the direction of courtly rather than of academic preferment. He seems to have had some promise of favour from Elizabeth about 1585 and to have been more definitely ‘entertained her servant’ as Esquire of the Body, probably ‘extraordinary’, in or about 1588, with a hint to ‘aim his courses at the Revels’, doubtless at the reversion of the Mastership, then held by Edmund Tilney. Mr. R. W. Bond bases many conjectures about Lyly’s career on a theory that he actually held the post of Clerk Comptroller in the Revels Office, but the known history of the post (cf. ch. iii) makes this impossible. From 1596 he is found living in the parish of St. Bartholomew the Less. He seems to have ceased writing plays for some while in 1590, and may be the ‘pleasant Willy’ spoken of as ‘dead of late’ and sitting ‘in idle Cell’ in Spenser’s Tears of the Muses (1591), although it is possible that Tarlton (q.v.) is intended. But The Woman in the Moon at least is of later date, and it is possible that both the Chapel and the Paul’s boys were again acting his old plays by the end of the century. In 1595 he was lamenting the overthrow of his fortunes, and by about 1597 the reversion of the Mastership of the Revels had been definitely promised to George Buck. There exist several letters written by Lyly to the Queen and to Sir Robert Cecil between 1597 and 1601, in which he complains bitterly of the wrong done him. Later letters of 1603 and 1605 suggest that at last he had obtained his reward, possibly something out of the Essex forfeitures for which he was asking in 1601. In any case, he did not live to enjoy it long, as the register of St. Bartholomew’s the Less records his burial on 30 Nov. 1606.

Collections

S. R. 1628, Jan. 9 (by order of a full court). ‘Sixe playes of Peter Lillyes to be printed in one volume ... viz^t. Campaste, Sapho, and Phao. Galathea: Endimion Midas and Mother Bomby.’ Blount (Arber, iv. 192). [‘Peter’ is due to a confusion with Lyly’s brother, a chaplain of the Savoy, who had acted as licenser for the press.]

1632. Sixe Court Comedies. Often Presented and Acted before Queene Elizabeth, by the Children of her Maiesties Chappell, and the Children of Paules. Written by the onely Rare Poet of that Time. The Witie, Comicall, Facetiously-Quicke and vnparalelld: Iohn Lilly, Master of Arts. William Stansby for Edward Blount. [Epistles to Viscount Lumley and to the Reader, both signed ‘Ed. Blount’. This edition adds many songs not in the Qq, and W. W. Greg (M. L. R. i. 43) argues that they are not by Lyly, but mid-seventeenth-century work and possibly by Dekker.]

1858. F. W. Fairholt, The Dramatic Works of J. L. 2 vols. (Library of Old Authors).

1902. R. W. Bond, The Complete Works of J. L. 3 vols.

Dissertations: H. Morley, Euphuism (1861, Quarterly Review, cix); W. L. Rushton, Shakespeare’s Euphuism (1871); R. F. Weymouth, On Euphuism (1870–2, Phil. Soc. Trans.); C. C. Hense, J. L. und Shakespeare (1872–3, Jahrbuch, vii. 238; viii. 224); F. Landmann, Der Euphuismus, sein Wesen, seine Quelle, seine Geschichte (1881), Shakespeare and Euphuism (1880–5, N. S. S. Trans. 241); J. Goodlet, Shakespeare’s Debt to J. L. (1882, E. S. v. 356); K. Steinhäuser, J. L. als Dramatiker (1884); J. M. Hart, Euphuism (1889, Ohio College Trans.); C. G. Child, J. L. and Euphuism (1894); J. D. Wilson, J. L. (1905); W. W. Greg, The Authorship of the Songs in L.’s Plays (1905, M. L. R. i. 43); A. Feuillerat, J. L. (1910); F. Brie, L. und Greene (1910, E. S. xlii. 217).

Campaspe. 1584

(a) 1584. A moste excellent Comedie of Alexander, Campaspe, and Diogenes. Played before the Queenes Maiestie on twelfe day at night by her Maiesties Children and the Children of Poules. For Thomas Cadman. [Huth Collection. Prologue and Epilogue at the Blackfriars; Prologue and Epilogue at Court. Running title, ‘A tragical Comedie of Alexander and Campaspe’.]

(b) 1584. Campaspe, Played ... on newyeares day at night, by her Maiesties Children.... For Thomas Cadman. [Dyce Collection.]

(c) 1584. Campaspe, Played ... on newyeares day at night, by her Maiesties Childrẽ.... For Thomas Cadman. [B.M.; Bodleian.]

1591. Campaspe, Played ... on twelfe day.... Thomas Orwin for William Broome.

S. R. 1597, Apr. 12 (in full court). ‘Sapho and Phao and Campaspe ... the which copies were Thomas Cadmans.’ Joan Broome (Arber, iii. 82).

1601, Aug. 23 (in full court). ‘Copies ... which belonged to Mystres Brome ... viz. Sapho and Phao, Campaspe, Endimion, Mydas, Galathea.’ George Potter (Arber, iii. 191).

Editions in Dodsley^{1–3} (1825, ii), and by W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ i), J. M. Manly (1897, Specimens, ii. 273), G. P. Baker (1903, R. E. C.)--Dissertations: R. Sprenger, Zu J. L.’s C. (1892, _E. S._ xvi. 156); E. Koeppel, Zu J. L.’s A. und C. (1903, Archiv, cx).

The order of the 1584 prints is not quite clear; (c) follows (b), but the absence of any collation of (a) leaves its place conjectural. I conjecture that it came first, partly because a correction in the date of Court performance is more likely to have been made after one inaccurate issue than after two, partly because its abandoned t.p. title serves as running title in all three issues. I do not think the reversion to ‘twelfe day’ in 1591, when the facts may have been forgotten, carries much weight. If so, the Court production was on a 1 Jan., and although the wording of the t.p. suggests, rather than proves, that it was 1 Jan. in the year of publication, this date fits in with the known facts of Lyly’s connexion with the Blackfriars (cf. ch. xvii). The Chamber Accounts (App. B) give the performers on this day as Lord Oxford’s servants, but I take this company to have been a combination of Chapel and Paul’s children (cf. chh. xii, xiii). Fleay, ii. 39, and Bond, ii. 310, with imperfect lists of Court performances before them, suggest 31 Dec. 1581, taking ‘newyeares day at night’, rather lamely, for New Year’s Eve. So does Feuillerat, 574, but I am not sure that his view will have survived his Blackfriars investigations. In any case, the play must have been written later than Jan. 1580, as Lyly uses Sir T. North’s English translation of Plutarch, of which the preface is dated in that month. In a prefatory note by N. W. to S. Daniel, The Worthy Tract of Paulus Jovius (1585), that work is commended above ‘Tarlton’s toys or the silly enterlude of Diogenes’ (Grosart, Daniel, iv. 8).

Sapho and Phao. 3 Mar. 1584

S. R. 1584, Apr. 6. ‘Yt is graunted vnto him yat yf he gett ye comedie of Sappho laufully alowed vnto him, then none of this cumpanie shall interrupt him to enjoye yt’ (in margin ‘Lyllye’). Thomas Cadman (Arber, ii. 430).

1584. Sapho and Phao, Played beefore the Queenes Maiestie on Shrouetewsday, by her Maiesties Children, and the Boyes of Paules. Thomas Dawson for Thomas Cadman. [Prologues ‘at the Black fryers’ and ‘at the Court’, and Epilogue.]

1591. Thomas Orwin for William Broome.

S. R. 1597, Apr. 12 } 1601, Aug. 23 } vide supra s.v. Campaspe.

I date the Court production on the Shrove-Tuesday before the S. R. entry, on which day Oxford’s boys, whom I regard as made up of Chapel and Paul’s boys, played under Lyly (cf. App. B). Fleay, ii. 40, Bond, ii. 367, and Feuillerat, 573, prefer Shrove-Tuesday (27 Feb.) 1582.

Galathea. 1584 < > 88

S. R. 1585, Apr. 1. ‘A Commoedie of Titirus and Galathea’ (no fee recorded). Gabriel Cawood (Arber, ii. 440).

1591, Oct. 4 (Bp. of London). ‘Three Comedies plaied before her maiestie by the Children of Paules thone called Endimion, thother Galathea and thother Midas.’ Widow Broome (Arber, ii. 596).

1592. Gallathea. As it was playde before the Queenes Maiestie at Greenewiche, on Newyeeres day at Night. By the Chyldren of Paules. John Charlwood for Joan Broome. [Prologue and Epilogue.]

The only performance by Paul’s, on a 1 Jan. at Greenwich, which can be referred to in the t.p. is that of 1588 (cf. App. B), and in III. iii. 41 is an allusion to the approaching year octogesimus octavus, which would of course begin on 25 March 1588. Fleay, ii. 40, and Feuillerat, 575, accept this date. Bond, ii. 425, prefers 1586 or 1587, regardless of the fact that the New Year plays in these years were by the Queen’s men. A phrase in V. iii. 86 proves it later than Sapho and Phao. But if, as seems probable, the 1585 entry in the Stationers’ Register was of this play, the original production must have been at least as early as 1584–5, and that of 1588 a revival.

Endymion. 1588

S. R. 1591, Oct. 4. Vide supra s.v. Galathea.

1591. Endimion, The Man in the Moone. Playd before the Queenes Maiestie at Greenewich on Candlemas Day at night, by the Chyldren of Paules. John Charlwood for Joan Broome. [Epistle by the Printer to the Reader; Prologue and Epilogue.]

Editions by C. W. Dilke (1814, O. E. P. ii), G. P. Baker (1894) and W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).--Dissertations: N. J. Halpin, Oberon’s Vision in M. N. D. Illustrated by a Comparison with L.’s E. (1843, Sh. Soc.); J. E. Spingarn, The Date of L.’s E. (1894, Athenaeum, ii. 172, 204); P. W. Long, The Purport of L.’s E. (1909, M. L. A. xxiv. 1), L.’s E., an Addendum (1911, M. P. viii. 599).

The prologue and epilogue were evidently for the Court. The epistle describes this as the first of certain comedies which had come into the printer’s hands ‘since the plays in Pauls were dissolved’. Baker, lxxxiii, suggested a date of composition in the autumn of 1579, while Spingarn, Bond, iii. 11, and Feuillerat, 577, take the Candlemas of the t.p. to be that of 1586, but the only available Candlemas performance by the Paul’s boys is that of 1588 (cf. App. B). With Long I find no conviction in the attempts of Halpin, Baker, Bond, and Feuillerat to trace Elizabeth’s politics and amours in the play. If Lyly had meant half of what they suggest, he would have ruined his career in her service at the outset.

Midas. 1589–90

S. R. 1591, Oct. 4. Vide supra, s.v. Galathea.

1592. Midas. Plaied before the Queenes Maiestie upon Twelfe day at night. By the Children of Paules. Thomas Scarlet for J. B. [Prologue ‘in Paules’.]

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

Internal allusions suggest a date as late as 1589, and the Twelfth Night of the t.p. must therefore be 6 Jan. 1590. Fleay, ii. 42, and Bond, iii. 111, accept this date. Feuillerat, 578, prefers 6 Jan. 1589, because Gabriel Harvey alludes to the play in his Advertisement to Pap-Hatchet, dated 5 Nov. 1589. But there was no Court performance on that day, and Harvey may have seen the play ‘in Paules’.

Mother Bombie. 1587 < > 90

S. R. 1594, June 18. ‘A booke intituled mother Bumbye beinge an enterlude.’ Cuthbert Burby (Arber, ii. 654).

1594. Mother Bombie. As it was sundrie times plaied by the Children of Powles. Thomas Scarlet for Cuthbert Burby.

1598. Thomas Creede for Cuthbert Burby.

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

The play doubtless belongs to the Paul’s series of 1587–90. It seems hardly possible to date it more closely. Feuillerat, 578, thinks it later in style than Midas.

Love’s Metamorphosis. 1589–90 (?)

S. R. 1600, Nov. 25 (Pasfield). ‘A booke Called Loves metamorphesis wrytten by master John Lylly and playd by the Children of Paules.’ William Wood (Arber, iii. 176).

1601. Loves Metamorphosis. A Wittie and Courtly Pastorall. Written by M^r Iohn Lyllie. First playd by the Children of Paules, and now by the Children of the Chapell. For William Wood.

F. Brie (E. S. xlii. 222) suggests that the play borrowed from Greene’s Greenes Metamorphosis (S. R. 9 Dec. 1588). Probably the Paul’s boys produced it c. 1589–90, and the Chapel revived it in 1600–1.

The Woman in the Moon. 1590 < > 5 (?)

S. R. 1595, Sept. 22. ‘A booke intituled a woman in the moone.’ Robert Fynche (Arber, iii. 48).

1597. The Woman in the Moone. As it was presented before her Highnesse. By Iohn Lyllie Maister of Arts. William Jones. [Prologue.]

The prologue says:

Remember all is but a poet’s dream, The first he had in Phoebus holy bower, But not the last, unless the first displease.

This has been taken as indicating that the play was Lyly’s first; but it need only mean that it was his first in verse. All the others are in prose. The blank verse is that of the nineties, rather than that of the early eighties. There is nothing to show who were the actors, but it is not unlikely that, after the plays in Paul’s were dissolved, Lyly tried his hand in a new manner for a new company. Feuillerat, 232, 580, suggests that Elizabeth may have taken the satire of women amiss and that the ‘overthwartes’ of Lyly’s fortunes of which he complained in Jan. 1595 may have been the result. He puts the date, therefore, in 1593–4.

Doubtful Work

Lyly has been suggested as the author of Maid’s Metamorphosis and A Warning for Fair Women (cf. ch. xxiv) and of several anonymous entertainments and fragments of entertainments (ibid., and supra, s.vv. Cecil, Clifford, Lee).

LEWIS MACHIN (fl. c. 1608).

Nothing is known of Machin’s personality. He is probably the L. M. who contributed ‘eglogs’ to the Mirrha (1607) of the King’s Revels actor William Barksted (q.v.). A Richard Machin was an actor in Germany, 1600–6. There is no traceable connexion between either Richard or Lewis and Henry Machyn the diarist.

Machin collaborated with Gervase Markham in The Dumb Knight (q.v.).

The anonymous Every Woman in Her Humour and Fair Maid of the Exchange have also been ascribed to him (cf. ch. xxiv).

GERVASE MARKHAM (c. 1568–1637).

There were two Gervase Markhams, as to both of whom full details are given in C. R. Markham, Markham Memorials (1913). The dramatist was probably the third son of Robert Markham of Cotham, Notts., a soldier and noted horseman, whose later life was devoted to an industrious output of books, verses, romance, translations, and treatises on horsemanship, farming, and sport. He was, said Jonson to Drummond in 1619, ‘not of the number of the faithfull, i.e. Poets, and but a base fellow’ (Laing, 11). Fleay, ii. 58, suggested, on the basis of certain phrases in his Tragedy of Sir Richard Grenville (1595), which has a dedication, amongst others, to the Earl of Southampton, that he might be the ‘rival poet’ of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. The other Gervase Markham was of Sedgebrook and later of Dunham, Notts., and is not known to have been a writer. C. W. Wallace thinks he has found a third in an ‘adventurer’ whose wagers with actors and others on the success of an intended walk to Berwick in 1618 led to a suit in the Court of Requests (Jahrbuch, xlvi. 345). But as he, like Markham of Cotham, had served in Ireland, the two may conceivably be identical, although the adventurer had a large family, and it is not known that Markham of Cotham had any. Markham of Dunham, who had also served in Ireland, had but two bastards. Conceivably Markham wrote for the Admiral’s in 1596–7 (cf. vol. ii, p. 145). Beyond the period dealt with, he collaborated with William Sampson in Herod and Antipater (1622) acted by the Revels company at the Red Bull.

The Dumb Knight. 1607–8

S. R. 1608, Oct. 6 (Buck). ‘A playe of the Dumbe Knight.’ John Bache (Arber, iii. 392).

1610. Nov. 19. Transfer from Bache to Robert Wilson (Arber, iii. 449).

1608. The dumbe Knight. A pleasant Comedy, acted sundry times by the children of his Maiesties Reuels. Written by Iaruis Markham. N. Okes for J. Bache. [Epistle to Reader, signed ‘Lewes Machin’. There were two reissues of 1608 with altered t.ps. Both omit the ascription to Markham. One has ‘A historicall comedy’; the other omits the description.]

1633. A. M. for William Sheares.

Editions in Dodsley^{1–4} (1744–1875) and by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. ii).--Dissertation: J. Q. Adams, Every Woman in Her Humour and The Dumb Knight (1913, M. P. x. 413).

The Epistle says that ‘Rumour ... hath made strange constructions on this Dumb Knight’, and that ‘having a partner in the wrong whose worth hath been often approved ... I now in his absence make this apology, both for him and me’. Presumably these ‘constructions’ led to the withdrawal of Markham’s name from the title-page. Fleay, ii. 58, assigned him the satirical comedy of the underplot, but Adams points out that Markham’s books reveal no humour, and that the badly linked underplot was probably inserted by Machin. It borrows passages from the anonymous unprinted Every Woman in Her Humour (q.v.). The production of a King’s Revels play is not likely to be before 1607, but Herz, 102, thinks that an earlier version underlies the Vom König in Cypern of Jacob Ayrer, who died 1605. A later German version also exists, and was perhaps the Philole und Mariana played at Nuremberg in 1613.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1564–93).

Marlowe, whose name was also spelt Marley and Marlin, was the son of John and Catherine Marlowe of Canterbury. He was born 6 Feb. 1564. John Marlowe was a shoemaker and subsequently became parish clerk of St. Mary’s. He entered the King’s School, Canterbury, in 1579 and in March 1581 matriculated with a pension on Abp. Parker’s foundation at Corpus Christi or Benet’s College, Cambridge. He took his B.A. in 1584 and his M.A. in 1587. In this year he probably began his literary career in London, with Tamburlaine. A ballad, printed by Collier, which represents him as a player and breaking his leg in a lewd scene on the stage of the Curtain, is now discredited. There are satirical allusions to him in the preface to the Perimedes (S. R. 29 March 1588) and in the Menaphon (23 Aug. 1589) of Robert Greene, but it is very doubtful whether, as usually assumed, Nashe had him especially in mind when he criticized certain tragic poets of the day in his epistle to the latter pamphlet (cf. App. C, No. xlii). On 1 Oct. 1588 ‘Christofer Marley, of London, gentleman,’ had to give bail to appear at the next Middlesex Sessions. The exact nature of the charge is unknown; but it cannot be doubted that his personal reputation, even in the free-living Elizabethan London, did not stand high. He is clearly the ‘famous gracer of tragedians’ reproved for atheism in Greene’s Groats-worth of Wit (1592) and it is probably to him that Chettle alludes in his apology when he says, ‘With neither of them that take offence was I acquainted and with one of them I care not if I never be’ (cf. App. C, Nos. xlviii, xlix). The charge of atheism doubtless arose from Marlowe’s association with the group of freethinkers which centred round Sir Walter Raleigh. In 1593 these speculative tendencies brought him into trouble. About 1591, while writing for the players of a certain lord, as yet unidentified, he had shared a room with Thomas Kyd (q.v.), who was then in the service of the same lord. Certain theological notes of his got amongst Kyd’s papers and were found there when Kyd was arrested on a charge of libel on 12 May 1593. On 18 May the Privy Council sent a messenger to the house of Thomas Walsingham, at Scadbury in Kent, to arrest Marlowe, and on 20 May he was ordered to remain in attendance on the Council. There exists a ‘Note’ drawn up at this time by one Richard Baines or Bame, containing a report of some loose conversation of Marlowe’s which their Lordships could hardly be expected to regard as anything but blasphemous. But, so far as Marlowe was concerned, the proceedings were put a stop to by his sudden death. The register of St. Nicholas, Deptford, records that he was ‘slain by Francis Archer’ and buried there on 1 June 1593. Francis Meres’s Palladis Tamia (1598) tells us that he was ‘stabbed to death by a bawdy servingman, a rival of his in his lewde love’. Somewhat different versions of the story are given by Thomas Beard, The Theater of God’s Judgments (1597), and William Vaughan, The Golden Grove (1600), both of whom use Marlowe’s fate to point the moral against atheism. There are some rather incoherent allusions to the event in verses affixed by Gabriel Harvey to his A New Letter of Notable Contents, which is dated 16 Sept. 1593:

Sonet

Gorgon, or the Wonderfull yeare

... The fatall yeare of yeares is Ninety Three: ... Weepe Powles, thy Tamberlaine voutsafes to dye.

L’envoy

The hugest miracle remaines behinde, The second Shakerley Rash-swash to binde.

* * * * *

The Writer’s Postscript; or a friendly Caveat to the Second Shakerley of Powles.

Slumbring I lay in melancholy bed Before the dawning of the sanguin light: When Eccho shrill, or some Familiar Spright, Buzzed an Epitaph into my hed.

Magnifique Mindes, bred of Gargantuas race. In grisly weedes His Obsequies waiment Whose Corps on Powles, whose mind triumph’d on Kent, Scorning to bate Sir Rodomont an ace.

I mus’d awhile: and having mus’d awhile, Iesu, (quoth I) is that Gargantua minde Conquerd, and left no Scanderbeg behinde? Vowed he not to Powles A Second bile? What bile or kibe (quoth that same early Spright) Have you forgot the Scanderbegging wight?

Glosse

Is it a Dreame? or is it the Highest Minde That ever haunted Powles, or hunted winde, Bereaft of that same sky-surmounting breath, That breath, that taught the Tempany to swell? He, and the Plague contested for the game:

* * * * *

The grand Dissease disdain’d his toade Conceit, And smiling at his tamberlaine contempt, Sternely struck-home the peremptory stroke....

Harvey seems to have thought in error that Marlowe died of the plague. I do not infer from the allusions to ‘Powles’ that Marlowe wrote for the Paul’s boys; but rather that Tamburlaine, like Nashe’s pamphlets, was sold by the booksellers in St. Paul’s Churchyard. The ‘second Shakerley’ is certainly Nashe. Surely ‘Scanderbeg’, who is ‘left behinde’, must also be Nashe, and I do not see how Fleay, ii. 65, draws the inference that Marlowe was the author of the lost play entered on the Stationers’ Register by Edward Allde on 3 July 1601 as ‘the true historye of George Scanderbarge, as yt was lately playd by the right honorable the Earle of Oxenford his servantes’ (Arber, iii. 187). There is much satire both of Marlowe and of Nashe in the body of A New Letter (Grosart, Harvey, i. 255).

Collections

1826. [G. Robinson] The Works of C. M. 3 vols.

1850. A. Dyce, The Works of C. M. 3 vols. [Revised 1858, and in 1 vol. 1865, &c.]

1870. F. Cunningham, The Works of C. M.

1885. A. H. Bullen, The Works of C. M. 3 vols.

1885–9. H. Breymann and A. Wagner, C. M. Historisch-kritische Ausgabe. 3 parts. [Tamburlaine, Dr. Faustus, Jew of Malta only issued.]

1887. H. Ellis, The Best Plays of C. M. (Mermaid Series). [Tamburlaine, Dr. Faustus, Jew of Malta, Edward II.]

1910. C. F. Tucker Brooke, The Works of C. M. [Larger edition in progress.]

1912. W. L. Phelps. Marlowe [M. E. D.]. [Tamburlaine, Dr. Faustus, Jew of Malta, Edward II.]

Dissertations: H. Ulrici, C. M. und Shakespeare’s Verhältniss zu ihm (1865, Jahrbuch, i. 57); J. Schipper, De versu Marlowii (1867); T. Mommsen, M. und Shakespeare (1886); A. W. Verity, M.’s Influence on Shakespeare (1886); E. Faligan, De Marlovianis Fabulis (1887); O. Fischer, Zur Charakteristik der Dramen M.’s (1889); J. G. Lewis, C. M.: Outlines of his Life and Works (1891); F. S. Boas, New Light on M. (1899, Fortnightly Review, lxxi, 212); J. H. Ingram, C. M. and his Associates (1904); H. Jung, Das Verhältniss M.’s zu Shakespeare (1904); W. L. Courtney, C. M. (Fortnightly Review, 1905, ii. 467, 678); A. Marquardsen, C. M.’s Kosmologie (1905, Jahrbuch, xli. 54); J. Le G. Brereton, The Case of Francis Ingram (Sydney Univ. Publ. v); G. C. Moore Smith, Marlowe at Cambridge (1909, M. L. R. iv. 167); F. C. Danchin, Études critiques sur C. M. (1912–13, Revue Germanique, viii. 23; ix. 566); C. Crawford, The Marlowe Concordance (1911, Materialien, xxxiv, pt. i only); F. K. Brown, M. and Kyd (T. L. S., 2 June, 1921).

Tamburlaine. c. 1587

S. R. 1590, Aug. 14 (Hartwell). ‘The twooe commicall discourses of Tomberlein the Cithian shepparde.’ Richard Jones (Arber, ii. 558).

1590. Tamburlaine the Great. Who, from a Scythian Shephearde by his rare and wonderfull Conquests became a most puissant and mightye Monarque. And (for his tyranny, and terrour in Warre) was tearmed, The Scourge of God. Deuided into two Tragicall Discourses, as they were sundrie times shewed vpon Stages in the Citie of London, By the right honorable the Lord Admyrall, his seruantes. Now first, and newlie published. Richard Jones [8vo]. [Epistle to the Readers, signed ‘R. I. Printer’; Prologues to both Parts. See Greg, Plays, 66; Masques, cxxv. Ingram, 281, speaks of two 4tos and one 8vo of 1590, probably through some confusion.]

1592. R. Jones. [Greg, Masques, cxxv, thinks that the date may have been altered in the B.M. copy from 1593. Langbaine mentions an edition of 1593.]

1597. [An edition apparently known to Collier; cf. Greg, Masques, cxxv.]

1605. For Edward White. [Part i.]

1606. E. A. for E. White. [Part ii.]

Editions by A. Wagner (1885) and K. Vollmöller (1885) and of Part i by W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).--Dissertations: C. H. Herford, The Sources of M.’s T. (Academy, 20 Oct. 1883); L. Frankel, Zum Stoffe von M.’s T. (1892, E. S. xvi. 459); E. Köppel in Englische Studien, xvi. 357; E. Hübner, Der Einfluss von M.’s Tamburlaine auf die zeitgenössischen und folgenden Dramatiker (Halle diss. 1901); F. G. Hubbard, Possible Evidence for the Date of T. (1918, M. L. A. xxxiii. 436).

There is no real doubt as to Marlowe’s authorship of Tamburlaine, but the direct evidence is very slight, consisting chiefly of Greene’s (q.v.) Perimedes coupling of ‘that atheist Tamburlan’ with ‘spirits as bred of Merlin’s race’, and Harvey’s allusion to its author as dying in 1593. Thomas Heywood, in his prologue to The Jew of Malta, speaks of Alleyn’s performance in the play. The entry printed by Collier in Henslowe’s Diary of a payment to Dekker in 1597 ‘for a prolog to Marloes tambelan’ is a forgery (Warner, 159; Greg, Henslowe, i. xxxix). The Admiral’s produced ‘Tamberlan’ on 30 Aug. 1594. Henslowe marks the entry ‘j’, which has been taken as equivalent to ‘n. e.’, Henslowe’s symbol for a new play, and as pointing to a revision of the play. I feel sure, however (cf. M. L. R. iv. 408), that ‘j’ only means ‘First Part’. ‘Tamberlen’ was given fifteen times from 30 Aug. 1594 to 12 Nov. 1595, and the ‘2 pt. of tamberlen’ seven times from 19 Dec. 1594 to 13 Nov. 1595 (Henslowe, ii. 167). Tamburlaine’s cage, bridle, coat, and breeches are included in the inventories of the Admiral’s men in 1598 (Henslowe Papers, 116).

Greene’s Perimedes reference suggests 1587 or early 1588 as the probable date of Tamburlaine. In his preface to the 1590 edition Richard Jones says that he has omitted ‘some fond and frivolous gestures’, but does not say whether these were by the author of the tragic stuff. The numerous references to the play in contemporary literature often indicate its boisterous character; e.g. T. M. The Black Book (Bullen, Middleton, viii. 25), ‘The spindle-shank spiders ... went stalking over his head as if they had been conning of Tamburlaine’; T. M. Father Hubburd’s Tales (ibid. viii. 93), ‘The ordnance playing like so many Tamburlaines’.

Dr. Faustus, c. 1588

S. R. 1592, Dec. 18. Herbert-Ames, Typographical Antiquities, ii. 1160, records the following decision of the Stationers’ Company not printed by Arber, ‘If the book of D^r. Faustus shall not be found in the Hall Book entered to R^d. Oliff before Abell Jeffes claymed the same, which was about May last, That then the said copie shall remayne to the said Abell his proper copie from the tyme of his first clayme’. [This can hardly refer to the prose History of Faustus, of which the earliest extant, but probably not the first, edition was printed by T. Orwin for Edward White in 1592.]

1601, Jan. 7 (Barlowe). ‘A booke called the plaie of Doctor Faustus.’ Thomas Bushell (Arber, iii. 178).

1610, Sept. 13. Transfer from Bushell to John Wright of ‘The tragicall history of the horrible life and Death of Doctor Faustus, written by C. M.’ (Arber, iii. 442).

1604. The tragicall History of D. Faustus. As it hath bene Acted by the Right Honorable the Earle of Nottingham his seruants. Written by Ch. Marl. V. S. for Thomas Bushell.

1609. G. E. for John Wright.

1616. For John Wright. [An enlarged and altered text.]

1619.... With new Additions. For John Wright.

1620; 1624; 1631.

1663.... Printed with New Additions as it is now Acted. With several New Scenes, together with the Actors names. For W. Gilbertson. [A corrupt text.]

Breymann mentions an edition of 1611 not now known, and Heinemann quotes from foreign writers mentions of editions of 1622, 1626, 1636, 1651, 1690 (1884, Bibliographer).

Editions by C. W. Dilke (1814, O. E. P. i), A. Reidl (N.D. [1874]), W. Wagner (1877), A. W. Ward (1878, 1887, 1891, 1901), Anon. (1881, Zurich), H. Morley (1883), H. Breymann (1889), I. Gollancz (1897, T. D.), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.), J. S. Farmer (1914, S. F. T.).--Dissertations: G. Herzfeld, Zu M.’s Dr. F. (1905, Jahrbuch, xli. 206); H. R. O. De Vries, Die Überlieferung und Entstehungsgeschichte von M.’s Dr. F. (1909); K. R. Schröder, Textverhältnisse und Entstehungsgeschichte von M.’s F. (1909); R. Rohde, Zu M.’s D. F. (1913, Morsbach-Festschrift); P. Simpson, The 1604 Text of M.’s D. F. (1921, Essays and Studies, vii); with much earlier literature summarized in Ward’s edition, to which also (1887, ed. 2) Fleay’s excursus on The Date and Authorship of Dr. F. was contributed.

The Admiral’s men played ‘Docter ffostose’ for Henslowe twenty-four times from 2 Oct. 1594 to Oct. 1597 (Henslowe, ii. 168). Their 1598 inventories include ‘j dragon in fostes’ (Henslowe Papers, 118). Alleyn (q.v.) played the title-rôle. The entry printed by Collier from Henslowe’s Diary of a payment to Dekker on 20 Dec. 1597 ‘for adycyons to ffostus’ is a forgery (Warner, 159; Greg, Henslowe, i. xxxix), but Henslowe did pay £4 to William Bird and Samuel Rowley ‘for ther adicyones in doctor fostes’ on 22 Nov. 1602 (Henslowe, i. 172). Probably, therefore, the Admiral’s revived the play about 1602–3. These additions are doubtless the comic passages which appear for the first time in the 1616 text, although that may also contain fragments of the original text omitted from the 1,485 lines of 1604. The source of the play seems to be the German Faustbuch (1587) through the English History of Dr. Johann Faustus, of which an edition earlier than the extant 1592 one is conjectured. A probable date is 1588–9. On 28 Feb. 1589 ‘a ballad of the life and deathe of Doctor Faustus the great Cungerer’ was entered on S. R. (Arber, ii. 516). There are apparent imitations of the play in Taming of A Shrew (q.v.).

The reference in The Black Book (vide infra) can hardly be taken as evidence that the original production was at the Theatre.

Greg (Henslowe, ii. 168) gives some support to the view of Fleay (Ward, clxvii) that Marlowe is only responsible for part even of the 1604 text, and that the rest, including the comic matter, may have been contributed by Dekker. But he doubts whether Dekker worked upon the play before the date of a revision in 1594, for which there is some evidence, such as an allusion in xi. 46 to Dr. Lopez. Fleay thought Dekker to have been also an original collaborator, which his age hardly permits.

The play seems to have formed part of the English repertories in Germany in 1608 and 1626 (Herz, 66, 74).

It became the centre of a curious mythos, which was used to point a moral against the stage (cf. ch. viii). Of this there are several versions:

(a) 1604. T. M. The Black Book (Bullen, Middleton, viii. 13), ‘Hee had a head of hayre like one of my Diuells in Dr. Faustus when the old Theater crackt and frighted the audience.’

(b) 1633. Prynne, Histriomastix, f. 556, ‘The visible apparition of the Devill on the stage at the Belsavage Play-house, in Queen Elizabeths dayes (to the great amazement both of the actors and spectators) while they were there prophanely playing the History of Faustus (the truth of which I have heard from many now alive, who well remember it) there being some distracted with that feareful sight.’

(c) N.D. ‘J. G. R.’ from manuscript note on ‘the last page of a book in my possession, printed by Vautrollier’ (1850, 2 Gent. Mag. xxxiv. 234), ‘Certaine Players at Exeter, acting upon the stage the tragical storie of Dr. Faustus the Conjurer; as a certain nomber of Devels kept everie one his circle there, and as Faustus was busie in his magicall invocations, on a sudden they were all dasht, every one harkning other in the eare, for they were all perswaded, there was one devell too many amongst them; and so after a little pause desired the people to pardon them, they could go no further with this matter; the people also understanding the thing as it was, every man hastened to be first out of dores. The players (as I heard it) contrarye to their custome spending the night in reading and in prayer got them out of the town the next morning.’

(d) c. 1673. John Aubrey, Natural History and Antiquities of Surrey (1718–19), i. 190, ‘The tradition concerning the occasion of the foundation [of Dulwich College] runs thus: that Mr. Alleyne, being a Tragedian and one of the original actors in many of the celebrated Shakespear’s plays, in one of which he played a Demon, with six others, and was in the midst of the play surpriz’d by an apparition of the Devil, which so work’d on his Fancy, that he made a Vow, which he perform’d at this Place’.

The Jew of Malta, c. 1589

S. R. 1594, May 17. ‘The famouse tragedie of the Riche Jewe of Malta.’ Nicholas Ling and Thomas Millington (Arber, ii. 650). [On 16 May ‘a ballad intituled the murtherous life and terrible death of the riche Jew of Malta’ had been entered to John Danter.]

1632, Nov. 20 (Herbert). ‘A Tragedy called the Jew of Malta.’ Nicholas Vavasour (Arber, iv. 288).

1633. The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Iew of Malta. As it was played before the King and Queene, in his Majesties Theatre at White-Hall, by her Majesties Servants at the Cockpit. Written by Christopher Marlo. I. B. for Nicholas Vavasour. [Epistle to Thomas Hammon of Gray’s Inn, signed ‘Tho. Heywood’; Prologues and Epilogues at Court and at Cockpit by Heywood; Prologue by Machiavel as presenter.]

Editions in Dodsley^{2, 3}, viii (1780–1827), and by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. i), Reynell and Son (publ. 1810), S. Penley (1813), A. Wagner (1889), and W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).--Dissertations: J. Kellner, Die Quelle von M.’s J. of M. (1887, E. S. x. 80); M. Thimme, M.’s J. of M. (1921).

An allusion in Marlowe’s prologue to the death of the Duc de Guise gives a date of performance later than 23 Dec. 1588. Strange’s men gave the play for Henslowe seventeen times from 26 Feb. 1592 to 1 Feb. 1593. Probably it belonged to Henslowe, as it was also played for him by Sussex’s men on 4 Feb. 1594, by Sussex and the Queen’s together on 3 and 8 April 1594, by the Admiral’s on 14 May 1594, by either the Admiral’s or the Chamberlain’s on 6 and 15 June 1594, and thirteen times by the Admiral’s from 25 June 1594 to 23 June 1596 (Henslowe, ii. 151). The 1598 inventories of the latter company include ‘j cauderm for the Jewe’ (Henslowe Papers, 118). On 19 May 1601 Henslowe advanced them money to buy ‘things’ for a revival of the play (Henslowe, i. 137). Heywood’s epistle and Cockpit prologue name Marlowe and Alleyn as writer and actor of the play. Fleay, i. 298, suggests that Heywood wrote the Bellamira scenes (III. i; IV. iv, v; V. i), the motive of which he used for the plot of his Captives, and Greg agrees that the play shows traces of two hands, one of which may be Heywood’s. The Dresden repertory of 1626 included a ‘Tragödie von Barabas, Juden von Malta’, but this was not necessarily the play ‘von dem Juden’ given by English actors at Passau in 1607 and Graz in 1608 (Herz, 66, 75).

Edward the Second. c. 1592

S. R. 1593, July 6 (Judson). ‘A booke, Intituled The troublesom Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, king of England, with the tragicall fall of proud Mortymer.’ William Jones (Arber, ii. 634).

1593? [C. F. Tucker Brooke (1909, M. L. N. xxiv. 71) suggests that a manuscript t.p. dated 1593 and sig. A inserted in Dyce’s copy of 1598 may be from a lost edition, as they contain textual variants.]

1594. The troublesome raigne and lamentable death of Edward the second, King of England: with the tragicall fall of proud Mortimer. As it was sundrie times publiquely acted in the honourable citie of London, by the right honourable the Earl of Pembroke his servants. Written by Chri. Marlow. Gent. For William Jones.

1598. Richard Bradocke for William Jones. [With an additional scene.]

1612. For Roger Barnes.

1622.... As it was publikely Acted by the late Queenes Maiesties Servants at the Red Bull in S. Iohns streete.... For Henry Bell.

Editions in Dodsley^{1–3}, ii (1744–1825), and by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. i), W. Wagner (1871), F. G. Fleay (1873, 1877), O. W. Tancock (1877, etc.), E. T. McLaughlin (1894), A. W. Verity (1896, T. D.), and W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).--Dissertations: C. Tzschaschel, M.’s Edward II und seine Quellen (1902, Halle diss.); M. Dahmetz, M.’s Ed. II und Shakespeares Rich. II (1904).

Pembroke’s men seem only to have had a footing at Court in the winter of 1592–3, and this is probably the date of the play. Greg (Henslowe, ii. 224) suggests that it may have had some ‘distant connexion’ with Chettle and Porter’s The Spencers and an anonymous Mortimer of the Admiral’s men in 1599 and 1602 respectively. But I think Mortimer is a slip of Henslowe’s for Vortigern.

The Massacre at Paris. 1593

[MS.] Collier, ii. 511, prints a fragment of a fuller text than that of the edition, but it is suspect (cf. Tucker Brooke, 483).

N.D. The Massacre at Paris: With the Death of the Duke of Guise. As it was plaide by the right honourable the Lord high Admirall his Seruants. Written by Christopher Marlow. E. A. for Edward White.

Strange’s men produced ‘the tragedey of the gvyes’ as ‘n.e.’ on 26 Jan. 1593. The Admiral’s men also played it for Henslowe as ‘the Gwies’ or ‘the masacer’ ten times from 21 June to 27 Sept. 1594. Possibly in Nov. 1598 and certainly in Nov. 1601 Henslowe advanced sums for costumes for a revival of the play by the Admiral’s. The insertion by Collier of Webster’s name in one of these entries is a forgery and whether the lost Guise of this writer (q.v.) bore any relation to Marlowe’s play is wholly unknown. On 18 Jan. 1602 Henslowe paid Alleyn £2 for the ‘boocke’ of ‘the massaker of france’ on behalf of the company (Henslowe, i. xlii; ii. 157). For the offence given in France by this play, cf. ch. x.

Dido Queen of Carthage > 1593

With Thomas Nashe.

1594. The Tragedie of Dido Queene of Carthage: Played by the Children of her Maiesties Chappell. Written by Christopher Marlowe, and Thomas Nash. Gent. Widow Orwin for Thomas Woodcock.

S. R. 1600, June 26. Transfer from Paul Lynley to John Flasket, ‘Cupydes Journey to hell with the tragedie of Dido’ (Arber, iii. 165). [Perhaps another book.]

Editions in Old English Drama (1825, ii), by J. S. Farmer (1914, S. F. T.), and with Works of Nashe.--Dissertations: J. Friedrich, Didodramen des Dolce, Jodelle, und M. (1888); B. Knutowski, Das Dido-Drama von M. und Nash (1905, Breslau diss.).

Tanner, Bibl. Britanniae (1748), says, ‘Petowius in praefatione ad secundam partem Herois et Leandri multa in Marlovii commendationem adfert; hoc etiam facit Tho. Nash in Carmine Elegiaco tragediae Didonis praefixo in obitum Christoph. Marlovii, ubi quatuor eius tragediarum mentionem facit, necnon et alterius de duce Guisio’. The existence of this elegy is confirmed by Warton, who saw it either in 1734 or 1754 (Hist. Eng. Poet. iv. 311; cf. McKerrow, ii. 335). It was ‘inserted immediately after the title-page’, presumably not of all copies, as it is not in the three now known. Whether Nashe’s own share in the work was as collaborator, continuator, or merely editor, remains uncertain. Fleay, ii. 147, gives him only I. i. 122 to end, III. i, ii, iv; IV. i, ii, v; Knutowski regards him as responsible for only a few trifling passages. As, moreover, the play has affinities both to early and to late work by Marlowe, it cannot be dated. Beyond its title-page and that of the anonymous Wars of Cyrus there is nothing to point to any performances by the Chapel between 1584 and 1600. It is true that Tucker Brooke, 389, says, ‘The one ascertained fact concerning the history of this company during the ten years previous to 1594 seems to be that they acted before the Queen at Croydon in 1591, under the direction of N. Giles, and Mr. Fleay assumes, apparently with no further evidence, that Dido was presented on this ‘occasion’. But this only shows what some literary historians mean by an ‘ascertained fact’. A company played Summers Last Will and Testament (q.v.) at Croydon in 1592 and said that they had not played for a twelvemonth. But the Queen was not present, and they are not known to have been the Chapel, whose master was not then Nathaniel Giles. Nor did they necessarily play twelve months before at Croydon; and if they did, there is nothing to show that they played Dido. There is nothing to connect the play with the Admiral’s Dido and Aeneas of 1598 (Greg, Henslowe, ii. 189).

Lust’s Dominion. c. 1600 (?)

1657. Lusts Dominion; Or, The Lascivious Queen. A Tragedie. Written by Christopher Marlowe, Gent. For F. K., sold by Robert Pollard.

Editions by C. W. Dilke (1814, O. E. P. i) and in Dodsley^4, xiv (1875).

The attribution of the play, as it stands, to Marlowe is generally rejected. Fleay, i. 272, supported by Greg (Henslowe, ii. 211), suggests an identification with The Spanish Moor’s Tragedy, which Day, Dekker, and Haughton were writing for the Admiral’s in Feb. 1600, although the recorded payment does not show that this was finished. They think that a play in which Marlowe had a hand may perhaps underlie it, and attempt, not wholly in agreement with each other, to distribute the existing scenes amongst the collaborators.

Lost Play

The Maiden’s Holiday

Entered on the Stationers’ Register on 8 April 1654 (Eyre, i. 445) by Moseley as ‘A comedie called The Maidens Holiday by Christopher Marlow & John Day’, and included in Warburton’s list of burnt plays (3 Library, ii. 231) as ‘The Mayden Holaday by Chri[~s]. Marlowe’.

Doubtful Plays

Marlowe’s hand has been sought in An Alarum for London, Contention of York and Lancaster, Edward III, Locrine, Selimus, Taming of A Shrew, and Troublesome Reign of King John (cf. ch. xxiv), and in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, Henry VI, and Richard III.

JOHN MARSTON (c. 1575–1634).

Marston was son of John Marston, a lawyer of Shropshire origin, who had settled at Coventry, and his Italian wife Maria Guarsi. He matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford, aged 16, on 4 Feb. 1592, and took his degree on 6 Feb. 1594. He joined the Middle Temple, and in 1599 his father left law-books to him, ‘whom I hoped would have profited by them in the study of the law but man proposeth and God disposeth’. He had already begun his literary career, as a satirist with The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion’s Image and Certain Satires (1598) and The Scourge of Villainy (1598). For these he took the pseudonym of W. Kinsayder. Small, 64, has refuted the attempts to find in them attacks on Jonson, and H. C. Hart (9 N. Q. xi. 282, 342) has made it plausible that by ‘Torquatus’ was meant, not Jonson, but Gabriel Harvey. This view is now accepted by Penniman (Poetaster, xxiii). On 28 Sept. 1599 Henslowe paid £2, on behalf of the Admiral’s, for ‘M^r Maxton the new poete’. The interlineated correction ‘M^r Mastone’ is a forgery (Greg, Henslowe, i. xlii; ii. 206), but probably Marston was the poet. The title of the play was left blank, and there was no further payment. It seems clearer to me than it does to Dr. Greg that the £2 was meant to make up a complete sum of £6 10_s._ for The King of Scots, and that Marston was the ‘other Jentellman’ who collaborated with Chettle, Dekker, and Jonson on that lost play. The setting up of the Paul’s boys in 1599 saved Marston from Henslowe. For them he successively revised the anonymous Histriomastix (q.v.), wrote the two parts of Antonio and Mellida and Jack Drum’s Entertainment, helped Dekker with Satiromastix, and finally wrote What You Will. This probably accounts for all his dramatic work during Elizabeth’s reign. In the course of it he came into conflict with Jonson, who told Drummond in 1619 (according to the revision of the text of Laing, 20, suggested by Penniman, War, 40, and Small, 3) that ‘He had many quarrells with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his Poetaster on him; the beginning of them were, that Marston represented him in the stage’. Marston’s representation of Jonson as Chrysoganus in Histriomastix was complimentary, that as Brabant senior in Jack Drum’s Entertainment offensive; and it was doubtless the latter that stirred Jonson to retaliate on Marston, perhaps as Hedon in Cynthia’s Revels, certainly as Crispinus in The Poetaster. Marston’s final blow was with Lampatho Doria in What You Will. When the theatres reopened in 1604 Marston seems to have left the Paul’s boys and taken a share in the syndicate formed to exploit the Queen’s Revels, for whom the rest of his plays were written. He was now on friendly terms with Jonson, to whom he dedicated his Malcontent and for whose Sejanus he wrote congratulatory verses. Possibly further friction arose over the unfortunate collaboration of Jonson, Marston, and Chapman in Eastward Ho!, for the chief indiscretion in which Marston seems to have been responsible, and may have stimulated a sarcasm on Jonson in the Epistle to Sophonisba. In 1608 Marston’s career as a dramatist abruptly terminated. An abstract of the Privy Council Register has the brief note on 8 June, ‘John Marston committed to Newgate’ (F. P. Wilson from Addl. MS. 11402, f. 141, in M. L. R. ix. 99). I conjecture that he was the author of the Blackfriars play (cf. ch. xii, s.v. Chapel) which hit at James’s explorations after Scottish silver. He disappeared, selling his interest in the Blackfriars company, then or in 1605, to Robert Keysar, and leaving The Insatiate Countess unfinished. He had taken orders by 10 Oct. 1616 when he obtained the living of Christchurch, Hampshire. This he resigned on 13 Sept. 1631. In 1633 he was distant from London, but died on 25 June 1634 in Aldermanbury parish. He had married Mary, probably the daughter of William Wilkes, one of James’s chaplains, of whom Jonson said in 1619 (Laing, 16) that ‘Marston wrott his Father-in-lawes preachings, and his Father-in-law his Commedies’. If we trust the portrait of Crispinus in The Poetaster, he had red hair and little legs. A letter from Marston to Sir Gervase Clifton, endorsed ‘Poet Marston’, is calendared in Hist. MSS. Various Coll. vii. 389; it is undated, but must, from the names used, be of 1603–8.

Collections

1633. Tragedies and Comedies collected into one volume. Viz. 1. Antonio and Mellida. 2. Antonio’s Revenge. 3. The Tragedie of Sophonisba. 4. What You Will. 5. The Fawne. 6. The Dutch Courtezan. A. M. for William Sheares. [Epistle to Viscountess Falkland, signed ‘William Sheares’.]

1633. The Workes of Mr. Iohn Marston, Being Tragedies and Comedies, Collected into one Volume. For William Sheares. [Another issue.]

1856. J. O. Halliwell, The Works of John Marston. 3 vols. [Contains all the works, except Jack Drum’s Entertainment.]

1879. A. B. Grosart, The Poems of John Marston. [Contains Pygmalion’s Image and the satires.]

1887. A. H. Bullen, The Works of John Marston. 3 vols. [Contains all the works, except Jack Drum’s Entertainment.]

Dissertations: W. von Scholten, Metrische Untersuchungen zu Marston’s Trauerspielen (1886, Halle diss.); P. Aronstein, John Marston als Dramatiker (E. S. xx. 377; xxi. 28); W. v. Wurzbach, John Marston (1897, Jahrbuch, xxxiii. 85); C. Winckler, John Marston’s litterarische Anfänge (1903, Breslau diss.) and Marston’s Erstlingswerke und ihre Beziehungen zu Shakespeare (1904, E. S. xxxiii. 216).

PLAYS

Antonio and Mellida. 1599

S. R. 1601, Oct. 24. ‘A booke called The ffyrst and second partes of the play called Anthonio and Melida provided that he gett laufull licence for yt.’ Matthew Lownes and Thomas Fisher (Arber, iii. 193).

1602. The History of Antonio and Mellida. The first part. As it hath beene sundry times acted, by the Children of Paules. Written by I. M. For Mathew Lownes and Thomas Fisher. [Epistle to Nobody, signed ‘J. M.’, Induction, Prologue, and Epilogue.]

1602. Antonio’s Reuenge. The second part. As it hath beene sundry times acted, by the children of Paules. Written by I. M. For Thomas Fisher. [Prologue.]

Editions by C. W. Dilke (1814, O. E. P. ii) and W. W. Greg (1921, M. S. R.).

In V. i of Part i a painter brings in two pictures, one dated ‘Anno Domini, 1599’, the other ‘Aetatis suae 24’. I agree with Small, 92, that these are probably real dates and that the second indicates Marston’s own age. As he must have completed his twenty-fourth year by 3 Feb. 1600 at latest, Part i was probably produced in 1599. The prologue of Part ii speaks of winter as replacing summer, and probably therefore Part i is to be dated in the summer, and Part ii in the early winter of 1599. Clearly the painter scene cannot, as Fleay, ii. 75, suggests, be motived by a casual allusion to a painter in Cynthia’s Revels (F_{1}) 2673 or the painter scene added on revision to Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy, since both are later. The ‘armed Epilogue’ of Part i seems to me clearly a criticism of the armed prologue of Jonson’s Poetaster (1601); it may have been an addition of 1601. Part ii, prol. 13, 23, calls the theatre ‘round’ and ‘ring’.

What You Will. 1601

S. R. 1607, Aug. 6 (Buck). ‘A commedie called What you will.’ Thomas Thorp (Arber, iii. 358).

1607. What You Will. By Iohn Marston. G. Eld for Thomas Thorpe. [Induction and Prologue.]

Edition by C. W. Dilke (1814, O. E. P. ii).--Dissertation: F. Holthausen, Die Quelle von Marston’s W. Y. W. (1905, Jahrbuch, xli. 186).

Bullen, Fleay, ii. 76, Small, 101, and Aronstein agree in regarding the play as written in 1601 by way of answer to Cynthia’s Revels, and they are probably right. Small shows that, in spite of the fact that Quadratus calls Lampatho Doria a ‘Don Kynsader’ (II. i. 134), Lampatho must stand for Jonson, and Quadratus to some extent for Marston himself. Perhaps Simplicius Faber is the unidentified Asinius Bubo of Satiromastix. Both Fleay and Small think that the play has been revised before publication, partly because of confusion in the names of the characters, and partly because of the absence of the kind of Marstonian language which Jonson satirized. Small goes so far as to suggest that the seventeen untraceable words vomited by Crispinus in The Poetaster came from What You Will, and that Marston rewrote the play and eliminated them. The rest of Fleay’s conjectures about the play seem to me irresponsible. If the play dates from 1601, it may reasonably be assigned to the Paul’s boys. The induction, with its allusions to the small size of the stage and the use of candles, excludes the possibility of an adult theatre.

The Dutch Courtesan. 1603–4

S. R. 1605, June 26. ‘A booke called the Dutche Curtizan, as yt was latelie presented at the Blackeffryers Provyded that he gett sufficient Aucthoritie before yt be prynted.’ John Hodgettes (Arber, iii. 293). [A further note, ‘This is alowed to be printed by Aucthoritie from Master Hartwell’.]

1605. The Dutch Courtezan. As it was played in the Blacke-Friars. by the Children of her Maiesties Reuels. Written by Iohn Marston, T. P. for John Hodgets. [Prologue.]

S. R. 1613, April 19. Transfer to Hodgettes of Eleazer Edgar’s interest in the play (Arber, iii. 520).

As a Queen’s Revels play, this must have been on the stage at least as late as 1603, and the clear proof of Crawford, ii. 1, that several passages are verbal imitations of Florio’s translation of Montaigne, published in that year, make it difficult to put it earlier, although Wallace, ii. 75, says that he has evidence, which he does not give, for production in 1602. On the other hand, C. R. Baskervill (M. L. A. xxiv. 718) argues that the plot influenced that of The Fair Maid of Bristow, which was performed at Court during the winter of 1603–4. The play is referred to with Eastward Ho! (q.v.) as bringing trouble on Marston by A. Nixon, The Black Year (1606). It was revived for the Court by the Lady Elizabeth’s on 25 Feb. 1613, under the name of Cockle de Moye from one of the characters, and repeated on 12 Dec. 1613 (cf. App. B).

The Malcontent. 1604

S. R. 1604, July 5 (Pasfield). ‘An Enterlude called the Malecontent, Tragicomoedia.’ William Aspley and Thomas Thorpe (Arber, iii. 266, 268). [Entry made on the wrong page and re-entered.]

1604. The Malcontent. By Iohn Marston. V. S. for William Aspley. [Two editions. Inscription ‘Beniamino Jonsonio, poetae elegantissimo, gravissimo, amico suo, candido et cordato, Iohannes Marston, Musarum alumnus, asperam hanc suam Thaliam D.D.’ and Epistle to Reader.]

1604. The Malcontent. Augmented by Marston. With the Additions played by the Kings Maiesties servants. Written by Ihon Webster. V. S. for William Aspley. [A third edition, with the Induction, which is headed ‘The Induction to the Malcontent, and the additions acted by the Kings Maiesties servants. Written by Iohn Webster’, and the insertions I. i. 146–88, 195–212, 256–303; I. iii; II. ii. 34, 57–71; III. i. 33–156; IV. ii. 123–37; V. i; V. ii. 10–39, 164–94, 212–26; V. iii. 180–202.]

Editions by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. ii) and W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.); and with Works of Webster (q.v.).--Dissertation: E. E. Stoll, John Webster (1905), 55, and Shakspere, Marston, and the Malcontent Type (1906, M. P. iii. 281).

The induction, in which parts are taken by Sly, Sinklo, Burbadge, Condell, and Lowin, explains the genesis of the enlarged edition.

Sly. ... I would know how you came by this play?

Condell. Faith, sir, the book was lost; and because ’twas pity so good a play should be lost, we found it and play it.

Sly. I wonder you would play it, another company having interest in it.

Condell. Why not Malevole in folio with us, as Jeronimo in decimosexto with them? They taught us a name for our play; we call it One for Another.

Sly. What are your additions?

Burbadge. Sooth, not greatly needful; only as your salad to your great feast, to entertain a little more time, and to abridge the not-received custom of music in our theatre.

Stoll, 57, rightly argues that Small, 115, is not justified in ignoring the evidence of the title-page and assigning the insertions, as well as the induction, to Webster rather than Marston. On the other hand, I think he himself ignores the evidence of Burbadge’s speech in the induction, when he takes the undramatic quality of the insertions as proof that Marston did not write them first in 1604, but revived them from his original text, which the boy actors had shortened. He puts this original text in 1600, because of the allusion in one of the insertions (I. iii. 20) to a ‘horn growing in the woman’s forehead twelve years since’. This horn was described in a pamphlet of 1588. I do not share his view that ‘twelve’ must be a precise and not a round number. Sly says in the induction:

‘This play hath beaten all your gallants out of the feathers: Blackfriars hath almost spoiled Blackfriars for feathers.’

It is clear therefore that the original actors were the Blackfriars boys, and there is nothing else to suggest a connexion between Marston and these boys during Elizabeth’s reign. Small, 115, points out a reference to the Scots in V. iii. 24 which should be Jacobean. I think that this is Marston’s first play for the Queen’s Revels after the formation of the syndicate early in 1604, and that the revision followed later in the same year. It is not necessary to assume that the play was literally ‘lost’ or that Marston was not privy to the adoption of it by the King’s. Importance is attached to the date by parallels to certain plays of Shakespeare, where Stoll thinks that Shakespeare was the borrower. I do not see how it can be so. The epilogue speaks of the author’s ‘reformed Muse’ and pays a compliment to ‘another’s happier Muse’ and forthcoming ‘Thalia’, perhaps Jonson’s Volpone.

The Fawn. 1604 < > 6

S. R. 1606, March 12. ‘A playe called the ffaune provided that he shall not put the same in prynte before he gett alowed lawfull aucthoritie.’ William Cotton (Arber, iii. 316).

1606. Parasitaster, Or The Fawne, As it hath bene diuers times presented at the blacke Friars, by the Children of the Queenes Maiesties Reuels. Written by Iohn Marston. T. P. for W. C. [Epistle to the Equal Reader, signed ‘Jo. Marston’, Prologue, and Epilogue.]

1606.... and since at Paules.... And now corrected of many faults, which by reason of the Author’s absence were let slip in the first edition. T. P. for W. C. [A further Epistle to the Reader states that the writer has ‘perused this copy’ and is about to ‘present ... to you’ the tragedy of Sophonisba.]

Modern edition by C. W. Dilke (1814, O. E. P. ii).

As a Queen’s Revels play, this must date from 1604 or 1605; presumably it was transferred to Paul’s by Edward Kirkham, when he took charge of them for the Christmas of 1605–6. Small, 116, refutes Aronstein’s suggested allusion to Jonson’s Volpone of 1605 or 1606. Bolte, Danziger Theater, 177, prints from a seventeenth-century Dantzig MS. a German play, Tiberius von Ferrara und Annabella von Mömpelgart, which is in part derived from The Fawn (Herz, 99). If, as the titles suggest, the performances of Annabella, eines Hertzogen Tochter von Ferrara at Nördlingen in 1604, of Annabella, eines Markgraffen Tochter von Montferrat at Rothenburg in 1604, and of Herzog von Ferrara at Dresden in 1626 (Herz, 65, 66), indicate intermediate links, The Fawn cannot be later than 1604. Yet I find it impossible not to attach some value to the argument of Stoll, Webster, 17, for a date later than the execution of Sir Everard Digby on 30 Jan. 1606 (Stowe, Annales, 881), which appears to be alluded to in IV. i. 310, ‘Nay, heed me, a woman that will thrust in crowds,--a lady, that, being with child, ventures the hope of her womb,--nay, gives two crowns for a room to behold a goodly man three parts alive, quartered, his privities hackled off, his belly lanched up’. It is true that there were also quarterings for treason on 29 Nov. 1603 (Stowe, Annales, ed. Howes, 831), but these were in Winchester; also that contemporary notices, such as that in Stowe and the narratives in J. Morris, Catholics under James I, 216, and in Somers Tracts (1809), ii. 111, which describes the victims as ‘proper men, in shape’, afford no confirmation of indecent crowds in 1606, but the cumulative effect of the quadruple allusions here, in Day’s Isle of Gulls (q.v.), in Sharpham’s Fleir (q.v.), and in Middleton’s Michaelmas Term (q.v.) is pretty strong. The passage quoted by Crawford, ii. 40, from Montaigne is hardly particular enough to explain that in the Fawn. I do not like explaining discrepancies by the hypothesis of a revision, but if Kirkham revived the Fawn at Paul’s in 1606, he is not unlikely to have had it written up a bit. The epistle refers to ‘the factious malice and studied detractions’ of fellow-dramatists, perhaps an echo of Marston’s relations with Jonson and Chapman over Eastward Ho!

The Wonder of Women, or Sophonisba. 1606

S. R. 1606, March 17 (Wilson). ‘A booke called the wonder of woemen, or the Tragedie of Sophonisba, &c.’ Eleazar Edgar (Arber, iii. 316).

1606. The Wonder of Women Or the Tragedie of Sophonisba, as it hath beene sundry times Acted at the Blacke-Friers. Written by Iohn Marston. John Windet. [Epistle to the General Reader by the author, but unsigned, Argumentum, Prologue, and Epilogue.]

S. R. 1613, April 19. Transfer from Edgar to John Hodgettes (Arber, iii. 521).

The mention of Blackfriars without the name of a company points to a performance after Anne’s patronage had been withdrawn from the Revels boys, late in 1605 or early in 1606, not, as Fleay, ii. 79, suggests, to one by the Chapel in 1602–3. Some features of staging (cf. ch. xxi) raise a suspicion that the play may have been taken over from Paul’s. The resemblance of the title to that of Wonder of a Woman produced by the Admiral’s in 1595 is probably accidental. The epistle glances at Jonson’s translations in Sejanus (1603).

The Insatiate Countess. c. 1610

1613. The Insatiate Countesse. A Tragedie: Acted at White-Fryers. Written by Iohn Marston. T. S. for Thomas Archer.

1616. N. O. for Thomas Archer.

1631.... Written by William Barksteed. For Hugh Perrie.

1631.... Written by Iohn Marston. I. N. for Hugh Perrie. [A reissue.]

Dissertation: R. A. Small, The Authorship and Date of the Insatiate Countess in Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, v (Child Memorial Volume), 277.

It is generally supposed that Marston began the play and that Barksted (q.v.) finished it. Two lines (V. ii. 244–5) appear verbatim in Barksted’s Mirrha (1607). Small traces several other clear parallels with both Mirrha and Hiren, as well as stylistic qualities pointing to Barksted rather than to Marston, and concludes that the play is Barksted’s on a plot drafted by Marston. It may be conjectured that Marston left the fragment when he got into trouble for the second time in 1608, and that the revision was more probably for the Queen’s Revels at Whitefriars in 1609–11 than for the conjoint Queen’s Revels and Lady Elizabeth’s in 1613. Hardly any of the suggestions on the play in Fleay, ii. 80, bear analysis.

Lost Plays

On The King of Scots, vide supra. Rogers and Ley’s list of 1656 (Greg, Masques, lxxii) ascribes to Marston a Guise, which other publishers’ lists transfer to Webster (q.v.). Collier, Memoirs of Alleyn, 154, assigns to Marston a Columbus, on the basis of a forgery.

Doubtful Plays

Marston doubtless had a hand in revising the anonymous Histriomastix and in Jack Drum’s Entertainment, and attempts have been made to find him in An Alarum for London, Charlemagne, London Prodigal, Puritan (cf. ch. xxiv), and as a collaborator in Dekker’s Satiromastix.

MASKS

Ashby Entertainment. Aug. 1607

[MSS.] (a) Bridgewater House, with title, ‘The honorable Lorde & Lady of Huntingdons Entertainment of their right Noble Mother Alice: Countesse Dowager of Darby the first night of her honors arrivall att the house of Ashby’. [Verses to Lady Derby signed ‘John Marston’; includes a mask of Cynthia and Ariadne.]

(b) B.M. Sloane 848, f. 9. [Speech of Enchantress only, with date Aug. 1607.]

Extracts in H. J. Todd, Works of Milton, v. 149 (1801), and Nichols, James, ii. 145 (1828).

On arrival, in the park, at an ‘antique gate’ with complimentary inscriptions, were speeches by Merimna an enchantress, and Saturn; at the top of the stairs to the great chamber another speech by Merimna and a gift of a waistcoat.

Later in the great chamber was a mask by four knights and four gentlemen, in carnation and white, and vizards like stars, representing sons of Mercury, with pages in blue, and Cynthia and Ariadne as presenters. A traverse ‘slided away’, and disclosed the presenters on clouds. Later a second traverse ‘sank down’, and the maskers appeared throned at the top of a wood. They danced ‘a new measure’, then ‘presented their shields’, and took out the ladies for measures, galliards, corantos and lavoltas. ‘The night being much spent’, came their ‘departing measure’.

At departure were an eclogue by a shepherd and a nymph, and a gift of a cabinet by Niobe in the little park.

Mountebank’s Mask. 1618 (?)

The ascription to Marston of this Gray’s Inn mask rests on an unverifiable assertion by Collier (cf. Bullen, Marston, iii. 418; Brotanek, 356), and the known dates of Marston’s career render it extremely improbable.

JOHN MASON (1581–2--?).

The degree boasted on his title-page leads to the identification of Mason as a son of Richard Mason, priest, of Cavendish, Suffolk, and pupil of Bury St. Edmunds school, who matriculated from Caius College, Cambridge, as a sizar at the age of fourteen on 6 July 1596, and took the degree of B.A. in 1601 and M.A. in 1606 from St. Catharine’s Hall. He was a member of the King’s Revels syndicate in 1608, and nothing further is known of him, since the combination of names is too common to justify his identification with the schoolmaster of Camberwell, Surrey, whose school-play is described in Princeps Rhetoricus (1648; cf. C. S. Northup in E. S. xlv. 154).

The Turk. 1607–8

S. R. 1609, March 10 (Segar). ‘A booke called The tragedy of the Turke with the death of Borgias by John Mason gent.’ John Busby (Arber, iii. 403).

1610. The Turke. A Worthie Tragedie. As it hath bene diuers times acted by the Children of his Maiesties Reuels. Written by Iohn Mason Maister of Artes. E. A. for John Busbie. [Prologue and Epilogue.]

1632. An excellent Tragedy of Mulleasses the Turke, and Borgias Governour of Florence. Full of Interchangeable variety; beyond expectation.... T. P. for Francis Falkner.

Edition by J. Q. Adams (1913, Materialien, xxxvii).--Dissertation: G. C. Moore Smith, John Mason and Edward Sharpham (1913, M. L. R. viii. 371).

As a King’s Revels play this may be put in 1607–8. An earlier date has been thought to be indicated by Eastward Ho! (1605), II. ii. 41, ‘Via, the curtaine that shaddowed Borgia’, but if the reference is to a play, Borgia may well have figured in other plays. A play ‘Vom Turcken’ was taken by Spencer to Nuremberg in 1613 (Herz, 66).

CHARLES MASSEY.

For his career as an actor, cf. ch. xv.

He apparently wrote Malcolm King of Scots for the Admiral’s, to which he belonged, in April 1602, and began The Siege of Dunkirk, with Alleyn the Pirate in March 1603. Neither play survives.

PHILIP MASSINGER (1583–1640).

Massinger, baptized at Salisbury on 24 Nov. 1583, was son of Arthur Massinger, a confidential servant of Henry, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. He entered at St. Alban Hall, Oxford, and left without a degree in 1606. Little is known of him for some years thereafter. He is conjectured to have become a Catholic and thus to have imperilled his relations with the Herbert family, at any rate until the time of Philip, the 4th earl, who was certainly his patron. He was buried at St. Saviour’s on 18 March 1640 and left a widow. The greater part of his dramatic career, to which all his independent plays belong, falls outside the scope of this notice, but on 4 July 1615 he gave a joint bond with Daborne for £3 to Henslowe, and some undated correspondence probably of 1613 shows that he was collaborating in one or more plays with Daborne, Field, and Fletcher.

Collections

T. Coxeter (1759), J. M. Mason (1779), W. Gifford (1805), H. Coleridge (1840, 1848, 1851), F. Cunningham (1871, 3 vols.). [These include The Old Law, The Fatal Dowry, and The Virgin Martyr, but not any plays from the Beaumont and Fletcher Ff.]

Selections

1887–9. A. Symons, The Best Plays of P. M. 2 vols. (Mermaid Series). [Includes The Fatal Dowry and The Virgin Martyr.]

1912. L. A. Sherman, P. M. (M. E. D.).

Dissertations: S. R. Gardiner, The Political Element in M. (1876, N. S. S. Trans. 314); J. Phelan, P. M. (1879–80, Anglia, ii. 1, 504; iii. 361); E. Koeppel, Quellenstudien zu den Dramen G. Chapman’s, P. M.’s und J. Ford’s (1897, Q. F. lxxxii); W. von Wurzbach, P. M. (1899–1900, Jahrbuch, xxxv. 214, xxxvi. 128); C. Beck, P. M. The Fatal Dowry (1906); A. H. Cruickshank, Philip Massinger (1920).

It is doubtful how far Massinger’s dramatic activity began before 1616. For ascriptions to him, s.v. Beaumont and Fletcher (Captain, Cupid’s Revenge, Coxcomb, Scornful Lady, Honest Man’s Fortune, Faithful Friends, Thierry and Theodoret, T. N. K., Love’s Cure), Anthony Brewer (The Lovesick King), and Second Maiden’s Tragedy (ch. xxiv). It has also been suggested that a Philenzo and Hypollita and an Antonio and Vallia, ascribed to him in late records, but not extant, may represent revisions of early work by Dekker (q.v.).

FRANCIS MERBURY (c. 1579).

At the end of the epilogue to the following play is written ‘Amen, quoth fra: Merbury’. The formula may denote only a scribe, but a precisely similar one denotes the author in the case of Preston’s Cambyses (q.v.).

A Marriage between Wit and Wisdom. c. 1579

[MS.] Brit. Mus. Addl. MS. 26782, formerly penes Sir Edward Dering.

Editions by J. O. Halliwell (1846, Sh. Soc.), J. S. Farmer (1909, T. F. T.).

The MS. has a title-page, with the date 1579, an arrangement of the parts for six actors and the title ‘The ---- of a Marige betweene wit and wisdome very frutefull and mixed full of pleasant mirth as well for The beholders as the Readers or hearers neuer before imprinted’. There are nine Scenes in two Acts, with a Prologue and Epilogus. The characters are almost wholly allegorical. Idleness is ‘the vice’. The stage-directions mention a ‘stage’. Halliwell prints the mutilated word left blank in the title above as ‘Contract’, no doubt rightly. Conceivably the play was in fact printed in 1579, as ‘Mariage of wit and wisdome’ is in Rogers and Ley’s play-list of 1656 (Greg, Masques, lxxxvii).

The play might be identical with the lost Paul’s moral of The Marriage of Mind and Measure (cf. App. B), which also belongs to 1579. Fleay, ii. 287, 294, infers from a not very conclusive reference to a ‘King’ in sc. iv that it dates from the time of Edward VI. He also identifies it with the Hit Nail o’ th’ Head named in Sir Thomas More (q.v.) because that phrase is quoted in the Epilogus, curiously disregarding the fact that the Sir Thomas More list names the play under its existing title as distinct from Hit Nail o’ th’ Head. Most of the plays in the Sir Thomas More list seem to be pre-Elizabethan; cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 200.

THOMAS MIDDLETON (c. 1570–1627).

Thomas Middleton was a Londoner and of a gentle family. The date of his birth can only be roughly conjectured from the probability that he was one of two Thomas Middletons who entered Gray’s Inn in 1593 and 1596, and of his earlier education nothing is known. His first work was The Wisdom of Solomon Paraphrased (1597), and he may be the T. M. of The Black Book (1604) and other pamphlets in prose and verse. He appears as a dramatist, possibly as early as 1599 in The Old Law and certainly in Henslowe’s diary during 1602, writing an unnamed play for Worcester’s men, and for the Admiral’s Caesar’s Fall or The Two Shapes with Dekker (q.v), Drayton, Munday, and Webster, and by himself, Randal Earl of Chester, and a prologue and epilogue to Greene’s Friar Bacon (q.v.). This work is all lost, but by 1604 he had also collaborated with Dekker for the Admiral’s in the extant Honest Whore. From 1602, if not from 1599, to the end of their career in 1606 or 1607, he was also writing diligently for the Paul’s boys. I think he is referred to with their other ‘apes and guls’, Marston and Dekker, in Marston’s Jack Drum’s Entertainment (1600), IV. 40:

How like you Musus fashion in his carriage? O filthilie, he is as blunt as Paules.

Brabant, the speaker, represents Jonson, who told Drummond in 1619 that he was ‘not of the number of the Faithfull, i. e. Poets, and but a base fellow’ (Laing, 12). Occasional plays for several companies and the beginnings of employment in city pageantry occupied 1607–16, and to later periods belong a fruitful partnership with William Rowley for Prince Charles’s men, and some slight share in the heterogeneous mass of work that passes under the names of Beaumont and Fletcher. He also wrote a few independent plays, of which A Game at Chess (1624) got him into political trouble. At some time before 1623 a few lines of his got interpolated into the text of Macbeth (cf. Warwick edition, p. 164). In 1620 he obtained a post as Chronologer to the City. He married Maria Morbeck, had a son Edward, and dwelt at Newington Butts, where he was buried on 4 July 1627.

Collections

1840. A Dyce, Works of T. M. 5 vols.

1885–6. A. H. Bullen, Works of T. M. 8 vols. [Omits The Honest Whore.]

1887–90. H. Ellis, The Best Plays of T. M. 2 vols. (Mermaid Series). [Includes Trick to Catch the Old One, Chaste Maid in Cheapside, Widow, Roaring Girl, Mayor of Queenborough, and later plays.]

Dissertations: J. Arnheim, T. M. (1887, Archiv, lxxviii. 1, 129, 369); P. G. Wiggin, _An Inquiry into the Authorship of the Middleton-Rowley Plays_ (1897, Radcliffe College Monographs, ix); H. Jung, Das Verhältniss T. M.’s zu Shakspere (1904, _Münchener Beiträge_, xxix).

PLAYS

The Old Law. 1599

1656. The Excellent Comedy, called The Old Law; Or A new way to please you. By Phil. Massenger. Tho. Middleton. William Rowley. Acted before the King and Queene at Salisbury House, and at severall other places, with great Applause. Together with an exact and perfect Catalogue of all the Playes, with the Authors Names, and what are Comedies, Tragedies, Histories, Pastoralls, Masks, Interludes, more exactly Printed than ever before. For Edward Archer.

Editions with Massinger’s Works (q.v.).--Dissertation: E. E. Morris, On the Date and Composition of T. O. L. (M. L. A. xvii. 1).

It is generally supposed that in some form the play dates from 1599, as in III. i. 34 a woman was ‘born in an. 1540, and now ’tis 99’. Of the three authors only Middleton can then have been writing. Morris, after elaborate study of the early work and the versification of all three, concludes that Rowley (c. 1615) and Massinger (c. 1625) successively revised an original by Middleton. The Paul’s plays began in 1599, but it cannot be assumed that this was one of them. Stork, 48, doubts the 1599 date and is inclined to assume collaboration between the three writers c. 1615.

Blurt Master Constable. 1601–2

S. R. 1602, June 7. ‘A Booke called Blurt Master Constable. Edward Aldee (Arber, iii. 207).

1602. Blurt Master Constable. Or The Spaniards Night-walke. As it hath bin sundry times priuately acted by the Children of Paules. For Henry Rocket.

Edition [by W. R. Chetwood] in A Select Collection of Old Plays (1750).

Bullen suggests that V. iii. 179, ‘There be many of your countrymen in Ireland, signior’, said to a Spaniard, reflects the raid of Spaniards in Sept. 1601. They were taken at Kinsale in June 1602. A parallel in III. i. 104 with Macbeth, II. ii. 3, cannot be taken with Fleay, ii. 90, as proof of posteriority.

The Phoenix. 1603–4

S. R. 1607, May 9 (Buck). ‘A Booke called The Phenix.’ Arthur Johnson (Arber, iii. 348).

1607. The Phoenix, As It hath beene sundry times Acted by the Children of Paules. And presented before his Maiestie. E. A. for A. I.

1630. T. H. for R. Meighen.

The only available performance before James was on 20 Feb. 1604, and the imitation of Volpone (1605) suggested by Fleay, ii. 92, is not clear enough to cause any difficulty. Knights are satirized in I. vi. 150, II. iii. 4, and there is an allusion to the unsettled state of Ireland in I. v. 6.

A Trick to Catch the Old One. 1604 < > 6 (?)

S. R. 1607, Oct. 7 (Buck). ‘Twoo plaies ... thother A trick to catche the old one.’ George Eld (Arber, iii. 360).

1608. A Trick to Catch the Old One. As it hath beene lately Acted, by the Children of Paules. George Eld.

1608.... As it hath beene often in Action, both at Paules, and the Black Fryers. Presented before his Maiestie on New yeares night last. Composed by T. M. G. E. sold by Henry Rockett. [Another issue.]

1616.... By T. Middleton. George Eld for Thomas Langley.

Editions in O. E. D. (1830, iii) and by C. W. Dilke (1814, O. E. P. v) and W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).

The date of Q_{1} is doubtless 1608/9 and the Court performance that by the Children of Blackfriars on 1 Jan. 1609. They must have taken the play over from Paul’s when these went under in 1606 or 1607. The title is probably proverbial, and therefore the phrase ‘We are in the way to catch the old one’ in Isle of Gulls, II. v, hardly enables us to date the play with Fleay, ii. 92, before Day’s, which was in Feb. 1606.

A Mad World, my Masters. 1604 < > 6 (?)

S. R. 1608, Oct. 4. ‘A Booke called A Mad World (my Maysters).’ Walter Burre and Eleazar Edgar (Arber, iii. 391). [The licenser is Segar, ‘Deputy of Sir George Bucke’.]

1608. A Mad World, My Masters. As it hath bin lately in Action by the Children of Paules. Composed by T. M. H. B. for Walter Burre.

S. R. 1613, April 19. Transfer to John Hodgettes of Edgar’s share (Arber, iii. 520).

1640.... A Comedy. As it hath bin often Acted at the Private House in Salisbury Court, by her Majesties Servants.... For J. S., sold by James Becket. [Epistle to Reader, signed ‘J. S.’]

Edition by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. ii).

The epistle says ‘it is full twenty years since it was written’, which is absurd. A pamphlet of the same title by Breton in 1603, hits at the Jacobean knightings in I. i. 64, II. v. 41, and the Family of Love in I. ii. 73, and the disappearance of Paul’s in 1606 or 1607 are the only indications of date. In Acts IV and V the duplicate names Once-Ill-Brothel, Hargrave-Harebrain, Shortrod-Harebrain suggest revision.

Michaelmas Term. 1606 (?)

S. R. 1607, May 15 (Buck). ‘A Comedy called Mychaelmas terme.’ Arthur Johnson (Arber, iii. 349).

1607. Michaelmas Terme. As it hath been sundry times acted by the Children of Paules. For A. I. [Induction.]

1630.... Newly corrected. T. H. for R. Meighen.

Allusions in II. iii. 226, 376 to the presence of women at a quartering for treason may suggest, as in the case of Marston’s Fawn (q.v.), a date after that of 30 Jan. 1606. There is no reference in II. i. 63 to the leap-year of 1604, as suggested by Fleay, ii. 91. Knightings are satirized in I. i. 191; III. i. 46.

Your Five Gallants. 1607

S. R. 1608, March 22 (Buck). ‘A Plaie called the ffyve Wittie Gallantes as it hath ben acted by the Children of the Chappell.’ Richard Bonyon (Arber, iii. 372).

N.D. Your fiue Gallants. As it hath beene often in Action at the Blacke-friers. Written by T. Middleton. For Richard Bonian. [Induction with ‘Presenter or Prologue’ in dumb-show.]

This may have been in preparation for Paul’s when they ceased playing and taken over by Blackfriars. In any case a reference to closure for plague in IV. ii. 29 and to fighting with a windmill (like Don Quixote) in IV. viii. 7 fit in with a date in 1607.

The Family of Love. 1604 < > 7 (?)

S. R. 1607, Oct. 12 (Buck). ‘A playe called the family of Loue as yt hath bene Lately acted by the Children of his Maiesties Reuelles.’ John Browne and John Helme (Arber, iii. 360).

1608. The Famelie of Love. Acted by the Children of his Maiesties Reuells. For John Helmes. [Epistle to Reader, Prologue, Epilogue.]

The prologue apologizes that ‘expectation’ hath not ‘filled the general round’. The King’s Revels can hardly have existed before 1607. Fleay, ii. 94, thinks that they inherited the play from Paul’s and assigns it to 1604 ‘when the Family of Love were such objects of public attention’. His chief reason is that the epistle regrets that the play was ‘not published when the general voice of the people had sealed it for good, and the newness of it made it much more desired than at this time’. It had ‘passed the censure of the stage with a general applause’. This epistle is clearly by the author, who says ‘it was in the press before I had notice of it, by which means some faults may escape in the printing’. I agree that there must have been some interval between production and publication. But there is no special virtue in the date 1604. References to the Family of Love are to be found in Sir Giles Goosecap (1601–3), II. i. 263; Dutch Courtesan (1603–4), I. i. 156, I. ii. 18; Mad World, My Masters (1604–6), I. ii. 73; Isle of Gulls (1606), p. 26; Every Woman in Her Humour (?), p. 316. The sect was well known in England as early as 1574–81, when an act was passed for its suppression. It petitioned James c. 1604 and was answered in A Supplication of the Family of Love, printed at Cambridge in 1606. On its history, cf. Fuller, Church History (1868), iii. 239; F. Nippold, Heinrich Niclaes und das Haus der Liebe (1862, Z. f. Hist. Theol.); R. Barclay, Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth (1876), 25; A. C. Thomas, The Family of Love (1893); R. M. Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion (1909), 428; E. B. Daw, Love Feigned and Unfeigned (1917, M. L. A. xxxii. 267).

The Roaring Girl. c. 1610.

With Dekker (q.v.).

A Chaste Maid in Cheapside. 1611.

S. R. 1630, April 8 (Herbert). ‘A play called The Chast Mayd of Chepeside.’ Constable (Arber, iv. 232).

1630. A Chast Mayd in Cheape-side. A Pleasant conceited Comedy neuer before printed. As it hath beene often acted at the Swan on the Banke-side by the Lady Elizabeth her Seruants By Thomas Midelton Gent. For Francis Constable.

It is not known where the Lady Elizabeth’s played during 1611–13, and it may very well have been at the Swan. Nor is there anything improbable in the suggestion of Fleay, 186, that this is the Proud Maid’s Tragedy acted by them at Court on 25 Feb. 1612 (App. B).

No Wit, no Help, like a Woman’s. 1613 (?)

S. R. 1653, Sept. 9. ‘No witt, no helpe like a Woman. Mr. Tho. Midleton.’ H. Moseley. (Eyre, i. 428).

{ Wit } 1657. No { Help } like a Womans. A Comedy. By Tho. Middleton, Gent. For Humphrey Moseley. [Prologue and Epilogue.]

The text represents a revival by Shirley in 1638, but Fleay, ii. 96, refers the original to 1613 as in III. i. 286 a character, after referring to the almanac for 1638, says he has ‘proceeded in five and twenty such books of astronomy’. Bullen accepts the date, but I feel no confidence in the argument. Stork, 47, attempts to trace Rowley’s hand.

The Widow (?)

S. R. 1652, Apr. 12 (Brent). ‘A play called The Widdow, written by John Fletcher & Tho: Middleton gent.’ Moseley (Eyre, i. 394).

1652. The Widdow A Comedie. As it was Acted at the private House in Black Fryers, with great Applause, by His late Majesties Servants. Written by Ben: Jonson John Fletcher. Tho: Middleton. Gent. Printed by the Originall Copy. For Humphrey Moseley. [Epistle to Reader by Alexander Gough. Prologue and Epilogue.]

Bullen places this ‘from internal evidence’ c. 1608–9, but thinks it revised at a later date, not improbably by Fletcher, although he cannot discover either Jonson’s hand or, ‘unless the songs be his’, Fletcher’s. Allusions to ‘a scornful woman’ (I. ii. 104) and to ‘yellow bands’ as ‘hateful’ (V. i. 52) are consistent with a date c. 1615–16.

The Mayor of Quinborough (?)

[MS.] A copy of the play, said to be ‘of no great antiquity’, is described in an appendix to Wit and Wisdom (Sh. Soc.), 85.

S. R. 1646, Sept. 4 (Langley). ‘Maior of Quinborough.’ Robinson and Moseley (Eyre, i. 244).

1661, Feb. 13. ‘A Comedie called the Maior of Quinborough, By Tho: Middleton. Henry Herringham (Eyre, ii. 288).

1661. The Mayor of Quinborough: A Comedy. As it hath been often Acted with much Applause at Black Fryars, By His Majesties Servants. Written by Tho. Middleton. For Henry Herringham. [Epistle to Gentlemen.]

There is a mention (V. i. 112) of Fletcher’s Wild-Goose Chase (1621), and the introduction of a ‘rebel Oliver’ suggests a much later date. But Bullen thinks this an old play revised, and Fleay, ii. 104, attempts to identify it with an anonymous play called both Vortigern and Hengist (Greg, Henslowe, ii. 181) which was produced by the Admiral’s on 4 Dec. 1596 and bought by the same company from Alleyn in 1601. There is not, however, much to support a theory that Middleton was writing for the stage so early as 1596. Stork, 46, thinks that Middleton and Rowley revised the older play c. 1606, ‘at a time when plays of ancient Britain were in vogue’.

Doubtful Plays

Middleton’s hand has been sought in Birth of Merlin, Puritan, and Second Maiden’s Tragedy (cf. ch. xxiv) and in Wit at Several Weapons of the Beaumont (q.v.) and Fletcher series.

Lost Mask

Mask of Cupid. 4 Jan. 1614

Writing to Carleton on 5 Jan. 1614 of the festivities at the Earl of Somerset’s wedding (Birch, i. 288; cf. s.v. Campion, Mask of Squires), Chamberlain notes that the King had called on the City to entertain the bridal pair, which they had done, though reluctantly, on 4 Jan. in Merchant Taylors’ hall, with a supper, a play and a mask, and a banquet. Howes in Stowe, Annales, 1005, says there were ‘2 seuerall pleasant maskes & a play’. Bullen, Middleton, i. xxxix, gives from the City Repertory, xxxi. 2, f. 239^v, an order of 18 Jan. 1614 for payment to Thomas Middleton in respect of the ‘late solemnities at Merchant Tailors’ Hall’ for ‘the last Mask of Cupid and other shows lately made’ by him.

ENTERTAINMENTS

Running Stream Entertainment. 29 Sept. 1613

1613. The Manner of his Lordships [Sir Thomas Middleton’s] Entertainment on Michaelmas day last, being the day of his Honorable Election, together with the worthy Sir Iohn Swinarton, Knight, then Lord Maior, the Learned and Iuditious, Sir Henry Montague, Maister Recorder, and many of the Right Worshipfull the Aldermen of the Citty of London. At that most Famous and Admired Worke of the Running Streame from Amwell Head, into the Cesterne neere Islington, being the sole Inuention, Cost, and Industry of that Worthy Maister Hugh Middleton, of London Goldsmith, for the generall good of the Citty. By T. M. Nicholas Okes. [Appended to reissue of The Triumphs of Truth.]

The Triumphs of Truth. 29 Oct. 1613

S. R. 1613, Nov. 3. ‘A booke called the tryumphs of truth of all the showes pagiantes Chariots &c. on the Lord Maiours Day octobris 29, 1613.’ Nicholas Okes (Arber, iii. 536).

1613. The Triumphs of Truth. A Solemnity vnparalleld for Cost, Art, and Magnificence, at the Confirmation and Establishment of that Worthy and true Nobly-minded Gentleman, Sir Thomas Middleton, Knight; in the Honorable Office of his Maiesties Lieuetenant, the Lord Maior of the thrice Famous Citty of London. Taking Beginning at his Lordships going, and proceeding after his Returne from receiuing the Oath of Maioralty at Westminster, on the Morrow next after Simon and Iudes day, October 29. 1613. All the Showes, Pageants, Chariots; Morning, Noone, and Night-Triumphes. Directed, Written, and redeem’d into Forme, from the Ignorance of some former times, and their Common Writer, by Thomas Middleton. Nicholas Okes.

1613.... Shewing also his Lordships Entertainment on Michaelmas day last, ... [etc.]. Nicholas Okes. [Reissue, with Running Stream Entertainment added.]

Edition in Nichols, James (1828), ii. 679, with Running Stream.

Civitatis Amor. 4 Nov. 1616

1616. Ciuitatis Amor. The Cities Loue. An entertainement by water, at Chelsey, and Whitehall. At the ioyfull receiuing of that Illustrious Hope of Great Britaine, the High and Mighty Charles, To bee created Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornewall, Earle of Chester, &c. Together with the Ample Order and Solemnity of his Highnesse creation, as it was celebrated in his Maiesties Palace of Whitehall on Monday, the fourth of Nouember, 1616. As also the Ceremonies of that Ancient and Honourable Order of the Knights of the Bath; And all the Triumphs showne in honour of his Royall Creation. Nicholas Okes for Thomas Archer. [Middleton’s name follows the account of the ‘entertainment’.]

ALEXANDER MONTGOMERY (c. 1556–c. 1610).

A Scottish poet (cf. D. N. B.) who has been suggested as the author of Philotus (cf. ch. xxiv).

ROGER MORRELL (c. 1597).

Possibly the author of the academic Hispanus (cf. App. K).

RICHARD MULCASTER (c. 1530–1611).

A contributor to the Kenilworth entertainment (cf. ch. xxiv, C). For his successive masterships of Merchant Taylors and St. Paul’s, see ch. xii.

ANTHONY MUNDAY (c. 1553–1633).

Anthony was son of Christopher Munday, a London Draper. He ‘first was a stage player’ (A True Report of ... M. Campion, 1582), but in Oct. 1576 was apprenticed for eight years to John Allde, stationer. Allde went out of business about 1582, and Munday never completed his apprenticeship, probably because his ready pen found better profit in the purveyance of copy for the trade. He began by a journey to Rome in 1578–9, and brought back material for a series of attacks upon the Jesuits, to one of which A True Report of ... M. Campion is an answer. According to the anonymous author, Munday on his return to England ‘did play extempore, those gentlemen and others whiche were present, can best giue witnes of his dexterity, who being wery of his folly, hissed him from his stage. Then being thereby discouraged, he set forth a balet against playes, but yet (o constant youth) he now beginnes againe to ruffle upon the stage’. For the ballad there is some corroborative evidence in a S. R. entry of 10 Nov. 1580 (cf. App. C, No. xxvi), which, however, does not name Munday, and it is a possible conjecture that he also wrote the Third Blast of Retrait from Plaies issued in the same year (cf. App. C, No. xxvii). If so, he was already, before 1580, doing work as a playwright; but of this, with the doubtful exception of the anonymous Two Italian Gentlemen (q.v.), there is no other evidence for another fifteen years. His experiences as an actor may have been with the company of the Earl of Oxford, whose ‘servant’ he calls himself in his View of Sundry Examples (1580). From 1581 he was employed by Topcliffe and others against recusants, and as a result became, possibly by 1584 and certainly by 1588, a Messenger of the Chamber. He still held this post in 1593, and was employed as a pursuivant to execute the Archbishop of Canterbury’s warrants against Martin Marprelate in 1588. J. D. Wilson (M. L. R. iv. 489) suggests that he may also have taken a hand in the literary and dramatic controversy, as ‘Mar-Martin, John a Cant: his hobbie-horse’, who ‘was to his reproche, newly put out of the morris, take it how he will; with a flat discharge for euer shaking his shins about a maypole againe while he liued’ (Protestation of Martin Marprelate, c. Aug. 1589). Certainly Munday’s official duties did not interfere with his literary productiveness, as translator of romances, maker of ballads, lyrist, and miscellaneous writer generally. He is traceable, chiefly in Henslowe’s diary, as a busy dramatist for the Admiral’s men during various periods between 1594 and 1602, and there is no reason to suppose that his activities were limited to these years. Meres in 1598 includes him amongst ‘the best for comedy’, with the additional compliment of ‘our best plotter’. But he was evidently a favourite mark for the satire of more literary writers, who depreciated his style and jested at his functions as a messenger. Small, 172, has disposed of attempts to identify him with the Deliro or the Puntarvolo of E. M. O., the Amorphus of Cynthia’s Revels, the In-and-In Medley of the Tale of a Tub, and the Timothy Tweedle of the anonymous Jack Drum’s Entertainment. But he may reasonably be taken for the Poet Nuntius of E. M. I. and the Antonio Balladino of The Case is Altered (q.v.); and long before Jonson took up the game, an earlier writer had introduced him as the Posthaste of the anonymous Histriomastix (c. 1589). Posthaste suggests the formation of Sir Oliver Owlet’s men, and acts as their poet (i. 124). He writes a Prodigal Child at 1_s._ a sheet (ii. 94). He will teach the actors to play ‘true Politicians’ (i. 128) and ‘should be employd in matters of state’ (ii. 130). He is always ready to drink (i. 162; ii. 103, 115, 319; vi. 222), and claims to be a gentleman, because ‘he hath a clean shirt on, with some learning’ (ii. 214). He has written ballads (v. 91; vi. 235). The players jeer at ‘your extempore’ (i. 127), and he offers to do a prologue extempore (ii. 121), and does extemporize on a theme (ii. 293). He writes with

no new luxury or blandishment But plenty of Old Englands mothers words (ii. 128).

The players call him, when he is late for rehearsal, a ‘peaking pageanter’, and say ‘It is as dangerous to read his name at a play door, as a printed bill on a plague door’ (iv. 165). The whole portrait seems to be by the earlier author; Marston only adds a characteristic epithet in ‘goosequillian Posthast’ (iii. 187). But it agrees closely with the later portraits by Jonson, and with the facts of Munday’s career. I do not think that ‘pageanter’ means anything more than play-maker. But from 1605 onwards Munday was often employed by city companies to devise Lord Mayor’s pageants, and it has been supposed that he had been similarly engaged since 1592 on the strength of a claim in the 1618 edition of John Stowe’s Survey of London, which he edited, that he had been ‘six and twenty years in sundry employments for the City’s service’. But there were other civic employments, and it is doubtful (cf. ch. iv) how far there were pageants during the last decade of Elizabeth’s reign for Munday to devise. On the title-pages of his pageants he describes himself as a ‘Cittizen and Draper of London’. The Corporation’s welcome at the creation of Henry as Prince of Wales in 1610 (cf. ch. iv) also fell to him to devise. How long he continued to write plays is unknown. He had several children in St. Giles’s, Cripplegate, between 1584 and 1589, and was buried on 10 Aug. 1633 at St. Stephen’s, Coleman Street.

Dissertations: J. D. Wilson, A. M., Pamphleteer and Pursuivant (1909, M. L. R. iv. 484); W. W. Greg, Autograph Plays by A. M. (1913, M. L. R. viii. 89); M. St. C. Byrne, The Date of A. M.’s Journey to Rome (1918, 3 Library, ix. 106), The Shepherd Tony--a Recapitulation (1920, M. L. R. xv. 364), A. M. and his Books (1921, 4 Library, i. 225); E. M. Thompson, The Autograph MSS. of A. M. (1919, Bibl. Soc. Trans. xiv. 325).

PLAYS

John a Kent and John a Cumber. 1594

[MS.] Autograph MS. in possession of Lord Mostyn, with title ‘The Booke of John a Kent and John a Cumber’, and at end the signature ‘Anthony Mundy’, and in another hand the date ‘---- Decembris 1596’. A mutilation of the paper has removed the day of the month and possibly some memorandum to which the date was appended. The wrapper is in part formed of a vellum leaf of which another part was used for Sir Thomas More (cf. ch. xxiv).

Editions by J. P. Collier (1851, Sh. Soc.) and J. S. Farmer (1912, T. F. T.).

The date has been misread ‘1595’. Greg (Henslowe, ii. 172) agrees with Fleay, ii. 114, that the play, of which the scene is at West Chester, must be The Wise Man of West Chester, produced by the Admiral’s on 3 Dec. 1594 and played to 18 July 1597. Their inventory of 1598 (Henslowe Papers, 117) includes ‘Kentes woden leage’. This is not required by the extant text, but two or three leaves of the MS. appear to be missing. If the identification is correct, it is not easy to see how the MS. can be earlier than 1594, although Sir E. M. Thompson’s warning that the date of 1596 may be a later addition is justified. On 19 Sept. 1601 the Admiral’s bought the book from Alleyn. Greg further suggests that Randal Earl of Chester, written by Middleton for the same company in Oct. and Nov. 1602, may have been a ‘refashioning’ of the earlier play, in which Randal is a character.

The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon. 1598

S. R. 1600, Dec. 1. ‘The Downe falle of Robert Erle of Huntingdone after Called Robin Hood.’ Leake (Arber, iii. 176).

1601. The Downfall of Robert, Earle of Huntington, Afterward called Robin Hood of merrie Sherwodde: with his loue to chaste Matilda, the Lord Fitzwaters daughter, afterwardes his faire Maide Marian. Acted by the Right Honourable, the Earle of Notingham, Lord high Admirall of England, his seruants. For William Leake. [Induction.]

Editions by J. P. Collier (1833, Five Old Plays), in Dodsley^4 viii (1874), and by J. S. Farmer (1913, S. F. T.).--Dissertation: A. Ruckdeschel, Die Quellen des Dramas ‘The Downfall and Death of Robert, Earle of Huntington, otherwise called Robin Hood’ (1897).

Henslowe paid Munday £5 on behalf of the Admiral’s for ‘the firste parte of Robyne Hoode’ on 15 Feb. 1598. From 20 Feb. to 8 March he paid Munday and Chettle sums amounting to £5 in all for a ‘seconde parte’, called in the fullest entry ‘seconde parte of the downefall of earlle Huntyngton surnamed Roben Hoode’. The books and apparel and properties are in the Admiral’s inventories of March 1598 (Henslowe Papers, 114, 115, 120, 121). Both parts were licensed for performance on 28 March. On 18 Nov. he paid Chettle 10_s._ for ‘the mendynge of’ the first part, and on 25 Nov., apparently, another 10_s._ ‘for mendinge of Roben Hood for the corte’. Greg (Henslowe, ii. 190) suggests that the last payment was for the second part, and that the two Court performances by the Admiral’s at Christmas 1598 are of these plays. However this may be, Henslowe’s 1, 2 Robin Hood are doubtless the extant Downfall and Death. There is an allusion in The Downfall, IV. ii, to the ‘merry jests’ of an earlier play, which may be The Pastoral Comedy of Robin Hood and Little John, entered in S. R. on 14 May 1594, but not now known. Fleay, ii. 114, thinks that Chettle, besides revising some of Munday’s scenes, added the Induction and the Skeltonic rhymes.

The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon. 1598

With Chettle.

S. R. 1600, Dec. 1. ‘The Death of Robert Earle of Huntingdon with the lamentable trogidye of Chaste Mathilda.’ Leake (Arber, iii. 176).

1601. The Death of Robert, Earle of Huntington. Otherwise called Robin Hood of merrie Sherwodde: with the lamentable Tragedie of chaste Matilda, his faire maid Marian, poysoned at Dunmowe by King Iohn. Acted by the Right Honourable, the Earle of Notingham, Lord high Admirall of England, his seruants. For William Leake. [Epilogue.]

Editions and Dissertation with The Downfall (q.v.).

This is a sequel to The Downfall (q.v.). Fleay, ii. 115, gives Munday the scenes dealing with Robin Hood’s death and Chettle those dealing with Maid Marian’s. The play contains discrepancies, but Henslowe’s entries afford no evidence that Munday revised Chettle’s work, as Fleay thinks. Greg (Henslowe, ii. 191) points out that Davenport borrowed much of his King John and Matilda (1655) from The Death.

1 Sir John Oldcastle. 1599

With Drayton (q.v.), Hathway, and Wilson.

Lost Plays

The following is a complete list of the plays in which Henslowe’s diary shows Munday to have written between 1597 and 1602. All were for the Admiral’s:

(i) Mother Redcap.

With Drayton, Dec. 1597–Jan. 1598.

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

Vide supra.

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

With Chettle, Drayton, and Wilson, June 1598, probably as a sequel to Robin Hood (cf. Greg, Henslowe, ii. 190).

(v) Valentine and Orson.

With Hathway (q.v.), July 1598.

(vi) A ‘comodey for the corte’, for the completion of which Drayton was surety, Aug. 1598, but the entry is cancelled, and presumably the play was not finished, unless it is identical with (vii).

(vii) Chance Medley.

With Chettle or Dekker, Drayton, and Wilson, Aug. 1598.

(viii), (ix) 1, 2 Sir John Oldcastle.

With Drayton (q.v.), Hathway, and Wilson, Oct.–Dec. 1599.

(x) Owen Tudor.

With Drayton, Hathway, and Wilson, Jan. 1600, but apparently not finished.

(xi) 1 Fair Constance of Rome.

With Dekker, Drayton, Hathway, and Wilson, June 1600.

(xii) 1 Cardinal Wolsey.

With Chettle, Drayton, and Smith, Aug.–Nov. 1601.

(xiii) Jephthah.

With Dekker, May 1602.

(xiv) Caesar’s Fall, or The Two Shapes.

With Dekker, Drayton, Middleton, and Webster, May 1602.

(xv) The Set at Tennis.

Dec. 1602. The payment, though in full, was only £3; it was probably, therefore, a short play, and conceivably identical with the ‘[sec]ond part of fortun[es Tenn?]is’ of which a ‘plot’ exists (cf. ch. xxiv) and intended to piece out to the length of a normal performance the original Fortune’s Tennis written by Dekker (q.v.) as a ‘curtain-raiser’ for the Fortune on its opening in 1600. [This is highly conjectural.]

Munday must clearly have had a hand in Sir Thomas More, which is in his writing, and has been suggested as the author of Fedele and Fortunio and The Weakest Goeth to the Wall (cf. ch. xxiv).

ENTERTAINMENTS

The Triumphs of Reunited Britannia. 29 Oct. 1605

N.D. The Triumphes of re-vnited Britania. Performed at the cost and charges of the Right Worship: Company of the Merchant Taylors, in honor of Sir Leonard Holliday kni: to solemnize his entrance as Lorde Mayor of the Citty of London, on Tuesday the 29. of October. 1605. Deuised and Written by A. Mundy, Cittizen and Draper of London. W. Jaggard.

Edition in Nichols, James (1828), i. 564.

London’s Love to Prince Henry. 31 May 1610

See ch. xxiv.

Chryso-Thriambos. 29 Oct. 1611

1611. Chruso-thriambos. The Triumphes of Golde. At the Inauguration of Sir Iames Pemberton, Knight, in the Dignity of Lord Maior of London: On Tuesday, the 29. of October. 1611. Performed in the harty loue, and at the charges of the Right Worshipfull, Worthy, and Ancient Company of Gold-Smithes. Deuised and Written by A. M. Cittizen and Draper of London. William Jaggard.

Himatia Poleos. 29 Oct. 1614

1614. Himatia-Poleos. The Triumphs of olde Draperie, or the rich Cloathing of England. Performed in affection, and at the charges of the right Worthie and first honoured Companie of Drapers: at the enstalment of Sr. Thomas Hayes Knight, in the high office of Lord Maior of London, on Satturday, being the 29. day of October. 1614. Deuised and written by A. M. Citizen and Draper of London. Edward Allde.

Metropolis Coronata. 30 Oct. 1615

1615. Metropolis Coronata, The Triumphes of Ancient Drapery: or, Rich Cloathing of England, in a second Yeeres performance. In Honour of the aduancement of Sir Iohn Iolles, Knight, to the high Office of Lord Maior of London, and taking his Oath for the same Authoritie, on Monday, being the 30. day of October. 1615. Performed in heartie affection to him, and at the bountifull charges of his worthy Brethren the truely Honourable Society of Drapers, the first that receiued such Dignitie in this Citie. Deuised, and written, by A. M. Citizen, and Draper of London. George Purslowe.

Edition in Nichols, James, iii. 107.

Chrysanaleia. 29 Oct. 1616

S. R. 1616, Oct. 29. ‘A booke called the golden Fishing of the showes of Sir John Leman Lord Maiour.’ George Purslowe (Arber iii. 597).

1616. Chrysanaleia: The Golden Fishing: Or, Honour of Fishmongers. Applauding the aduancement of Mr. Iohn Leman, Alderman, to the dignitie of Lord Maior of London. Taking his Oath in the same authority at Westminster, on Tuesday, being the 29. day of October. 1616. Performed in hearty loue to him, and at the charges of his worthy Brethren, the ancient, and right Worshipfull Company of Fishmongers. Deuised and written by A. M. Citizen and Draper of London. George Purslowe.

Editions in Nichols, iii. 195, and by J. G. Nichols (1844, 1869) with reproductions of drawings for the pageant in the possession of the Fishmongers.

Doubtful Entertainment

The Campbell mayoral pageant of 1609 (q.v.) has been ascribed to Munday.

ROBERT NAILE (c. 1613).

Probable describer of the Bristol entertainment of Queen Anne in 1613 (cf. ch. xxiv, C).

THOMAS NASHE (1507–>1601).

Nashe was baptized at Lowestoft, Suffolk, in Nov. 1567, the son of William Nashe, minister, of a Herefordshire family. He matriculated from St. John’s, Cambridge, on 13 Oct. 1582, took his B.A. in 1586, and left the University probably in 1588. According to the Trimming (Harvey, iii. 67), he ‘had a hand in a Show called Terminus & non terminus, for which his partener in it was expelled the Colledge: but this foresaid Nashe played in it (as I suppose) the Varlet of Clubs; which he acted with such naturall affection, that all the spectators tooke him to be the verie same’. He went to London, and his first book, The Anatomie of Absurditie, was entered in S. R. on 19 Sept. 1588. In actual publication it was anticipated by an epistle ‘To the Gentlemen Students of Both Universities’, which he prefixed to the Menaphon (1589) of Robert Greene (cf. App. C, No. xlii). This contains some pungent criticism of actors, with incidental depreciation of certain illiterate dramatists, among whom is apparently included Kyd, coupled with praise of Peele, and of other ‘sweete gentlemen’, who have ‘tricked vp a company of taffata fooles with their feathers’. Evidently Nashe had joined the London circle of University wits, and henceforth lived, partly by his pen, as dramatist and pamphleteer, and partly by services rendered to various patrons, amongst whom were Lord Strange, Sir George Carey, afterwards Lord Hunsdon, and Archbishop Whitgift. His connexion with this last was either the cause or the result of his employment, with other literary men, notably Lyly, in opposition to the anti-episcopalian tracts of Martin Marprelate and his fellows. His precise share in the controversy is uncertain. He has been credited with An Almond for a Parrot, with a series of writings under the name of Pasquil, and with other contributions, but in all cases the careful analysis of McKerrow, v. 49, finds the evidence quite inconclusive.

McKerrow, too, has given the best account (v. 65) of Nashe’s quarrel with Gabriel and Richard Harvey. This arose out of his association as an anti-Martinist with Lyly, between whom and Gabriel there was an ancient feud. It was carried on, in a vein of scurrilous personal raillery on both sides, from 1590 until it was suppressed as a public scandal in 1599. One of the charges against Nashe was his friendship with, and in the Harveian view aping of, Robert Greene, with whom, according to Gabriel’s Four Letters (Works, i. 170), Nashe took part in the fatal banquet of pickled herrings and Rhenish which brought him to his end. Nashe repudiated the charge of imitation, and spoke of Greene in Have With You to Saffron Walden (iii. 132), as ‘subscribing to mee in anything but plotting Plaies, wherein he was his crafts master’. Unless Dido is early work, no play written by Nashe before Greene’s death on 3 Sept. 1592 is known to us. But he is pretty clearly the ‘young Iuuenall, that byting Satyrist, that lastly with mee together writ a Comedie’ of Greene’s posthumous Groats-worth (cf. App. C, No. xlviii), and the tone of his own Defence of Plays in Pierce Penilesse of 1592 (cf. App. C, No. xlvi) as compared with that of the Menaphon epistle suggests that he had made his peace with the ‘taffata fooles’. His one extant unaided play belongs to the autumn of 1592, and was apparently for a private performance at Croydon. Internal evidence enables us to date in Aug.–Oct. 1596, and to ascribe to Nashe, in spite of the fact that his name at the foot is in a nineteenth-century writing, a letter to William Cotton (McKerrow, v. 192, from Cott. MS. Julius C. iii, f. 280) which shows that he was still writing for the stage and gives valuable evidence upon the theatrical crisis of that year (App. D, No. cv). To 1597 belongs the misadventure of The Isle of Dogs, which sent Nashe in flight to Great Yarmouth, and probably ended his dramatic career. He is mentioned as dead in C. Fitzgeffrey, Affaniae (1601).

Collections

1883–5. A. B. Grosart, The Complete Works of T. N. 6 vols. (Huth Library).

1904–10. R. B. McKerrow, The Works of T. N. 5 vols.

PLAYS

Summer’s Last Will and Testament. 1592

S. R. 1600, Oct. 28 (Harsnett). ‘A booke called Sommers last Will and testament presented by William Sommers.’ Burby and Walter Burre (Arber, iii. 175).

1600. A Pleasant Comedie, called Summers last will and Testament. Written by Thomas Nash. Simon Stafford for Walter Burre. [Induction, with Prologue and Epilogue.]

Edition in Dodsley^{3–4} (1825–74).--Dissertations: B. Nicholson, The Date of S. L. W. and T. (Athenaeum, 10 Jan. 1891); F. G. Fleay Queen Elizabeth, Croydon and the Drama (1898).

The play was intended for performance on the ‘tyle-stones’ and in the presence of a ‘Lord’, to whom there are several other references, in one of which he is ‘your Grace’ (ll. 17, 205, 208, 587, 795, 1897, 1925). There are also local references to ‘betweene this and Stretham’ (l. 202), to ‘Dubbers hill’ near Croydon (l. 621), to Croydon itself (ll. 1830, 1873), and to ‘forlorne’ Lambeth (l. 1879). The conclusion seems justified that ‘this lowe built house’ (l. 1884) was the palace of Archbishop Whitgift at Croydon.

There was a plague ‘in this latter end of summer’ (l. 80); which had been ‘brought in’ by the dog-days (l. 656), and had led to ‘want of terme’ and consequent ‘Cities harm’ in London (l. 1881). Summer accuses Sol of spiting Thames with a ‘naked channell’ (l. 545) and Sol lays it on the moon (l. 562):

in the yeare Shee was eclipst, when that the Thames was bare.

Two passages refer to the Queen as on progress. Summer says (l. 125):

Haruest and age haue whit’ned my greene head:

* * * * *

This month haue I layne languishing a bed, Looking eche hour to yeeld my life and throne; And dyde I had in deed vnto the earth, But that Eliza, Englands beauteous Queene, On whom all seasons prosperously attend, Forbad the execution of my fate, Vntill her ioyfull progresse was expir’d. For her doth Summer liue, and linger here.

And again, at the end of the play (l. 1841):

Vnto Eliza, that most sacred Dame, Whom none but Saints and Angels ought to name, All my faire dayes remaining I bequeath, To waite vpon her till she be returnd. Autumne, I charge thee, when that I am dead, Be prest and seruiceable at her beck, Present her with thy goodliest ripened fruites.

The plague and absence of term from London might fit either 1592 or 1593 (cf. App. E), but I agree with McKerrow, iv. 418, that the earlier year is indicated. In 1593 the plague did not begin in the dog-days, nor did Elizabeth go on progress. And it is on 6 Sept. 1592 that Stowe (1615), 764, records the emptying of Thames. I may add a small confirmatory point. Are not ‘the horses lately sworne to be stolne’ (l. 250) those stolen by Germans in the train of Count Mompelgard between Reading and Windsor and referred to in Merry Wives, IV. v. 78. The Count came to Windsor on 19 Aug. 1592 (Rye, xcix). Now I part company with Mr. McKerrow, who thinks that, although the play was written in 1592, it may have been revised for performance before Elizabeth in a later year, perhaps at her visit to Whitgift on 14 Aug. 1600. His reasons are three: (a) Sol’s reference to the Thames seems to date it in a year earlier than that in which he speaks; (b) the seasonal references suggest August, while Stowe’s date necessitates September at earliest, and the want of term points to October; (c) the references to Elizabeth imply her presence. I think there is something in (a), but not much, if the distinction between actual and dramatic time is kept in mind. As to (b), the tone of the references is surely to a summer prolonged beyond its natural expiration for Eliza’s benefit, well into autumn, and in such a year the fruits of autumn, which in this country are chiefly apples, will be on the trees until October. As to (c), I cannot find any evidence of the Queen’s presence at all. Surely she is on progress elsewhere, and due to ‘return’ in the future. I may add that Elizabeth was at Croydon in the spring of 1593, and that it would, therefore, have been odd to defer a revival for her benefit until another seven years had elapsed. The 1592 progress came to an end upon 9 Oct. and I should put the performance not long before. When Q_{1} of Pierce Penilesse (S. R. 8 Aug. 1592) was issued, Nashe was kept by fear of infection ‘with my Lord in the Countrey’, and the misinterpretations of the pamphlet which he deprecates in the epistle to Q_{2} (McKerrow, i. 154) are hinted at in a very similar protest (l. 65) in the play.

The prologue is spoken by ‘the greate foole Toy’ (ll. 10, 1945), who would borrow a chain and fiddle from ‘my cousin Ned’ (l. 7), also called ‘Ned foole’ (l. 783). The epilogue is spoken (l. 1194) and the songs sung (ll. 117, 1871) by boys. Will Summer (l. 792) gives good advice to certain ‘deminitiue urchins’, who wait ‘on my Lords trencher’; but he might be speaking either to actors or to boys in the audience. The morris (l. 201) dances ‘for the credit of Wostershire’, where Whitgift had been bishop. The prompter was Dick Huntley (l. 14), and Vertumnus was acted by Harry Baker (l. 1567). There is a good deal of Latin in the text. On the whole, I think that the play was given by members of Whitgift’s household, which his biographer describes as ‘a little academy’. The prologue (l. 33) has ‘So fares it with vs nouices, that here betray our imperfections: we, afraid to looke on the imaginary serpent of Enuy, paynted in mens affections, haue ceased to tune any musike of mirth to your eares this twelue-month, thinking that, as it is the nature of the serpent to hisse, so childhood and ignorance would play the goslings, contemning and condemning what they vnderstood not’. This agrees curiously in date with the termination of the Paul’s plays. Whitgift might have entertained the Paul’s boys during the plague and strengthened them for a performance with members of his own household. But would they call themselves ‘nouices’?

Dido, Queen of Carthage > 1593

With Marlowe (q.v.).

Lost Plays

Terminus et non Terminus. 1586 < > 8

Vide supra. McKerrow, v. 10, thinks that the name of Nashe’s alleged part may be a jest, and points out that the identification by Fleay, ii. 124, of the play, of which nothing more is known, with the ‘London Comedie’ of the Cards referred to in Harington’s Apology (cf. App. C, No. xlv) is improbable.

The Isle of Dogs. 1597

Meres, Palladis Tamia (S. R. 7 Sept. 1598), writes:

‘As Actaeon was wooried of his owne hounds: so is Tom Nash of his Isle of Dogs. Dogges were the death of Euripedes, but bee not disconsolate gallant young Iuuenall, Linus, the sonne of Apollo died the same death. Yet God forbid that so braue a witte should so basely perish, thine are but paper dogges, neither is thy banishment like Ouids, eternally to conuerse with the barbarous Getes. Therefore comfort thy selfe sweete Tom, with Ciceros glorious return to Rome, & with the counsel Aeneas giues to his seabeaten soldiors.’

We learn something more from Nashes Lenten Stuffe (S. R. 11 Jan. 1599), where he tells us that he is sequestered from the wonted means of his maintenance and exposed to attacks on his fame, through ‘the straunge turning of the Ile of Dogs from a commedie to a tragedie two summers past, with the troublesome stir which hapned aboute it’, and goes on to explain the ‘infortunate imperfit Embrion of my idle houres, the Ile of Dogs before mentioned ... was no sooner borne but I was glad to run from it’; which is what brought him to Yarmouth. In a marginal note he adds ‘An imperfit Embrion I may well call it, for I hauing begun but the induction and first act of it, the other foure acts without my consent, or the least guesse of my drift or scope, by the players were supplied, which bred both their trouble and mine to’ (McKerrow, iii. 153). Of this there is perhaps some confirmation in the list of writings on the cover of the Northumberland MS. which records the item, not now extant in the MS., ‘Ile of doges frmn^t by Thomas Nashe inferior plaiers’. This MS. contains work by Bacon (q.v.), and if the entry is not itself based on Lenten Stuffe, it may indicate that Bacon was professionally concerned in the proceedings to which the play gave rise. McKerrow, v. 31, points out that the evidence is against the suggestion in the Trimming of Thomas Nashe (S. R. 11 Oct. 1597) that Nashe suffered imprisonment for the play. The Privy Council letter of 15 Aug. 1597 (cf. App. D, No. cxi) was no doubt intended to direct his apprehension, but, as I pointed out in M. L. R. iv. 410, 511, the actor and maker of plays referred to therein as actually in prison must have been Ben Jonson, who was released by the Council on 3 Oct. 1597 (cf. App. D, No. cxii). The connexion of Jonson (q.v.) with the Isle of Dogs is noted in Satiromastix. With him the Council released Gabriel Spencer and Robert Shaw, and the inference is that the peccant company was Pembroke’s (q.v.) at the Swan on Bankside. The belief that it was the Admiral’s at the Rose only rests on certain forged interpolations by Collier in Henslowe’s diary. These are set out by Greg (Henslowe, i. xl). The only genuine mention of the affair in the diary is the provision noted in the memorandum of Borne’s agreement of 10 Aug. 1597 that his service is to begin ‘imediatly after this restraynt is recaled by the lordes of the counsell which restraynt is by the meanes of playinge the Ieylle of Dooges’ (Henslowe, i. 203). The restraint was ordered by the Privy Council on 28 July 1597 (App. D, No. cx), presumably soon after the offence, the nature of which is only vaguely described as the handling of ‘lewd matters’. Perhaps it is possible, at any rate in conjecture, to be more specific. By dogs we may take it that Nashe meant men. The idea was not new to him. In Summer’s Last Will and Testament he makes Orion draw an elaborate parallel between dogs and men, at the end of which Will Summer says that he had not thought ‘the ship of fooles would haue stayde to take in fresh water at the Ile of dogges’ (l. 779). But there is nothing offensive to authority here. Nashe returns to the question of his indiscretion in more than one passage of Lenten Stuffe, and in particular has a diatribe (McKerrow, iii. 213) against lawyers who try to fish ‘a deepe politique state meaning’ out of what contains no such thing. ‘Talke I of a beare, O, it is such a man that emblazons him in his armes, or of a woolfe, a fox, or a camelion, any lording whom they do not affect it is meant by.’ Apparently Nashe was accused of satirizing some nobleman. But this was not the only point of attack. ‘Out steps me an infant squib of the Innes of Court ... and he, to approue hymselfe an extrauagant statesman, catcheth hold of a rush, and absolutely concludeth, it is meant of the Emperor of Ruscia, and that it will vtterly marre the traffike into that country if all the Pamphlets bee not called in and suppressed, wherein that libelling word is mentioned.’ I do not suppose that Nashe had literally called the Emperor of Russia a rush in The Isle of Dogs, but it is quite possible that he, or Ben Jonson, had called the King of Poland a pole. On 23 July 1597, just five days before the trouble, a Polish ambassador had made representations in an audience with Elizabeth, apparently about the question, vexed in the sixteenth as in the twentieth century, of contraband in neutral vessels, and she, scouring up her rusty old Latin for the purpose, had answered him in very round terms. The matter, to which there are several allusions in the Cecilian correspondence (Wright, Eliz. ii. 478, 481, 485), gave some trouble, and any mention of it on the public stage might well have been resented. A letter of Robert Beale in 1592 (McKerrow, v. 142) shows that the criticisms of Nashe’s Pierce Penilesse had similarly been due to his attack upon the Danes, with which country the diplomatic issues were much the same as with Poland. In Hatfield MSS. vii. 343 is a letter of 10 Aug. 1597 to Robert Cecil from Richard (misdescribed in the Calendar as Robert) Topcliffe, recommending an unnamed bearer as ‘the first man that discovered to me that seditious play called The Isle of Dogs’.

Doubtful Play

Nashe has been suggested as a contributor to A Knack to Know a Knave (cf. ch. xxiv).

THOMAS NELSON.

The pageant-writer is probably identical with the stationer of the same name, who is traceable in London during 1580–92 (McKerrow, 198).

Allot Pageant. 29 Oct. 1590

1590. The Deuice of the Pageant: Set forth by the Worshipfull Companie of the Fishmongers, for the right honourable Iohn Allot: established Lord Maior of London, and Maior of the Staple for this present Yeere of our Lord 1590. By T. Nelson. No imprint.

Speeches by the riders on the Merman and the Unicorn, and by Fame, the Peace of England, Wisdom, Policy, God’s Truth, Plenty, Loyalty and Concord, Ambition, Commonwealth, Science and Labour, Richard the Second, Jack Straw, and Commonwealth again, representing Sir William Walworth, who was evidently the chief subject of the pageant.

Edition by W. C. Hazlitt (1886, Antiquary, xiii. 54).--Dissertation: R. Withington, The Lord Mayor’s Show for 1590 (1918, M.L.N. xxxiii. 8).

ALEXANDER NEVILLE (1544–1614).

Translator of Seneca (q.v.).

THOMAS NEWTON (c. 1542–1607).

Translator of Seneca (q.v.).

RICHARD NICCOLS (1584–1616?).

This writer of various poetical works and reviser in 1610 of The Mirror for Magistrates may have been the writer intended by the S. R. entry to Edward Blount on 15 Feb. 1612 of ‘A tragedye called, The Twynnes tragedye, written by Niccolls’ (Arber, iii. 478). No copy is known, and it is arbitrary of Fleay, ii. 170, to ‘suspect’ a revival of it in William Rider’s The Twins (1655), which had been played at Salisbury Court.

HENRY NOEL (ob. 1597).

A younger son of Andrew Noel of Dalby on the Wolds, Leicestershire, whose personal gifts and extravagance enabled him to make a considerable figure as a Gentleman Pensioner at Court. He may have been a fellow author with Robert Wilmot (q.v.) of Gismond of Salerne, although he has not been definitely traced as a member of the Inner Temple, by whom the play was produced.

THOMAS NORTON (1532–84).

Norton was born in London and educated at Cambridge and the Inner Temple. In 1571 he became Remembrancer of the City of London, and also sat in Parliament for London. Apparently he is distinct from the Thomas Norton who acted from 1560 as counsel to the Stationers’ Company. He took part in theological controversy as a Calvinist, and was opposed to the public stage (cf. App. D, No. xxxi). In 1583 he escaped with some difficulty from a charge of treason. His first wife, Margaret, was daughter, and his second, Alice, niece of Cranmer.

Ferrex and Porrex, or Gorboduc. 28 Jan. 1562

S. R. 1565–6. ‘A Tragdie of Gorboduc where iij actes were Wretten by Thomas Norton and the laste by Thomas Sackvyle, &c.’ William Greffeth (Arber, i. 296).

1565, Sept. 22. The Tragedie of Gorboduc, Where of three Actes were wrytten by Thomas Nortone, and the two laste by Thomas Sackuyle. Sett forthe as the same was shewed before the Quenes most excellent Maiestie, in her highnes Court of Whitehall, the .xviij. day of Ianuary, Anno Domini .1561. By the Gentlemen of Thynner Temple in London. William Griffith. [Argument; Dumb-Shows.]

N.D. [c. 1571] The Tragidie of Ferrex and Porrex, set forth without addition or alteration but altogether as the same was shewed on stage before the Queenes Maiestie, about nine yeares past, viz., the xviij day of Ianuarie 1561, by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple. Seen and allowed, &c. John Day. [Epistle by ‘The P. to the Reader’.]

1590. Edward Allde for John Perrin. [Part of The Serpent of Division.]

Editions in Dodsley^{1–3} (1744–1825), and by Hawkins (1773, O. E. D. ii), W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. i), W. D. Cooper (1847, Sh. Soc.), R. W. Sackville-West, Works of Sackville (1859), L. T. Smith (1883), J. M. Manly (1897, Spec. ii. 211), J. S. Farmer (1908, T. F. T.), J. W. Cunliffe and H. A. Watt (1912, E. E. C. T.).--Dissertations: E. Köppel (E. S. xvi. 357); Koch, F. und P. (1881, Halle diss.); H. A. Watt, G.; or F. and P. (1910, Wisconsin Univ. Bulletin, 351).

Day’s epistle says that the play was ‘furniture of part of the grand Christmasse in the Inner Temple first written about nine yeares agoe by the right honourable Thomas now Lorde Buckherst, and by T. Norton, and after shewed before her Maiestie, and neuer intended by the authors therof to be published’. But one W. G. printed it in their absence, ‘getting a copie therof at some yongmans hand that lacked a litle money and much discretion’. Machyn, 275, records on 18 Jan. 1561 ‘a play in the quen hall at Westmynster by the gentyll-men of the Tempull, and after a grett maske, for ther was a grett skaffold in the hall, with grett tryhumpe as has bene sene; and the morow after the skaffold was taken done’. Fleay, ii. 174, doubts Norton’s participation--Heaven knows why.

Malone (Var. iii. 32) cites the unreliable Chetwood for a performance of Gorboduc at Dublin Castle in 1601.

For the Inner Temple Christmas of 1561, at which Robert Dudley was constable-marshal and Christopher Hatton master of the game, cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 415. It was presumably at the mask of 18 Jan. that Hatton danced his way into Elizabeth’s heart.

THOMAS NUCE (ob. 1617).

Translator of Seneca (q.v.).

OWEN AP JOHN (c. 1600).

A late sixteenth-century MS. (Peniarth MS. 65 = Hengwrt MS. 358) of The Oration of Gwgan and Poetry is calendared as his in Welsh MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm.), i. 2. 454, and said to be ‘in the form of interludes’. He may be merely the scribe.

PHILIP PARSONS (1594–1653).

Fellow of St. John’s, Oxford, and later Principal of Hart Hall (D. N. B.), and author of the academic Atalanta (cf. App. K).

MERCURIUS (?) PATEN (c. 1575).

Gascoigne names a ‘M. [Mr.] Paten’ as a contributor to the Kenilworth entertainment (cf. ch. xxiv, C.). He might be the Patten described in D. N. B. as rector of Stoke Newington (but not traceable in Hennessy) and author of an anonymous Calendars of Scripture (1575). But I think he is more likely to have been Mercurius, son of William Patten, teller of the exchequer and lord of the manor of Stoke Newington, who matriculated at Trinity, Cambridge, in 1567 and was Blue Mantle pursuivant in 1603 (Hist. of Stoke Newington in Bibl. Top. Brit. ii; Admissions to T. C. C. ii. 70).

GEORGE PEELE (c. 1557–96).

As the son of James Peele, clerk of Christ’s Hospital and himself a maker of pageants (vol. i, p. 136; Mediaeval Stage, ii. 166), George entered the grammar school in 1565, proceeded thence to Broadgates Hall, Oxford, in 1571, and became a student of Christ Church in 1574, taking his B.A. in 1577 and his M.A. in 1579. In Sept. 1579 the court of Christ’s Hospital required James Peele ‘to discharge His howse of his sonne George Peele and all other his howsold which have bene chargable to him’. This perhaps explains why George prolonged his residence at Oxford until 1581. In that year he came to London, and about the same time married. His wife’s business affairs brought him back to Oxford in 1583 and in a deposition of 29 March he describes himself as aged 25. During this visit he superintended the performance before Alasco at Christ Church on 11 and 12 June of the Rivales and Dido of William Gager, who bears testimony to Peele’s reputation as wit and poet in two sets of Latin verses In Iphigeniam Georgii Peeli Anglicanis versibus redditam (Boas, 166,180). Presumably the rest of his life was spent in London, and its wit and accompanying riot find some record in The Merry Conceited Jests of George Peele (S. R. 14 Dec. 1605: text in Bullen and in Hazlitt, Jest Books, ii. 261, and Hindley, i), although this is much contaminated with traditional matter from earlier jest books. It provided material for the anonymous play of The Puritan (1607), in which Peele appeared as George Pyeboard. His fame as a dramatist is thus acknowledged in Nashe’s epistle to Greene’s Menaphon (1589):

‘For the last, though not the least of them all, I dare commend him to all that know him, as the chief supporter of pleasance now living, the Atlas of poetry, and primus verborum artifex; whose first increase, the Arraignment of Paris, might plead to your opinions his pregnant dexterity of wit and manifold variety of invention, wherein (me iudice) he goeth a step beyond all that write.’

Some have thought that Peele is the

Palin, worthy of great praise, Albe he envy at my rustic quill,

of Spenser’s Colin Clout’s Come Home Again (1591). It seems difficult to accept the suggestions of Sarrazin that he was the original both of Falstaff and of Yorick. An allusion in a letter to Edward Alleyn (cf. ch. xv) has unjustifiably been interpreted as implying that Peele was actor as well as playwright, and Collier accordingly included his name in a forged list of housekeepers at an imaginary Blackfriars theatre of 1589 (cf. vol. ii, p. 108). He was, however, clearly one of the three of his ‘quondam acquaintance’ to whom Greene (q.v.) addressed the attack upon players in his Groats-worth of Wit (1592). In 1596 Peele after ‘long sickness’ sent a begging letter by his daughter to Lord Burghley, with a copy of his Tale of Troy. He was buried as a ‘householder’ at St. James’s, Clerkenwell, on 9 Nov. 1596 (Harl. Soc. Registers, xvii. 58), having died, according to Meres’s Palladis Tamia, ‘by the pox’. He can, therefore, hardly be the Peleus of Birth of Hercules (1597 <).

Collections

1828–39. A. Dyce. 3 vols.

1861, 1879. A. Dyce. 1 vol. [With Greene.]

1888. A. H. Bullen. 2 vols.

Dissertations: R. Lämmerhirt, G. P. Untersuchungen über sein Leben und seine Werke (1882); L. Kellner, Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamides (1889, E. S. xiii. 187); E. Penner, Metrische Untersuchungen zu P. (1890, Archiv, lxxxv. 269); A. R. Bayley, P. as a Dramatic Artist (Oxford Point of View, 15 Feb. 1903); G. C. Odell, P. as a Dramatist (1903, Bibliographer, ii); E. Landsberg, Der Stil in P.’s sicheren und zweifelhaften dramatischen Werken (1910, Breslau diss.); G. Sarrazin, Zur Biographie und Charakteristik von G. P. (1910, Archiv, cxxiv. 65); P. H. Cheffaud, G. P. (1913).

PLAYS

The Arraignment of Paris, c. 1584

1584. The Araygnement of Paris A Pastorall. Presented before the Queenes Maiestie, by the Children of her Chappell. Henry Marsh. [Prologue and Epilogue.]

Editions by O. Smeaton (1905, T. D.) and H. H. Child (1910, M. S. R.).--Dissertation: F. E. Schelling, The Source of P.’s A. of P. (1893, M. L. N. viii. 206).

Fleay, ii. 152, assigns the play to 1581 on the assumption that the Chapel stopped playing in 1582. But they went on to 1584. Nashe’s allusion (vide supra) and the ascription of passages from the play to ‘Geo. Peele’ in England’s Helicon (1600) fix the authorship.

The Battle of Alcazar, c. 1589

[MS.] Addl. MS. 10449, ‘The Plott of the Battell of Alcazar’. [Probably from Dulwich. The fragmentary text is given by Greg, Henslowe Papers, 138, and a facsimile by Halliwell, The Theatre Plats of Three Old English Dramas (1860).]

1594. The Battell of Alcazar, fought in Barbarie, betweene Sebastian king of Portugall, and Abdelmelec king of Marocco. With the death of Captaine Stukeley. As it was sundrie times plaid by the Lord high Admirall his seruants. Edward Allde for Richard Bankworth. [Prologue by ‘the Presenter’ and dumb-shows.]

Edition by W. W. Greg (1907, M. S. R.).

Interest in Sebastian was aroused in 1589 by the expedition of Norris and Drake to set Don Antonio on the throne of Portugal. This started on 18 April, and Peele wrote A Farewell, in which is a reference to this amongst other plays (l. 20, ed. Bullen, ii. 238):

Bid theatres and proud tragedians, Bid Mahomet’s Poo and mighty Tamburlaine, King Charlemagne, Tom Stukeley and the rest, Adieu.

There are some possible but not very clear allusions to the Armada in the play. From 21 Feb. 1592 to 20 Jan. 1593 Strange’s men played fourteen times for Henslowe Muly Mollocco, by which this play, in which Abdelmelec is also called Muly Mollocco, is probably meant (Greg, Henslowe, ii. 149). The ‘plot’ must belong to a later revival by the Admiral’s, datable, since both Alleyn and Shaw acted in it, either in Dec. 1597 or in 1600–2 (cf. ch. xiii).

The authorship has been assigned to Peele, both on stylistic evidence and because ll. 467–72 appear over his name in R. A.’s England’s Parnassus (1600), but R. A. has an error in at least one of his ascriptions to Peele, and he ascribes l. 49 of this play to Dekker (Crawford, E. P. xxxv. 398, 474; M. S. C. i. 101).

Edward I > 1593

S. R. 1593, Oct. 8. ‘An enterlude entituled the Chronicle of Kinge Edward the firste surnamed Longeshank with his Retourne out of the Holye Lande, with the lyfe of Leublen Rebell in Wales with the sinkinge of Quene Elinour.’ Abel Jeffes (Arber, ii. 637).

1593. The Famous Chronicle of king Edwarde the first, sirnamed Edwarde Longshankes, with his returne from the holy land. Also the life of Lleuellen, rebell in Wales. Lastly, the sinking of Queene Elinor, who sunck at Charingcrosse, and rose againe at Potters-hith now named Queenehith. Abel Jeffes, sold by William Barley. [At end, ‘Yours. By George Peele, Maister of Artes in Oxenford’.]

1599. W. White.

Edition by W. W. Greg (1911, M. S. R.).--Dissertations: W. Thieme, P.’s Ed. I und seine Quellen (1903, Halle diss.); E. Kronenberg, G. P.’s Ed. I (1903, Jena diss.).

Fleay, ii. 157, makes the date 1590–1, on the ground that lines are quoted from Polyhymnia (1590). A theory that Shakespeare acted in the play is founded on ll. 759–62, where after Baliol’s coronation Elinor says:

Now, brave John Baliol, Lord of Galloway And King of Scots, shine with thy golden head! Shake thy spears, in honour of his [i.e. Edward’s] name, Under whose royalty thou wearest the same.

This is not very convincing.

A play called Longshank, Longshanks, and Prince Longshank was played fourteen times by the Admiral’s, from 29 Aug. 1595 to 14 July 1596. It is marked ‘ne’, and unless there had been substantial revision, can hardly be Peele’s play. ‘Longe-shanckes sewte’ is in the Admiral’s inventory of 10 March 1598. On 8 Aug. 1602 Alleyn sold the book of the play to the Admiral’s with another for £4. (Greg, Henslowe, ii. 176; Henslowe Papers, 113.)

David and Bethsabe > 1594

S. R. 1594, May 14. ‘A booke called the book of David and Bethsaba.’ Adam Islip (Arber, ii. 649). [Islip’s name is cancelled and Edward White’s substituted.]

1599. The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe. With the Tragedie of Absalon. As it hath ben divers times plaied on the stage. Written by George Peele. Adam Islip. [Prologue.]

Editions by T. Hawkins (1773, O. E. D. ii), J. M. Manly (1897, Specimens, ii. 419), and W. W. Greg (1912, M. S. R.).--Dissertations: B. Neitzel (1904, Halle diss.); M. Dannenberg, Die Verwendung des biblischen Stoffes von David und Bathseba im englischen Drama (1905, Königsberg diss.).

Fleay, ii. 153, dates the play c. 1588 on the ground of some not very plausible political allusions. The text as it stands looks like a boildown of a piece, perhaps of a neo-miracle type, written in three ‘discourses’. It had choruses, of which two only are preserved. One is ll. 572–95 (at end of sc. iv of M. S. R. ed.). The other (ll. 1646–58; M. S. R. sc. xv) headed ‘Chorus 5’, contains the statement:

this storie lends vs other store, To make a third discourse of Dauids life,

and is followed by a misplaced fragment of a speech by Absalon.

In Oct. 1602 Henslowe (ii. 232) laid out money for Worcester’s on poles and workmanship ‘for to hange Absolome’; but we need not assume a revival of Peele’s play.

The Old Wive’s Tale. 1591 < > 4

S. R. 1595, Apr. 16. ‘A booke or interlude intituled a pleasant Conceipte called the owlde wifes tale.’ Ralph Hancock (Arber, ii. 296).

1595. The Old Wiues Tale. A pleasant conceited Comedie, played by the Queenes Maiesties players. Written by G. P. John Danter, sold by Ralph Hancock and John Hardie.

Editions by F. B. Gummere (1903, R. E. C.), W. W. Greg (1908, M. S. R.), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.), F. R. Cady (1916).--Dissertation: H. Dutz, Der Dank des Tödten in der englischen Literatur (1894).

The Queen’s men had presumably produced the play by 1594, when they left London. Peele borrowed some lines and the name Sacrapant from Greene’s Orlando Furioso (1591). The hexameters of Huanebango are a burlesque of Gabriel Harvey.

Lost Plays

Iphigenia. c. 1579

A translation of one of the two plays of Euripides, probably written at Oxford, is only known by some laudatory verses of William Gager, In Iphigeniam Georgii Peeli Anglicanis versibus redditam, printed by Bullen, i. xvii.

Hunting of Cupid > 1591

S. R. 1591, July 26 (Bp. of London). ‘A booke intituled the Huntinge of Cupid wrytten by George Peele, Master of Artes of Oxeford. Provyded alwayes that yf yt be hurtfull to any other Copye before lycenced, then this to be voyde.’ Richard Jones (Arber, ii. 591).

Probably the play--I suppose it was a play--was printed, as Drummond of Hawthornden includes jottings from ‘The Huntinge of Cupid by George Peele of Oxford. Pastoral’ amongst others from ‘Bookes red anno 1609 be me’, and thereby enables us to identify extracts assigned to Peele in England’s Parnassus (1600) and England’s Helicon (1600) as from the same source. The fragments are all carefully collected by W. W. Greg in M. S. C. i. 307.

The Turkish Mahomet and Hiren the Fair Greek > 1594

The Merry Conceited Jests (Bullen, ii. 394) gives this as the title of a ‘famous play’ of Peele’s. Conceivably it, rather than Greene’s Alphonsus (q.v.), may be the ‘Mahomet’s Poo’ of Peele’s Farewell of 1589 (vide supra, s.v. Battle of Alcazar). An Admiral’s inventory of 10 March 1598 includes ‘owld Mahemetes head’. The Admiral’s had played Mahomet for Henslowe from 16 Aug. 1594 to 5 Feb. 1595, and a play called The Love of a Grecian Lady or The Grecian Comedy from 5 Oct. 1594 to 10 Oct. 1595. In Aug. 1601 Henslowe bought Mahemett from Alleyn, and incurred other expenses on the play for the Admiral’s (Henslowe, ii. 167; Henslowe Papers, 116). Possibly all the three titles of 1594–5 stand for Peele’s play. Jacob Ayrer wrote a play on the siege of Constantinople and the loves of Mahomet and Irene. This may have had some relation on the one hand to Peele’s, and on the other to a play of the siege of Constantinople used by Spencer (cf. ch. xiv) in Germany during 1612–14 (Herz, 73). Pistol’s ‘Have we not Hiren here?’ (2 Hen. IV, II. iv. 173) is doubtless from the play.

The Knight of Rhodes

This also is described in the Merry Jests (cf. ch. xxiv, s.v. Soliman and Perseda).

Doubtful Plays

Peele’s hand has been sought in nearly every masterless play of his epoch: Alphonsus of Germany, Captain Thomas Stukeley, Clyomon and Clamydes, Contention of York and Lancaster, George a Greene, Henry VI, Histriomastix, Jack Straw, Troublesome Reign of King John, Knack to Know a Knave, Leire, Locrine, Mucedorus, Soliman and Perseda, Taming of A Shrew, True Tragedy of Richard III, Wily Beguiled, Wisdom of Dr. Dodipoll (cf. ch. xxiv).

ENTERTAINMENTS

Dixie Pageant. 29 Oct. 1585

1585. The Device of the Pageant borne before Woolstone Dixi Lord Maior of the Citie of London. An. 1585. October 29. Edward Allde. [At end, ‘Done by George Peele, Master of Arts in Oxford’.]

Editions in Nichols, Eliz. (1823), ii. 446, and F. W. Fairholt, Lord Mayor’s Pageants (1843, Percy Soc. xxxviii).

Polyhymnia. 17 Nov. 1590

See s.v. Lee.

Descensus Astreae. 29 Oct. 1591

1591. Descensus Astreae. The Deuice of a Pageant, borne before M. William Web, Lord Maior of the Citie of London on the day he tooke his oath; beeing the 29. of October. 1591. Wherevnto is annexed A Speech deliuered by one clad like a Sea Nymph, who presented a Pinesse on the water brauely rigd and mand, to the Lord Maior, at the time he tooke Barge to go to Westminster. Done by G. Peele Maister of Arts in Oxford. For William Wright.

Edition in F. W. Fairholt, Lord Mayor’s Pageants (1843, Percy Soc. xxxviii).

Anglorum Feriae. 1595

[MS.] Brit. Mus. Addl. MS. 21432 (autograph). ‘Anglorum Feriae, Englandes Hollydayes, celebrated the 17th of Novemb. last, 1595, beginninge happyly the 38 yeare of the raigne of our soveraigne ladie Queene Elizabeth. By George Peele M^r of Arte in Oxforde.’

S. R. 1595, Nov. 18. ‘A newe Ballad of the honorable order of the Runnynge at Tilt at Whitehall the 17. of November in the 38 yere of her maiesties Reign.’ John Danter (Arber, iii. 53). [This is not necessarily Peele’s poem.]

Edition by R. Fitch (n.d. c. 1830).

This is a blank-verse description of tilting, like Polyhymnia; on the occasion, cf. s.v. Bacon.

Lost Entertainment. 1588

S. R. 1588, Oct. 28. ‘Entred for his copie vppon Condicon that it maye be lycenced, ye device of the Pageant borne before the Righte honorable Martyn Calthrop lorde maiour of the Cytie of London the 29th daie of October 1588 George Peele the Authour.’ Richard Jones (Arber, ii. 504).

In the Merry Conceited Jests it is said that Peele had ‘all the oversight of the pageants’ (Bullen, ii. 381).

Doubtful Entertainment

For the ascription to Peele of a Theobalds entertainment in 1591, see s.v. Cecil.

JOHN PENRUDDOCK (c. 1588).

The Master ‘Penroodocke’, who was one of the directors for the Misfortunes of Arthur of Thomas Hughes (q.v.) in 1588, was presumably John Penruddock, one of the readers of Gray’s Inn in 1590, and the John who was admitted to the inn in 1562 (J. Foster, Admissions to Gray’s Inn).

WILLIAM PERCY (1575–1648).

Percy was third son of Henry Percy, eighth Earl of Northumberland, and educated at Gloucester Hall, Oxford. He was a friend of Barnabe Barnes, and himself published Sonnets to the Fairest Coelia (1594). His life is obscure, but in 1638 he was living in Oxford and ‘drinking nothing but ale’ (Strafford Letters, ii. 166), and here he died in 1648.

PLAYS

[MS.] Autograph formerly in collection of the Duke of Devonshire, with t.p. ‘Comædyes and Pastoralls ... By W. P. Esq.... Exscriptum Anno Salutis 1647’. [Contains, in addition to the two plays printed in 1824, the following:

Arabia Sitiens, or A Dream of a Dry Year (1601). The Aphrodysial, or Sea Feast (1602). Cupid’s Sacrifice, or a Country’s Tragedy in Vacuniam (1602). Necromantes, or The Two Supposed Heads (1602).]

[Edition] 1824. The Cuck-Queanes and Cuckolds Errants or The Bearing down the Inne. A Comædye. The Faery Pastorall, or Forrest of Elves. By W. P. Esq. (Roxburghe Club). [Preface by [Joseph] H[aslewood].]--Dissertations: C. Grabau, Zur englischen Bühne um 1600 (1902, Jahrbuch, xxxviii. 230); V. Albright, P.’s Plays as Proof of the Elizabethan Stage (1913, M. P. xi. 237); G. F. Reynolds, W. P. and his Plays (1914, M. P. xii. 241).

Percy’s authorship appears to be fixed by a correspondence between an epigram in the MS. to Charles Fitzgeffrey with one Ad Gulielmum Percium in Fitzgeoffridi Affaniae (1601), sig. D 2. 6.

The Cuck-Queanes and Cuckolds Errants is dated 1601 and The Faery Pastorall 1603. The other plays are unprinted and practically unknown, although Reynolds gives some account of The Aphrodysial. There are elaborate stage-directions, which contain several references to Paul’s, for which the plays, whether in fact acted or not, were evidently intended, as is shown by an author’s note appended to the manuscript (cf. ch. xii, s.v. Paul’s).

I feel some doubt as to the original date of these plays. It seems to me just conceivable that they were originally produced by the Paul’s boys before 1590, and revised by Percy after 1599 in hopes of a revival. Some of the s.ds. are descriptive in the past tense (cf. ch. xxii), which suggests actual production. The action of C. and C. Errant is during the time of the Armada, but the composition must be later than the death of Tarlton, as his ghost prologizes. Here the author notes, ‘Rather to be omitted if for Powles, and another Prologue for him to be brought in Place’. Faery Pastoral uses (p. 97) the date ‘1647’; it is in fairy time, but points to some revision when the MS. was written. There are alternative final scenes, with the note, ‘Be this the foresayd for Powles, For Actors see the Direction at later end of this Pastorall, which is separate by itself, Extra Olens, as they say’. Similarly in Aphrodysial a direction for beards is noted ‘Thus for Actors; for Powles without’, and another s.d. is ‘Chambers (noise supposd for Powles) For Actors’. A reference to ‘a showre of Rose-water and confits, as was acted in Christ Church in Oxford, in Dido and Aeneas’ is a reminiscence of Gager’s play of 12 June 1583, and again makes a seventeenth-century date seem odd.

PETER (?) PETT (c. 1600).

Henslowe’s diary records a payment of £6 on 17 May 1600 for the Admiral’s ‘to pay Will: Haulton [Haughton] and Mr. Pett in full payment of a play called straunge newes out of Poland’. Fleay, i. 273, says: ‘Pett is not heard of elsewhere. Should it not be Chett., i.e. Chettle? The only Pett I know of as a writer is Peter Pett, who published Time’s journey to seek his daughter Truth, in verse, 1599.’ To which Greg, Henslowe, ii. 213, replies: ‘Henslowe often has Cett for Chettle, which is even nearer, but only where he is crowded for room and he never applies to him the title of Mr.’

JOHN PHILLIP (> 1570–> 1626).

John Phillip or Phillips was a member of Queens’ College, Cambridge, and author of various ballads, tracts, and elegies, published between 1566 and 1591. I do not know whether he may be the ‘Phelypes’, who was apparently concerned with John Heywood and a play by Paul’s (q.v.) in 1559. A John Phillipps, this or another, is mentioned (1619) as a brother-in-law in the will of Samuel Daniel (Sh. Soc. Papers, iv. 157).

Dissertation: W. W. Greg, J. P.--Notes for a Bibliography (1910–13, 3 Library, i. 302, 395; iv. 432).

Patient Grissell. 1558–61

S. R. 1565–6. ‘An history of meke and pacyent gresell.’ Thomas Colwell (Arber, i. 309).

1568–9. ‘The history of payciente gresell &c.’ Thomas Colwell (Arber, i. 385).

N.D. The Commodye of pacient and meeke Grissill, Whearin is declared, the good example, of her patience towardes her husband: and lykewise, the due obedience of Children, toward their Parentes. Newly. Compiled by Iohn Phillip. Eight persons maye easely play this Commody.... Thomas Colwell. [Preface; Epilogue, followed by ‘Finis, qd. Iohn Phillipp’.]

Edition by R. B. McKerrow and W. W. Greg (1909, M. S. R.).

The characters include Politic Persuasion, the ‘Vice’. Elizabeth is mentioned as Queen in the epilogue, and a reference (51) to the ‘wethercocke of Paules’ perhaps dates before its destruction in 1561.

JOHN PICKERING (c. 1567–8).

Brie records several contemporary John Pickerings, but there is nothing to connect any one of them with the play.

Horestes. 1567–8

1567. A Newe Enterlude of Vice Conteyninge, the Historye of Horestes, with the cruell reuengment of his Father’s death, vpon his one naturtll Mother. By John Pikeryng.... The names deuided for VI to playe.... William Griffith. [On the back of the t.p. is a coat of arms which appears to be a slight variant of that assigned by Papworth and Morant, Ordinary of British Armorials, 536, to the family of Marshall. Oddly enough, there was a family of this name settled at Pickering in Yorkshire, but they, according to G. W. Marshall, Miscellanea Marescalliana, i. 1; ii. 2, 139, had quite a different coat.]

Editions by J. P. Collier (1866, Illustrations of Old English Literature), A. Brandl (1898, Q. W. D.), J. S. Farmer (1910, T. F. T.).--Dissertation: F. Brie, Horestes von J. P. (1912, E. S. xlvi. 66).

The play has a Vice, and ends with prayer for Queen Elizabeth and the Lord Mayor of ‘this noble Cytie’. Feuillerat, Eliz. 449, thinks it too crude to be the Court Orestes of 1567–8, but the coincidence of date strongly suggests that it was.

JOHN POOLE (?).

Possible author of Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany (cf. ch. xxiv).

HENRY PORTER (c. 1596–9).

Porter first appears in Henslowe’s diary as recipient of a payment of £5 on 16 Dec. 1596 and a loan of £4 on 7 March 1597, both on account of the Admiral’s. It may be assumed that he was already writing for the company, who purchased five plays, wholly or partly by him, between May 1598 and March 1599. Meres, in his Palladis Tamia of 1598, counts him as one of ‘the best for Comedy amongst vs’. He appears to have been in needy circumstances, and borrowed several small sums from the company or from Henslowe personally (Greg, Henslowe, ii. 304). On 28 Feb. 1599, when he obtained £2 on account of Two Merry Women of Abingdon, ‘he gaue me his faythfulle promysse that I shold haue alle the boockes w^{ch} he writte ether him sellfe or w^{th} any other’. On 16 April 1599, in consideration of 1_s._ he bound himself in £10 to pay Henslowe a debt of 25_s._ on the following day, but could not meet his obligation. Porter is not traceable as a dramatist after 1599. His extant play, on the title-page of which he is described as ‘Gent.’, suggests a familiarity with the neighbourhood of Oxford, and I see no a priori reason why he should not be the Henry Porter, son of a London gentleman, who matriculated from Brasenose on 19 June 1589 (Boase and Clark, ii. 2, 170), or the Henricus Porter, apparently a musician, of John Weever’s Epigrammes (1599), v. 24, or the Henry Porter of Christ Church who became B.Mus. in July 1600 (Wood, Fasti Oxon. i. 284), or the Henry Porter who was a royal sackbut on 21 June 1603 (Nagel, 36), or the Henry Porter whose son Walter became Gentleman of the Chapel Royal on 5 Jan. 1616 and has left musical works (D. N. B.). Gayley’s argument to the contrary rests on the unfounded assumption that the musician could not have been writing Bankside plays during the progress of his studies for his musical degree.

The Two Angry Women of Abingdon > 1598

1599. The Pleasant Historie of the two angrie women of Abington. With the humorous mirthe of Dicke Coomes and Nicholas Prouerbes, two Seruingmen. As it was lately playde by the right Honorable the Earle of Nottingham, Lord High Admirall, his seruants. By Henry Porter Gent. For Joseph Hunt and William Ferbrand. [Prologue. Greg shows this to be Q_{1}.]

1599. For William Ferbrand.

Editions in Dodsley^4 (1874), and by G. M. Gayley (1903, R. E. C. i), J. S. Farmer (1911, T. F. T.), W. W. Greg (1912, M. S. R.).

The play shows no signs of being a sequel, and is presumably the First Part, to which Porter wrote a Second Part (vide infra) in the winter of 1598–9. It was an Admiral’s play, and therefore one would expect to find it in Henslowe’s very full, if not absolutely exhaustive, chronicle of the company’s repertory. Of the plays named as his by Henslowe, Love Prevented seems the only likely title. But he was in the pay of the company before the diary began to record the authorship of plays, and Part i may therefore be among the anonymous plays of 1596–7 or an earlier season. Gayley suggests The Comedy of Humours, produced 11 May 1597, but that is more plausibly identified with Chapman’s Humorous Day’s Mirth (q.v.). Another possibility is Woman Hard to Please, produced 27 Jan. 1597.

Lost Plays

Henslowe’s diary records the following plays for the Admiral’s men, in which Porter had a hand in 1598 and 1599:

(i) Love Prevented.

May 1598. Vide Two Angry Women of Abingdon, supra.

(ii) Hot Anger Soon Cold.

With Chettle and Jonson, Aug. 1598.

(iii) 2 Two Angry Women of Abingdon.

Dec. 1598–Feb. 1599.

(iv) Two Merry Women of Abingdon.

Feb. 1599.

(v) The Spencers.

With Chettle, March 1599.

THOMAS POUND (1538?-1616?).

Pound was of Beaumonds in Farlington, Hants, the son of William Pound and Anne Wriothesley, daughter of Thomas, first Earl of Southampton. William Pound had a brother Anthony, whose daughter Honora married Henry, fourth Earl of Sussex (V. H. Hants, iii. 149; Harl. Soc. lxiv. 138; Berry, Hants Genealogies, 194; Recusant Rolls in Catholic Record Soc. xviii. 278, 279, 330, 334). Thomas was in youth a Winchester boy, a Lincoln’s Inn lawyer, and a courtier of repute. About 1570 he left the world and became a fervent Catholic, and the record of his recusancy, of his relations with the Jesuit order, which he probably joined, of the help he gave to Edmund Campion, and of his long life of imprisonment and domiciliary restraint is written in H. Morus, Historia Missionis Anglicanae Societatis Jesu (1660); D. Bartoli, Dell’ Istoria della Compagnia di Gesu: L’Inghilterra (1667); N. Sanders and E. Rishton, De Origine Schismatis Anglicani (1586); M. Tanner, Societas Jesu Apostolorum Imitatrix (1694); R. Simpson in 2 Rambler (1857), viii. 29, 94; H. Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, iii (1878), 567; J. H. Pollen, English Catholics in the Reign of Elizabeth (1920), 333 sqq. I am only concerned with his worldly life and his quitting of it. As a Winchester alumnus, he is said to have delivered a Latin speech of welcome to Elizabeth (Bartoli, 51), presumably at her visit of 1560 (App. A), but he can hardly still have been a schoolboy; perhaps he was at New College. He had already been entered at Lincoln’s Inn on 16 Feb. 1560 (Adm. Reg. i. 66), and it was on behalf of Lincoln’s Inn that he wrote and pronounced two mask orations which are preserved in Bodl. Rawl. Poet. MS. 108, ff. 24, 29, whence they are described in E. Brydges, British Bibliographer, ii. 612. Both seem to have been before Elizabeth (cf. vol. i, p. 162, and App. A). The first, at the wedding of his cousin Henry, Earl of Southampton, in Feb. 1566, is headed in the manuscript ‘The copye of an oration made and pronounced by Mr. Pownde of Lyncolnes Inne, with a brave maske out of the same howse, all one greatte horses att the mariage off the yonge erle of South hampton to the Lord Mountagues dawghter abowt Shrouetyde 1565’. The second, at the wedding on 1 July 1566 of another cousin, Frances Radcliffe, is similarly headed ‘The copye of an oration made and pronounced by Mr. Pownd of Lincolnes Inne, with a maske att y^e marriage of y^e Earl of Sussex syster to Mr. Myldmaye off Lyncolnes Inne 1566’. From this, which is in rhyming quatrains, Brydges quotes 119 lines; they are of no merit. In 1580 Pound wrote from his prison at Bishop’s Stortford to Sir Christopher Hatton (S. P. D. Eliz. cxlii. 20) commending a petition to the Queen, ‘for her poeticall presents sake, which her Majesty disdayned not to take at poore Mercuries hands, if you remember it, at Killiegeworth Castle’. The reference must be to the Kenilworth visit of 1568, rather than 1573 or 1575, for soon after Thomas Pound’s days of courtly masking came to an abrupt end. The story is told in Morus, 46:

‘Natales Christi dies, ut semper solemnes, ita anno sexagesimo quarto fuere celeberrimi; dabantur in Curia ludi apparatissimi Thoma Pondo instructore. Inter saltandum, nudam eius manum manu nuda prensat Regina, tum ei caput, abrepto Leicestrie Comitis pileo, ipsa tegit, ne ex vehementi motu accensus subito refrigeraretur. Imposita ei videbatur laurea: cum (secundo eandem saltationis formam flagitante Regina) celerrime de more uno in pede circumuolitans, pronus concidit; Plausu in risum mutato, surge, inquit Regina, Domine Taure; ea voce commotus, surrexit quidem; at flexo ad terram poplite, vulgatum illud latine prolocutus, sic transit gloria mundi, proripuit se, et non longo interuallo Aulam spesque fallaces deseruit, consumptarum facultatum et violatae Religionis praemium ludibrium consecutus.’

There is a little difficulty as to the date. Morus puts it in 1564, but goes on to add that Pound was in his thirtieth year, and he was certainly born in 1538 or 1539. And Bartoli, 51, followed by Tanner, 480, gives 1569, citing, probably from Jesuit archives, a letter written by Pound himself on 3 June 1609. No doubt 1569, which may mean either 1568–9 or 1569–70, is right.

THOMAS PRESTON (> 1569–1589 <).

A Thomas Preston entered King’s, Cambridge, from Eton in 1553, and became Fellow in 1556, taking his B.A. in 1557 and his M.A. in 1561. At Elizabeth’s visit in 1564 he disputed with Thomas Cartwright before her in the Philosophy Act, and also played in Dido, winning such favour that she called him her ‘scholar’ and gave him a pension of £20 a year from the privy purse (Cunningham, xx; Nichols, Eliz. i. 270; Fuller, Cambridge, 137; Wordsworth, Ecclesiastical Memorials, iv. 322). He held his fellowship at King’s until 1581. In 1583 a newswriter reported him to be ‘withdrawen into Scotland as a malcontent and there made much of by the King’ (Wright, Eliz. ii. 215). In 1584 he became Master of Trinity Hall, and in 1589 was Vice-Chancellor. In 1592, with other Heads of Houses, he signed a memorial to Burghley in favour of the stay of plays at Cambridge (M. S. C. i. 192). It seems to me incredible that he should, as is usually taken for granted, have been the author of Cambyses, about which there is nothing academic, and I think that there must have been a popular writer of the same name, responsible for the play, and also for certain ballads of the broadside type, of which A Lamentation from Rome (Collier, Old Ballads, Percy Soc.) was printed in 1570, and A Ballad from the Countrie, sent to showe how we should Fast this Lent (Archiv, cxiv. 329, from Bodl. Rawl. Poet. MS. 185) is dated 1589. Both are subscribed, like Cambyses, ‘Finis Quod Thomas Preston’. A third was entered on S. R. in 1569–70 as ‘A geliflower of swete marygolde, wherein the frutes of tyranny you may beholde’.

A Thomas Preston is traceable as a quarterly waiter at Court under Edward VI (Trevelyan Papers, i. 195, 200, 204; ii. 19, 26, 33), and a choirmaster of the same name was ejected from Windsor Chapel as a recusant about 1561 (cf. ch. xii).

Cambyses > 1570

S. R. 1569–70. ‘An enterlude a lamentable Tragedy full of pleasaunt myrth.’ John Allde (Arber, i. 400).

N.D. [1569–84]. A Lamentable Tragedie, mixed full of pleasant mirth, containing the life of Cambises King of Percia ... By Thomas Preston. John Allde. [Arrangement of parts for eight actors; Prologue; Epilogue, with prayer for Queen and Council. At end, ‘Amen, quod Thomas Preston’.]

N.D. [1584–1628]. Edward Allde.

Editions by T. Hawkins (1773, O. E. D. i), in Dodsley^4, iv (1874), and by J. M. Manly (1897, Specimens, ii), and J. S. Farmer (1910, T. F. T.).

Line 1148 mentions Bishop Bonner whose ‘delight was to shed blood’, and Fleay, 64, therefore dates the play 1569–70, as Bonner died 5 Sept. 1569. But he may merely be put in the past as an ex-bishop. Three comic villains, Huf, Ruf, and Snuf, are among the characters, and chronology makes it possible that the play was the Huff, Suff, and Ruff (cf. App. A) played at Court during Christmas 1560–1. Preston may, however, have borrowed these characters, as Ulpian Fulwell borrowed Ralph Roister, from an earlier play.

Doubtful Play

Preston has been suggested as the author of Sir Clyomon and Clamydes (cf. ch. xxiv).

DANIEL PRICE (1581–1631).

A student of Exeter College, Oxford, who became chaplain to Prince Henry (D. N. B.), and described his Creation in 1610 (cf. ch. xxiv, C).

RICHARD (?) PUTTENHAM (c. 1520–1601).

The author of The Arte of English Poesie (1589; cf. App. C, No. xli) claims to have written three plays, no one of which is extant. He analyses at length the plot of his ‘Comedie entituled Ginecocratia’ (Arber, 146), in which were a King, Polemon, Polemon’s daughter, and Philino. He twice cites his ‘enterlude’, Lustie London (Arber, 183, 208), in which were a Serjeant, his Yeoman, a Carrier, and a Buffoon. And he twice cites his ‘enterlude’, The Woer (Arber, 212, 233), in which were a Country Clown, a Young Maid of the City, and a Nurse.

The author of The Arte is referred to by Camden in 1614 (cf. Gregory Smith, ii. 444) as ‘Maister Puttenham’, and by E. Bolton, Hypercritica (c. 1618), with the qualification ‘as the Fame is’, as ‘one of her Gentlemen Pensioners, Puttenham’. H. Crofts, in his edition (1880) of Sir Thomas Elyot’s The Governour, has shown that this is more likely to have been Richard, the elder, than George, the younger, son of Robert Puttenham and nephew of Sir Thomas Elyot. Neither brother, however, can be shown to have been a Gentleman Pensioner, and Collier gives no authority for his statement that Richard was a Yeoman of the Guard. Richard was writing as far back as the reign of Henry VIII, and the dates of his plays are unknown.

WILLIAM RANKINS (> 1587–1601 <).

The moralist who published A Mirrour of Monsters (1587), The English Ape (1588), and Seven Satires (1598) is, in spite of the attack on plays (cf. App. C, No. xxxviii) in the first of these, probably identical with the dramatist who received payment from Henslowe on behalf of the Admiral’s for the following plays during 1598–1601:

(i) Mulmutius Dunwallow.

Oct. 1598, £3, ‘to by a boocke’, probably an old one.

(ii) Hannibal and Scipio.

With Hathway, Jan. 1601.

(iii) Scogan and Skelton.

With Hathway, Jan.–Mar. 1601.

(iv) The Conquest of Spain by John of Gaunt.

With Hathway, Mar.–Apr. 1601, but never finished, as shown by a letter to Henslowe from S. Rowley, bidding him let Hathway ‘haue his papars agayne’ (Henslowe Papers, 56).

Rankins has also been suggested as the author of Leire (cf. ch. xxiv).

THOMAS RICHARDS (c. 1577).

A possible author of Misogonus (cf. ch. xxiv).

HENRY ROBERTS (c. 1606).

A miscellaneous writer (D. N. B.) who described the visit of the King of Denmark to England (cf. ch. xxiv, C). The stationer of the same name, who printed the descriptions, may be either the author or his son (McKerrow, 229).

JOHN ROBERTS (c. 1574).

A contributor to the Bristol Entertainment of Elizabeth (cf. ch. xxiv, C).

ROBINSON.

Henslowe paid £3 on behalf of the Admiral’s men on 9 Sept. 1602 ‘vnto M^r. Robensone for a tragedie called Felmelanco’. Later in the month he paid two sums amounting to another £3 to Chettle, for ‘his tragedie’ of the same name. The natural interpretation is that Chettle and Robinson co-operated, but Fleay, i. 70, rather wantonly says, ‘Robinson was, I think, to Chettle what Mrs. Harris was to Mrs. Gamp’, and Greg, Henslowe, ii. 224, while not agreeing with Fleay, ‘It is, however, unlikely that he had any hand in the play. Probably Chettle had again pawned his MS.’

Dates make it improbable that this Robinson was the poet Richard Robinson whose lost ‘tragedy’ Hemidos and Thelay is not likely to have been a play (cf. App. M).

SAMUEL ROWLEY (?-1624).

For Rowley’s career as an Admiral’s and Prince’s man, cf. ch. xv.

Dr. Faustus

For the additions by Rowley and Bird in 1602, cf. s.v. Marlowe.

When You See Me, You Know Me. 1603 < > 5

S. R. 1605, Feb. 12, ‘Yf he gett good alowance for the enterlude of King Henry the 8th before he begyn to print it. And then procure the wardens handes to yt for the entrance of yt: He is to haue the same for his copy.’ Nathanaell Butter (Arber, iii. 283). [No fee recorded.]

1605. When you see me, You know me. Or the famous Chronicle Historie of King Henry the eight, with the birth and vertuous life of Edward Prince of Wales. As it was playd by the high and mightie Prince of Wales his seruants. By Samuell Rowly, seruant to the Prince. For Nathaniel Butter.

1613; 1621; 1632.

Editions by K. Elze (1874) and J. S. Farmer (1912, S. F. T.).--Dissertation: W. Zeitlin, Shakespeare’s King Henry the Eighth and R.’s When You See Me (1881, Anglia, iv. 73).

The Noble Soldier

Probably with Day and Dekker (q.v.).

Lost Plays

(a) Plays for the Admiral’s, noted in Henslowe’s diary.

Judas. With W. Bird, Dec. 1601, possibly a completion of the play of the same name left unfinished by Haughton (q.v.) in 1600.

Joshua. Sept. 1602.

(b) Plays for the Palsgrave’s, licensed by Sir Henry Herbert (Chalmers, S. A. 214–17; Herbert, 24, 26, 27).

27 July 1623, Richard III.

29 Oct. 1623, Hardshifte for Husbands.

6 Apr. 1624, A Match or No Match.

Doubtful Plays

H. D. Sykes, The Authorship of The Taming of A Shrew, etc. (1920, Sh. Association), argues, on the basis of a comparison of phraseology with When You See Me, You Know Me and some of the additions to Dr. Faustus, for Rowley’s authorship of (a) The Famous Victories, (b) the prose scenes of A Shrew, (c) the clowning passages in Greene’s Orlando Furioso, (d) the prose scenes of Wily Beguiled. He suggests that the same collaborator, borrowing first from Marlowe and then from Kyd, may have supplied the verse scenes both of A Shrew and of Wily Beguiled. There is no external evidence to connect Rowley with the Queen’s, and he only becomes clearly traceable with the Admiral’s in 1598, but Mr. Sykes has certainly made out a stylistic case which deserves consideration.

WILLIAM ROWLEY (?-1625 <).

Of Rowley’s origin and birth nothing is known. He first appears as collaborator in a play of Queen Anne’s men in 1607, and, although he may have also acted with this company, there is no evidence of the fact. His name is in the patent of 30 March 1610 for the Duke of York’s men with that of Thomas Hobbes, to whom his pamphlet A Search for Money (1609, Percy Soc. ii.) is dedicated. He acted as their payee from 1610 to 1615, and they played his Hymen’s Holiday or Cupid’s Vagaries, now lost, in 1612. A Knave in Print and The Fool without Book, entered as his on 9 Sept. 1653 (Eyre, i. 428), might be their anonymous two-part Knaves of 1613. He contributed an epitaph on Thomas Greene of the Queen’s to Cooke’s Greene’s Tu Quoque (1614). From 1615 to March 1616 the Prince’s men seem to have been merged in the Princess Elizabeth’s. They then resumed their identity at the Hope, and with them Rowley is traceable as an actor to 1619 and as a writer, in collaboration with Thomas Middleton (q.v.), Thomas Ford, and Thomas Heywood, until 1621. In 1621 he wrote an epitaph upon one of their members, Hugh Attwell, apparently as his ‘fellow’. It was still as a Prince’s man that he received mourning for James on 17 March 1625. But in 1621 and 1622 he was writing, with Middleton and alone, for the Lady Elizabeth’s at the Cockpit, and in 1623 both writing and acting in The Maid of the Mill for the King’s men, and prefixing verses to Webster’s Duchess of Malfi, which belonged to the same company. He had definitely joined the King’s by 24 June 1625 when his name appears in their new patent, and for them his latest play-writing was done. In addition to what was published under his name, he is generally credited with some share in the miscellaneous collection of the Beaumont and Fletcher Ff. His name is not in an official list of King’s men in 1629, but the date of his death is unknown. A William Rowley married Isabel Tooley at Cripplegate in 1637, but the date hardly justifies the assumption that it was the dramatist.

Dissertations: P. G. Wiggin, An Inquiry into the Authorship of the Middleton-Rowley Plays (1897, Radcliffe College Monographs, ix); C. W. Stork, William Rowley (1910, Pennsylvania Univ. Publ. xiii, with texts of All’s Lost for Lust and A Shoemaker a Gentleman).

A Shoemaker a Gentleman, c. 1608

S. R. 1637, Nov. 28 (Weekes). ‘A Comedie called A Shoomaker is a gentleman with the life and death of the Criple that stole the weather cocke of Pauls, by William Rowley.’ John Okes (Arber, iv. 400).

1638. A Merrie and Pleasant Comedy: Never before Printed, called A Shoomaker a Gentleman. As it hath beene sundry Times Acted at the Red Bull and other Theatres, with a general and good Applause. Written by W. R. Gentleman. I. Okes, sold by Iohn Cooper. [Epistle by Printer to Gentlemen of the Gentle Craft.]

Edition by C. W. Stork (1910).

The epistle says that the play was still often acted, and ‘as Plaies were then, some twenty yeares agone, it was in the fashion’. This dating and the mention of the Red Bull justify us in regarding it as an early play for Queen Anne’s men.

A New Wonder, A Woman Never Vexed (?)

S. R. 1631, Nov. 24 (Herbert). ‘A booke called A new wonder or a woman neuer vext (a Comedy) by William Rowley.’ Constable (Arber, iv. 266).

1632. A new Wonder, A Woman never vext. A pleasant conceited Comedy: sundry times Acted: never before printed. Written by William Rowley, one of his Maiesties Servants. G. P. for Francis Constable.

Fleay, ii, 102, and Greg (H. ii. 177) suggest revision by Rowley of the Admiral’s Wonder of a Woman (1595), perhaps by Heywood (q.v.); Stork, 26, early work for Queen Anne’s men, under Heywood’s influence.

A Match at Midnight (?)

S. R. 1633, Jan. 15 (Herbert). ‘A Play called A Match at midnight.’ William Sheares (Arber, iv. 291).

1633. A Match at Midnight A Pleasant Comœdie: As it hath been Acted by the Children of the Revells. Written by W. R. Aug. Mathewes for William Sheares.

Fleay, 203 and ii. 95, treats the play, without discussion, as written by Middleton and Rowley for the Queen’s Revels c. 1607. Bullen, Middleton, i. lxxxix, and Stork, 17, concur as to the date, the former regarding it as Middleton’s revised c. 1622 by Rowley, the latter as practically all Rowley’s. These views are evidently influenced by the mention of the Children of the Revels on the title-page. Wiggin, 7, noting allusions to the battle of Prague in 1620 and Reynard the Fox (1621), thinks it alternatively possible that Rowley wrote it under Middletonian influence for one of the later Revels companies c. 1622. There was no doubt a company of Children of the Revels in 1622–3 (Murray, i. 198), but the name on a t.p. of 1633 would naturally refer to the still later company of 1629–37 (Murray, i. 279).

The Birth of Merlin (?)

1662. The Birth of Merlin: Or, The Childe hath found his Father. As it hath been several times Acted with great Applause. Written by William Shakespear, and William Rowley. Tho. Johnson for Francis Kirkman and Henry Marsh.

Editions by T. E. Jacob (1889), J. S. Farmer (1910, T. F. T.), and with Sh. Apocrypha.--Dissertations: F. A. Howe, The Authorship of the B. of M. (1906, M. P. iv. 193); W. Wells, The B. of M. (1921, M. L. R. xvi. 129).

Kirkman’s attribution to Shakespeare and Rowley was first made in his play-list of 1661 (Greg, Masques, liii). It is generally accepted for Rowley, but not for Shakespeare. But Fleay, Shakespeare, 289, on a hint of P. A. Daniel, gave Rowley a collaborator in Middleton, and later (ii. 105) treated the play as a revision by Rowley of the Uther Pendragon produced by the Admiral’s on 29 April 1597. This view seems to rest in part upon the analogous character of The Mayor of Quinborough. Howe thinks that Rowley worked up a sketch by Middleton later than 1621, and attempts a division of the play on this hypothesis. But Stork, Rowley, 58, thinks that Rowley revised Uther Pendragon or some other old play about 1608. F. W. Moorman (C. H. v. 249) suggests Dekker, and Wells Beaumont and Fletcher.

Doubtful Plays

The ascription to Rowley on the t.p. of The Thracian Wonder is not generally accepted. His hand has been sought in The Captain, The Coxcomb, and Wit at Several Weapons (cf. s.v. Beaumont) and in Troublesome Reign of King John (cf. ch. xxiv) and Pericles.

MATTHEW ROYDON (> 1580–1622 <).

The reference to his ‘comike inuentions’ in Nashe’s Menaphon epistle of 1589 (App. C, No. xlii) suggests that he wrote plays.

GEORGE RUGGLE (1575–1622).

Ruggle entered St. John’s, Cambridge, from Lavenham grammar school, Suffolk, in 1589, migrated to Trinity, where he took his B.A. in 1593 and his M.A. in 1597, and became Fellow of Clare Hall in 1598. He remained at Cambridge until 1620, shortly before his death.

Ignoramus. 8 March 1615

[MSS.] Bodl. Tanner MS. 306, with actor-list; Harl. MSS. 6869 (fragmentary); and others.

S. R. 1615, April 18 (Nidd). ‘Ignoramus Comœdia provt Cantabrigie acta coram Jacobo serenissimo potentissimo magnae Britanniae rege.’ Walter Burre (Arber, iii. 566).

1630. Ignoramus. Comœdia coram Regia Majestate Jacobi Regis Angliae, &c. Impensis I. S. [Colophon] Excudebat T. P. [Prologus Prior. Martii 8. Anno 1614; Prologus Posterior. Ad secundum Regis adventum habitus, Maii 6, 1615; Epilogus.]

1630.... Secunda editio auctior & emendatior. Typis T. H. Sumptibus G. E. & J. S. [Macaronic lines, headed ‘Dulman in laudem Ignorami’.]

1658.... Autore M^{ro} Ruggle, Aulae Clarensis A.M.

1659, 1668, 1707, 1731, 1736, 1737.

Edition by J. S. Hawkins (1787).

Chamberlain, describing to Carleton James’s visit to Cambridge in March 1615, wrote (Birch, i. 304): ‘The second night [8 March] was a comedy of Clare Hall, with the help of two or three good actors from other houses, wherein David Drummond, on a hobby-horse, and Brakin, the recorder of the town, under the name of Ignoramus, a common lawyer, bore great parts. The thing was full of mirth and variety, with many excellent actors; among whom the Lord Compton’s son, though least, yet was not worst, but more than half marred by extreme length.’ On 31 March he told Carleton (Birch, i. 360) of the Oxford satires on the play, and of a possible second visit by the King, unless he could persuade the actors to visit London. And on 20 May he wrote to him (Birch, i. 363): ‘On Saturday last [13 May], the King went again to Cambridge, to see the play “Ignoramus”, which has so nettled the lawyers, that they are almost out of all patience.’ He adds that rhymes and ballads had been written by the lawyers, and answered. Specimens of the ‘flytings’ to which the play gave rise are in Hawkins, xxxvii, xlii, cvii, 259. Fuller, Church History (1655), x. 70, reports a story that the irritation caused to the lawyers also led to John Selden’s demonstration of the secular origin of tithes. The authorship of Ignoramus is indicated by the entry in a notice of the royal visit printed (Hawkins, xxx) from a manuscript in the library of Sir Edward Dering:

‘On Wednesday night, 2, Ignoramus, the lawyer, Latine, and part English, composed by M^r. Ruggle, Clarensis.’

Ignoramus was largely based on the Trappolaria (1596) of Giambattista Porta, into which Ruggle introduced his satire of the Cambridge recorder, Francis Brackyn, who had already been the butt of 3 Parnassus.

Doubtful and Lost Plays

There is no justification for ascribing to Ruggle Loiola (1648), which is by John Hacket, but Hawkins, lxxii, cites from a note made in a copy of Ignoramus by John Hayward of Clare Hall, c. 1741:

‘N.B. M^r. Geo. Ruggle wrote besides two other comedies, Re vera or Verily, and Club Law, to expose the puritans, not yet printed. MS.’

Club Law (cf. ch. xxiv) has since been recovered.

THOMAS SACKVILLE (1536–1608).

Thomas Sackville became Lord Buckhurst in 1567 and Earl of Dorset in 1604. He is famous in literature for his contributions to ed. 2 (1559) of A Mirror for Magistrates, and in statesmanship as Lord Treasurer under Elizabeth and James I.

Ferrex and Porrex, or Gorboduc. 1562

With Thomas Norton (q.v.).

GEORGE SALTERNE (> 1603).

Author of the academic Tomumbeius (cf. App. K).

JOHN SAVILE (c. 1603).

Describer of the coming of James I to England (cf. ch. xxiv, C).

ROBERT SEMPILL (c. 1530–95).

A Scottish ballad writer (D. N. B.) and a suggested author of Philotus (cf. ch. xxiv).

SENECAN TRANSLATIONS (1559–81).

Troas (Jasper Heywood)

S. R. 1558–9. ‘A treates of Senaca.’ Richard Tottel (Arber, i. 96).

1559. The Sixt Tragedie of the most graue and prudent author Lucius, Anneus, Seneca, entituled Troas, with diuers and sundrye addicions to the same. Newly set forth in Englishe by Iasper Heywood studient in Oxenforde. Richard Tottel. Cum priuilegio ad imprimendum solum. [Epistle to Elizabeth by Heywood; Preface to the Readers; Preface to the Tragedy.]

1559. Richard Tottel. [Another edition (B. M. G. 9440).]

N.D. [c. 1560]. Thomas Powell for George Bucke.

Thyestes (Jasper Heywood)

1560, March 26. The seconde Tragedie of Seneca entituled Thyestes faithfully Englished by Iasper Heywood, fellow of Alsolne College in Oxforde. [Thomas Powell?] ‘in the hous late Thomas Berthelettes’. [Verse Epistle to Sir John Mason by Heywood; The Translator to the Book; Preface.]

Hercules Furens (Jasper Heywood)

1561. Lucii Annei Senecae Tragedia prima quae inscribitur Hercules furens.... The first Tragedie of Lucius Anneus Seneca, intituled Hercules furens, newly pervsed and of all faultes whereof it did before abound diligently corrected, and for the profit of young schollers so faithfully translated into English metre, that ye may se verse for verse tourned as farre as the phrase of the english permitteth By Iasper Heywood studient in Oxford. Henry Sutton. [Epistle to William, Earl of Pembroke, by Heywood; Argument; Latin and English texts.]

Oedipus (Alexander Neville)

S. R. 1562–3. ‘A boke intituled the lamentable history of the prynnce Oedypus &c.’ Thomas Colwell (Arber, i. 209).

1563, April 28. The Lamentable Tragedie of Oedipus the Sonne of Laius Kyng of Thebes out of Seneca. By Alexander Neuyle. Thomas Colwell. [Epistles to Nicholas Wotton by Neville, and to the Reader.]

Agamemnon (John Studley)

S. R. 1565–6. ‘A boke intituled the eighte Tragide of Senyca.’ Thomas Colwell (Arber, i. 304).

1566. The Eyght Tragedie of Seneca. Entituled Agamemnon. Translated out of Latin into English, by Iohn Studley, Student in Trinitie Colledge in Cambridge. Thomas Colwell. [Commendatory Verses by Thomas Nuce, William R., H. C., Thomas Delapeend, W. Parkar, T. B.; Epistle to Sir William Cecil, signed ‘Iohn Studley’; Preface to the Reader.]

Medea (John Studley)

S. R. 1565–6. ‘A boke intituled the tragedy of Seneca Media by John Studley of Trenety Colledge in Cambryge.’ Thomas Colwell (Arber, i. 312).

1566. The seuenth Tragedie of Seneca, Entituled Medea: Translated out of Latin into English, by Iohn Studley, Student in Trinitie Colledge in Cambridge. Thomas Colwell. [Epistle to Francis, Earl of Bedford, signed ‘Iohn Studley’; Preface to Reader; Commendatory Verses by W. P.; Argument.]

Octavia (Thomas Nuce)

Hercules Oetaeus (John Studley)

S. R. 1566–7. ‘A boke intituled the ix^{th} and x^{th} tragide of Lucious Anneas oute of the laten into englesshe by T. W. fellowe of Pembrek Hall, in Chambryge.’ Henry Denham (Arber, i. 327).

1570–1. ‘iij^{de} part of Herculus Oote.’ Thomas Colwell (Arber, i. 443).

N.D. The ninth Tragedie of Lucius Anneus Seneca called Octavia. Translated out of Latine into English, by T. N. Student in Cambridge. Henry Denham. [Epistles to Robert Earl of Leicester, signed ‘T. N.’, and to the Reader.]

This is B.M. C. 34, e. 48. C. Grabau in Sh.-Jahrbuch, xliii. 310, says that a copy in the Irish sale of 1906 was of an unknown edition, possibly of 1566.

Hippolytus (John Studley)

S. R. 1566–7. ‘The iiij^{th} parte Seneca Workes.’ Henry Denham (Arber, i. 336).

31 Aug. 1579. Transfer from Denham to Richard Jones and John Charlwood (Arber, ii. 359).

The Ten Tragedies. 1581

S. R. 1580–1. ‘Senecas Tragedies in Englishe.’ Thomas Marsh (Arber, ii. 396).

1581. Seneca his Tenne Tragedies, Translated into Englysh. Thomas Marsh. [Epistle to Sir Thomas Heneage by Thomas Newton. Adds Thebais, by Thomas Newton, and, if not already printed, as S. R. entries in 1566–7 and 1570–1 suggest, Hercules Oetaeus and Hippolytus, by John Studley. The Oedipus of Neville is a revised text.]

Reprint of 1581 collection (1887, Spenser Soc.), and editions of Studley’s Agamemnon and Medea, by E. M. Spearing (1913, Materialien, xxxviii), and of Heywood’s Troas, Thyestes, and Hercules Furens, by H. de Vocht (1913, Materialien, xli).--Dissertations: J. W. Cunliffe, The Influence of S. on Elizabethan Tragedy (1893); E. Jockers, Die englischen S.-Übersetzer des 16. Jahrhunderts (1909, Strassburg diss.); E. M. Spearing, The Elizabethan ‘Tenne Tragedies of S.’ (1909, M. L. R. iv. 437), The Elizabethan Translation of S.’s Tragedies (1912), A. N.’s Oedipus (1920, M. L. R. xv. 359); F. L. Lucas, S. and Elizabethan Tragedy (1922).

Of the translators, Jasper Heywood (1535–98) became Fellow of All Souls, Oxford, in 1558. He was son of John Heywood the dramatist, and uncle of John Donne. In 1562 he became a Jesuit, and left England, to return as a missionary in 1581. He was imprisoned during 1583–5 and then expelled. John Studley (c. 1547–?) entered Trinity, Cambridge, in 1563 and became Fellow in 1567. Alexander Neville (1544–1614) took his B.A. in 1560 at Cambridge. He became secretary successively to Parker, Grindal, and Whitgift, archbishops of Canterbury, and produced other literary work, chiefly in Latin. Thomas Nuce (ob. 1617) was Fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, in 1562, and became Canon of Ely in 1585. Thomas Newton (c. 1542–1607) migrated in 1562 from Trinity, Oxford, to Queens’, Cambridge, but apparently returned to his original college later. About 1583 he became Rector of Little Ilford, Essex. He produced much unimportant verse and prose, in Latin and English, and was a friend of William Hunnis (q.v.).

For a fragment of another translation of Hercules Oetaeus, cf. s.v. Elizabeth. Archer’s play-list of 1656 contains the curious entry ‘Baggs Seneca’, described as a tragedy. Of this Greg, Masques, li, can make nothing.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564–1616).

No adequate treatment of Shakespeare’s life and plays is possible within the limits of this chapter. I have therefore contented myself with giving the main bibliographical data, in illustration of the chapters on the companies (Strange’s, Pembroke’s, Chamberlain’s, and King’s) and the theatres (Rose, Newington Butts, Theatre, Curtain, Globe, Blackfriars) with which he was or may have been concerned. I follow the conjectural chronological order adopted in my article on Shakespeare in the 11th ed. of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Collections

[1619]. It is probable that the 1619 editions of Merry Wives of Windsor (Q_{2}), Pericles (Q_{4}), and the apocryphal Yorkshire Tragedy were intended to form part of a collection of plays ascribed to Shakespeare, and that the ‘1600’ editions of Midsummer Night’s Dream (Q_{2}) and Merchant of Venice (Q_{2}) bearing the name of the printer Roberts, the ‘1600’ edition of the apocryphal Sir John Oldcastle bearing the initials T. P., the ‘1608’ edition of Henry V (Q_{3}), the ‘1608’ edition of King Lear (Q_{2}) lacking the name of the ‘Pide Bull’ shop, and the undated edition of The Whole Contention of York and Lancaster were all also printed in 1619 for the same purpose. The printer seems to have been William Jaggard, with whom was associated Thomas Pavier, who held the copyright of several of the plays. Presumably an intention to prefix a general title-page is the explanation of the shortened imprints characteristic of these editions. The sheets of The Whole Contention and Pericles have in fact continuous signatures; but the plan seems to have been modified, and the other plays issued separately. The bibliographical evidence bearing on this theory is discussed by W. W. Greg, W. Jaggard, A. W. Pollard, and A. H. Huth in 2 Library, ix. 113, 381; x. 208; and 3 Library, i. 36, 46; ii. 101; and summed up by A. W. Pollard, Shakespeare Folios and Quartos, 81. Confirmatory evidence is adduced by W. J. Niedig, The Shakespeare Quartos of 1619 (M. P. viii. 145) and False Dates on Shakespeare Quartos (1910, Century, 912).

S. R. 1623, Nov. 8 (Worrall). ‘Master William Shakspeers Comedyes Histories, and Tragedyes soe manie of the said Copies as are not formerly entred to other men. viz^t Comedyes The Tempest The two gentlemen of Verona Measure for Measure The Comedy of Errors As you like it All’s well that ends well Twelfe Night The winters tale Histories The thirde parte of Henry ye Sixt Henry the eight Tragedies Coriolanus Timon of Athens Julius Caesar Mackbeth Anthonie and Cleopatra Cymbeline’ Blounte and Isaak Jaggard (Arber, iv. 107). [This entry covers all the plays in F_{1} not already printed, except Taming of the Shrew, King John, and 2, 3 Henry VI, which were doubtless regarded from the stationer’s point of view as identical with the Taming of A Shrew, Troublesome Reign of King John, and Contention of York and Lancaster, on which they were based. The ‘thirde parte of Henry ye Sixt’ is of course the hitherto unprinted 1 Henry VI.]

[F_{1}] 1623. M^{r}. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies Published according to the True Originall Copies. By Isaac Iaggard and Ed. Blount. [Colophon] Printed [by W. Jaggard] at the charges of W. Jaggard, Ed. Blount, I. Smethweeke, and W. Aspley. [Verses to the Reader, signed B[en] I[onson]; Portrait signed ‘Martin Droeshout sculpsit London’; Epistles to the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery and to the great Variety of Readers, both signed ‘Iohn Heminge, Henry Condell’; Commendatory Verses signed ‘Ben: Ionson’, ‘Hugh Holland’, ‘L. Digges’, ‘I. M.’; ‘The Names of the Principall Actors in all these Playes’; ‘A Catalogue of the seuerall Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies contained in this Volume’.]

S. R. 1627, June 19 [on or after]. Transfer from Dorothy widow of Isaac Jaggard to Thomas and Richard Cotes of ‘her parte in Schackspheere playes’ (Arber, iv. 182).

S. R. 1630, Nov. 16. Transfer from Blount to Robert Allot by note dated 26 June 1630 of his ‘estate and right’ in the sixteen plays of the 1623 entry (Arber, iv. 243).

[F_{2}] 1632. Thomas Cotes, for John Smethwick, William Aspley, Richard Hawkins, Richard Meighen and Robert Allot. [So colophon: there are t.ps. with separate imprints by Cotes for each of the five booksellers.]

[F_{3}] 1663. For Philip Chetwinde. [For the second issue of 1664, with Pericles and six apocryphal plays added, cf. p. 203.]

[F_{4}] 1685. For H. Herringman (and others).

Of later editions the most valuable for literary history are those by E. Malone, revised by J. Boswell (1821, the Third Variorum Shakespeare, 21 vols.); W. A. Wright (1891–3, the Cambridge Shakespeare, 9 vols.); F. J. Furnivall and others (1885–91, the Shakespeare Quarto Facsimiles, 43 vols.); H. H. Furness (1871–1919, the New Variorum Shakespeare, 18 plays in 19 vols. issued); E. Dowden and others (1899–1922, the Arden Shakespeare); A. T. Q. Couch and J. D. Wilson (1921–2, the New Shakespeare, 5 vols. issued). Of dissertations I can only note, for biography, J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare (1890, ed. 9), and S. Lee, A Life of William Shakespeare (1922, new ed.), and for bibliography, S. Lee, Facsimile of F{1} from the Chatsworth copy_ (1902, with census of copies, added to in 2 Library, vii. 113), W. W. Greg, The Bibliographical History of the First Folio (1903, 2 Library, iv. 258), A. W. Pollard, Shakespeare Folios and Quartos (1909) and Shakespeare’s Fight with the Pirates (1920), A. W. Pollard and H. C. Bartlett, A Census of Shakespeare’s Plays in Quarto (1916), and H. C. Bartlett, Mr. William Shakespeare (1922).

1 Henry VI. 1592

[F_{1}] 1623. The first Part of Henry the Sixt.

2, 3 Henry VI. 1592 (?)

S. R. No original entry. [Probably these plays were regarded from a stationer’s point of view as identical with the anonymous Contention of York and Lancaster (q.v.), on which they were based. Pavier had acquired rights over these from Millington in 1602.]

[F_{1}] 1623. The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, with the death of the Good Duke Humfrey. The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, with the death of the Duke of Yorke.

S. R. 1626, Aug. 4. Transfer from Mrs. Pavier to Edward Brewster and Robert Birde of ‘Master Paviers right in Shakesperes plaies or any of them’ (Arber, iv. 164).

S. R. 1630, Nov. 8. Transfer from Bird to Richard Cotes of ‘Yorke and Lancaster’ (Arber, iv. 242).

Richard III. 1592–3 (?)

S. R. 1597, Oct. 20 (Barlowe). ‘The tragedie of Kinge Richard the Third with the death of the Duke of Clarence.’ Andrew Wise (Arber, iii. 93).

[Q_{1}] 1597. The Tragedy of King Richard the third. Containing, His treacherous Plots against his brother Clarence: the pittiefull murther of his iunocent nephewes: his tyrannical vsurpation: with the whole course of his detested life, and most deserued death. As it hath beene lately Acted by the Right honourable the Lord Chamberlaine his seruants. Valentine Sims for Andrew Wise.

[Q_{2}] 1598.... By William Shakespeare. Thomas Creede for Andrew Wise.

[Q_{3}] 1602.... Newly augmented.... Thomas Creede for Andrew Wise. [There is no augmentation.]

S. R. 1603, June 25. Transfer from Andrew Wise to Mathew Lawe (Arber, iii. 239).

[Q_{4}] 1605. Thomas Creede, sold by Mathew Lawe.

[Q_{5}] 1612.... As it hath beene lately Acted by the Kings Maiesties seruants.... Thomas Creede, sold by Mathew Lawe.

[Q_{6}] 1622. Thomas Purfoot, sold by Mathew Law.

[F_{1}] 1623. The Tragedy of Richard the Third: with the Landing of Earle Richmond, and the Battell at Bosworth Field. [Running Title, The Life and Death of Richard the Third. From Q_{1}-Q_{2}-Q_{3}-Q_{4} (+ Q_{3})-Q_{5}-Q_{6}, with corrections.]

[Q_{7}] 1629. John Norton, sold by Mathew Law.

[Q_{8}] 1634. John Norton.

Comedy of Errors. 1593 (?)

[F_{1}] 1623. The Comedie of Errors.

Titus Andronicus. 1594

S. R. 1594, Feb. 6. ‘A Noble Roman historye of Tytus Andronicus.’ John Danter (Arber, ii. 644).

[Q_{1}] 1594. The most Lamentable Romaine Tragedie of Titus Andronicus: As it was Plaide by the Right Honourable the Earle of Darbie, Earle of Pembrooke and Earle of Sussex their Seruants. John Danter, sold by Edward White and Thomas Millington.

[Q_{2}] 1600.... As it hath sundry times beene playde by the Right Honourable the Earle of Pembrooke, the Earle of Darbie, the Earle of Sussex, and the Lorde Chamberlaine theyr Seruants. I[ames] R[oberts] for Edward White.

S. R. 1602, April 19. Transfer ‘saluo iure cuiuscunque’ from Thomas Millington to Thomas Pavier (Arber, iii. 204).

[Q_{3}] 1611. For Edward White.

[F_{1}] 1623. The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus. [From Q_{1}-Q_{2}-Q_{3}, with addition of III. ii.]

S. R. 1626, Aug. 4. Transfer from Mrs. Pavier of interest to Edward Brewster and Robert Bird (Arber, iv. 164).

The Taming of The Shrew. 1594

S. R. No entry. [Probably the play was regarded from the point of view of copyright as identical with the anonymous Taming of A Shrew (q.v.), on which it was based.]

[F_{1}] 1623. The Taming of the Shrew.

[Q_{1}] 1631. A wittie and pleasant comedie called The Taming of the Shrew. As it was acted by his Maiesties Seruants at the Blacke Friers and the Globe. Written by Will. Shakespeare. W. S. for Iohn Smethwicke.

Love’s Labour’s Lost. 1594 (?)

S. R. No original entry.

[Q_{1}] 1598. A Pleasant Conceited Comedie Called, Loues labors lost. As it was presented before her Highnes this last Christmas. Newly corrected and augmented By W. Shakespere. W[illiam] W[hite] for Cutbert Burby.

S. R. 1607. Jan. 22. Transfer from Burby to Nicholas Ling (Arber, iii. 337).

S. R. 1607, Nov. 19. Transfer from Ling to John Smethwick (Arber, iii. 365).

[F_{1}] 1623. Loues Labour’s lost. [From Q_{1}.]

[Q_{2}] 1631.... As it was Acted by his Maiesties Seruants at the Blacke-Friers and the Globe.... W[illiam] S[tansby] for John Smethwicke.

Romeo and Juliet. 1594–5 (?)

S. R. No original entry.

[Q_{1}] 1597. An Excellent conceited Tragedie of Romeo and Iuliet, As it hath been often (with great applause) plaid publiquely, by the right Honourable the L. of Hunsdon his Seruants. John Danter.

[Q_{2}] 1599.... Newly corrected, augmented, and amended: ... Thomas Creede for Cuthbert Burby. [Revised and enlarged text.]

S. R. 1607, Jan. 22. Transfer by direction of a court from Burby to Nicholas Ling (Arber, iii. 337).

S. R. 1607, Nov. 19. Transfer from Ling to John Smethwick (Arber, iii. 365).

[Q_{3}] 1609.... by the King’s Maiesties Seruants at the Globe.... For Iohn Smethwick.

[F_{1}] 1623. The Tragedie of Romeo and Iuliet. [From Q_{2}-Q_{3}.]

[Q_{4}] N.D. For Iohn Smethwicke. [Two issues.]

[Q_{5}] 1637. R. Young for John Smethwicke.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 1595

S. R. 1600, Oct. 8 (Rodes). ‘A booke called A mydsommer nightes Dreame.’ Thomas Fisher (Arber, iii. 174).

[Q_{1}] 1600. A Midsommer nights dreame. As it hath beene sundry times publickely acted, by the Right honourable, the Lord Chamberlaine his seruants. Written by William Shakespeare. For Thomas Fisher.

[Q_{2}] [1619]. ‘Printed by Iames Roberts, 1600.’ [On the evidence for printing with false date by William Jaggard, cf. Pollard, 81.]

[F_{1}] 1623. A Midsommer Nights Dreame. [From Q_{2}.]

On the possible date and occasion of performance, cf. my paper in Shakespeare Homage (1916).

The Two Gentlemen of Verona. 1595 (?)

[F_{1}] 1623. The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

King John. 1595 (?)

S. R. No entry. [Probably the play was regarded, from a stationer’s point of view, as identical with the anonymous Troublesome Reign of King John (q.v.), on which it was based.]

[F_{1}] 1623. The life and Death of King John.

Richard II. 1595–6

S. R. 1597, Aug. 29. ‘The Tragedye of Richard the Second.’ Andrew Wise (Arber, iii. 89).

[Q_{1}] 1597. The Tragedie of King Richard the second. As it hath beene publikely acted by the right Honourable the Lorde Chamberlaine his Seruants. Valentine Simmes for Andrew Wise.

[Q_{2}] 1598.... By William Shakespeare. Valentine Simmes for Andrew Wise.

[Q_{3}] 1598. Valentine Simmes, for Andrew Wise. [White coll.]

S. R. 1603, June 25. Transfer from Andrew Wise to Mathew Lawe (Arber, iii. 239).

[Q_{4}] 1608.... With new additions of the Parliament Sceane, and the deposing of King Richard. As it hath been lately acted by the Kinges Maiesties seruantes, at the Globe. W[illiam] W[hite] for Mathew Law. [Two issues with distinct t.ps., of which one only has the altered title. Both include the added passage IV. i. 154–318.]

[Q_{5}] 1615. For Mathew Law.

[F_{1}] 1623. The life and death of King Richard the Second. [From Q_{1}-Q_{2}-Q_{3}-Q_{4}-Q_{5}, with corrections.]

[Q_{6}] 1634. Iohn Norton.

The Merchant of Venice. 1596 (?)

S. R. 1598, July 22. ‘A booke of the Marchaunt of Venyce or otherwise called the Jewe of Venyce, Prouided that yt bee not prynted by the said James Robertes or anye other whatsoeuer without lycence first had from the Right honorable the lord Chamberlen.’ James Robertes (Arber, iii. 122).

S. R. 1600, Oct. 28. Transfer from Roberts to Thomas Heyes (Arber, iii. 175).

[Q_{1}] 1600. The most excellent Historie of the Merchant of Venice. With the extreame crueltie of Shylocke the Iewe towards the sayd Merchant, in cutting a iust pound of his flesh: and the obtayning of Portia by the choyse of three chests. As it hath been diuers times acted by the Lord Chamberlaine his Seruants. Written by William Shakespeare. I[ames] R[oberts] for Thomas Heyes.

[Q_{2}] [1619]. ‘Printed by J. Roberts, 1600.’ [On the evidence for printing with false date by William Jaggard, cf. Pollard, 81.]

S. R. 1619, July 8. Transfer from Thomas to Laurence Heyes (Arber, iii. 651).

[F_{1}] 1623. The Merchant of Venice. [From Q_{1}.]

[Q_{3}] 1637. M. P[arsons?] for Laurence Hayes.

[Q_{3}] 1652. For William Leake. [Reissue.]

S. R. 1657, Oct. 17. Transfer from Bridget Hayes and Jane Graisby to William Leake (Eyre, ii. 150).

1 Henry IV. 1596–7 (?)

S. R. 1598, Feb. 25 (Dix). ‘A booke intituled The historye of Henry the iiij^{th} with his battaile of Shrewsburye against Henry Hottspurre of the Northe with the conceipted mirthe of Sir John ffalstoff.’ Andrew Wise (Arber, iii. 105).

[Q_{1}] 1598. The History of Henrie the Fourth; With the battell at Shrewsburie, betweene the King and Lord Henry Percy, surnamed Henrie Hotspur of the North. With the humorous conceits of Sir Iohn Falstalffe. P[eter] S[hort] for Andrew Wise.

[Q_{2}] 1599.... Newly corrected by W. Shakespeare. S[imon] S[tafford] for Andrew Wise.

S. R. 1603, June 25. Transfer from Wise to Mathew Law (Arber, iii. 239).

[Q_{3}] 1604. Valentine Simmes for Mathew Law.

[Q_{4}] 1608. For Mathew Law.

[Q_{5}] 1613. W[illiam] W[hite] for Mathew Law.

[Q_{6}] 1622. T[homas] P[urfoot], sold by Mathew Law.

[F_{1}] 1623. The First Part of Henry the Fourth, with the Life and Death of Henry Sirnamed Hot-spurre. [From Q_{1}-Q_{2}-Q_{3}-Q_{4}-Q_{5}.]

[Q_{7}] 1632. John Norton, sold by William Sheares.

[Q_{8}] 1639. John Norton, sold by Hugh Perry.

2 Henry IV. 1597–8 (?)

S. R. 1600, Aug. 23. ‘The second parte of the history of Kinge Henry the iiij^{th} with the humours of Sir John ffalstaff; wrytten by master Shakespere.’ Andrew Wise and William Aspley (Arber, iii. 170).

[Q] 1600. The Second part of Henrie the fourth, continuing to his death, and coronation of Henrie the fift. With the humours of sir Iohn Falstaffe, and swaggering Pistoll. As it hath been sundrie times publikely acted by the right honourable, the Lord Chamberlaine his seruants. Written by William Shakespeare. V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise and William Aspley. [Two issues, the first of which omits III. i.]

[F_{1}] 1623. The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, Containing his Death: and the Coronation of King Henry the Fift. [Distinct text from Q.]

Much Ado About Nothing. 1598 (?)

S. R. [1600], Aug. 4. ‘The commedie of muche A doo about nothing a booke ... to be staied’ (Arber, iii. 37).

S. R. 1600, Aug. 23. ‘Muche a Doo about nothinge.’ Andrew Wise and William Aspley (Arber, iii. 170).

[Q] 1600. Much adoe about Nothing. As it hath been sundrie times publikely acted by the right honourable, the Lord Chamberlaine his seruants. Written by William Shakespeare. V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise and William Aspley.

[F_{1}] 1623. Much adoe about Nothing. [From Q, with corrections.]

Henry V. 1599

S. R. No original entry. [Possibly the play was regarded from a stationer’s point of view as identical with the anonymous Famous Victories of Henry V (q.v.) entered by Creede on 14 May 1594.]

S. R. [1600], Aug. 4. ‘Henry the ffift, a booke ... to be staied’ (Arber, iii. 37).

[Q_{1}] 1600. The Chronicle History of Henry the fift, With his battell fought at Agin Court in France. Togither with Auntient Pistoll. As it hath bene sundry times playd by the Right honorable the Lord Chamberlaine his seruants. Thomas Creede for Tho. Millington and Iohn Busby.

S. R. 1600, Aug. 14. Transfer to Thomas Pavier, with other ‘thinges formerlye printed and sett over to’ him (Arber, iii. 169).

[Q_{2}] 1602. Thomas Creede for Thomas Pauier.

[Q_{3}] [1619]. ‘Printed for T. P. 1608.’ [On the evidence for printing with false date by William Jaggard, cf. Pollard, F. and Q. 81.]

[F_{1}] 1623. The Life of Henry the Fift. [Distinct text from Qq.]

S. R. 1626, Aug. 4. Transfer from Mrs. Pavier to Edward Brewster and Robert Birde of interest in ‘The history of Henry the fift and the play of the same’ (Arber, iv. 164).

S. R. 1630, Nov. 8. Transfer from Bird to Richard Cotes of ‘Henrye the Fift’ and ‘Agincourt’ (Arber, iv. 242).

Julius Caesar. 1599

[F_{1}] 1623. The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar.

The Merry Wives of Windsor. 1599–1600 (?)

S. R. 1602, Jan. 18 (Seton). ‘A booke called An excellent and pleasant conceited commedie of Sir John ffaulstof and the merry wyves of Windesor.’ John Busby. Transfer the same day from Busby to Arthur Johnson (Arber, iii. 199).

[Q_{1}] 1602. A most pleasaunt and excellent conceited Comedie, of Syr Iohn Falstaffe, and the merrie Wiues of Windsor. Entermixed with sundrie variable and pleasing humors, of Syr Hugh the Welch Knight, Iustice Shallow, and his wise Cousin M. Slender. With the swaggering vaine of Auncient Pistoll, and Corporall Nym. By William Shakespeare. As it hath bene diuers times Acted by the right Honorable my Lord Chamberlaines seruants. Both before her Maiestie, and elsewhere. T[homas] C[reede] for Arthur Iohnson.

[Q_{2}] 1619. [William Jaggard] for Arthur Johnson. [On its relation to other plays printed by Jaggard in 1619, cf. Pollard F. and Q. 81.]

[F_{1}] 1623. The Merry Wiues of Windsor. [Distinct text from Qq.]

S. R. 1630, Jan. 29. Transfer from Johnson to Meighen (Arber, iv. 227).

[Q_{3}] 1630. T. H[arper] for R. Meighen.

As You Like It. 1600 (?)

[F_{1}] 1623. As you Like it.

Hamlet. 1601 (?)

S. R. 1602, July 26 (Pasfield). ‘A booke called the Revenge of Hamlett Prince Denmarke as yt was latelie Acted by the Lord Chamberleyne his servantes.’ James Robertes (Arber, iii. 212).

[Q_{1}] 1603, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet Prince of Denmarke. By William Shakespeare. As it hath beene diuerse times acted by his Highnesse seruants in the Cittie of London: as also in the two Vniuersities of Cambridge and Oxford, and elsewhere. _[Valentine Simmes] for N[icholas] L[ing] and Iohn Trundell._

[Q_{2}] 1604.... Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much againe as it was, according to the true and perfect Coppie.... I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing]. [Some copies are dated 1605. Distinct text from Q_{1}.]

S. R. 1607, Nov. 19. Transfer from Ling to John Smethwick (Arber, iii. 365).

[Q_{3}] 1611. For Iohn Smethwicke.

[F_{1}] 1623. The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke. [Distinct text from Qq.]

[Q_{4}] N.D. [after 1611]. W[illiam] S[tansby] for Iohn Smethwicke.

[Q_{5}] 1637. R. Young for John Smethwicke.

Twelfth Night. 1601–2

[F_{1}] 1623. Twelfe Night, Or what you will.

Troilus and Cressida. 1602 (?)

S. R. 1603, Feb. 7. ‘Master Robertes, Entred for his copie in full Court holden this day to print when he hath gotten sufficient aucthority for yt, The booke of Troilus and Cresseda as yt is acted by my lord Chamberlens Men’ (Arber, iii. 226).

S. R. 1609, Jan. 28 (Segar, ‘deputye to Sir George Bucke’). ‘A booke called the history of Troylus and Cressida.’ Richard Bonion and Henry Walleys (Arber, iii. 400).

[Q] 1609. The Historie of Troylus and Cresseida. As it was acted by the Kings Maiesties seruants at the Globe. Written by William Shakespeare. G. Eld for R. Bonian and H. Walley. [In a second issue the title became ‘The Famous Historie of Troylus and Cresseid. Excellently expressing the beginning of their loues, with the conceited wooing of Pandarus Prince of Licia’; and an Epistle headed ‘A neuer writer, to an euer reader. Newes’ was inserted.]

[F_{1}] 1623. The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida. [A distinct text from Q.]

All’s Well That Ends Well. 1602 (?)

[F_{1}] 1623. All’s Well, that Ends Well.

Measure for Measure. 1604 (?)

[F_{1}] 1623. Measure, For Measure.

Othello 1604 (?)

S. R. 1621, Oct. 6 (Buck). ‘The Tragedie of Othello, the moore of Venice.’ Thomas Walkley (Arber, iv. 59).

[Q_{1}] 1622. The Tragœdy of Othello, The Moore of Venice. As it hath beene diuerse times acted at the Globe, and at the Black-Friers, by his Maiesties Seruants. Written by William Shakespeare. N[icholas] O[kes] for Thomas Walkley. [Epistle by the Stationer to the Reader, signed ‘Thomas Walkley’.]

[F_{1}] 1623. The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice. [Distinct text from Q_{1}]

S. R. 1628, March 1. Transfer from Walkley to Richard Hawkins (Arber, iv. 194).

[Q_{2}] 1630. A. M[athewes] for Richard Hawkins.

[Q_{3}] 1655.... The fourth Edition. For William Leak.

Macbeth. 1605–6 (?)

[F_{1}] 1623. The Tragedie of Macbeth.

King Lear. 1605–6

S. R. 1607, Nov. 26 (Buck). ‘A booke called Master William Shakespeare his historye of Kinge Lear, as yt was played before the kinges maiestie at Whitehall vppon Sainct Stephens night at Christmas Last by his maiesties servantes playinge vsually at the Globe on the Banksyde.’ Nathanael Butter and John Busby (Arber, iii. 366).

[Q_{1}] 1608. M. William Shakspeare: His True Chronicle Historie of the life and death of King Lear and his three Daughters. With the vnfortunate life of Edgar, sonne and heire to the Earle of Gloster, and his sullen and assumed humour of Tom of Bedlam: As it was played before the Kings Maiestie at Whitehall vpon S. Stephans night in Christmas Hollidayes. By his Maiesties seruants playing vsually at the Gloabe on the Banckeside. [Nicholas Okes?] for Nathaniel Butter and are to be sold at ... the Pide Bull.... [Sheets freely corrected during printing.]

[Q_{2}] [1619]. ‘Printed for Nathaniel Butter, 1608.’ [On the evidence for printing with false date by William Jaggard, cf. Pollard, 81.]

[F_{1}] 1623. The Tragedie of King Lear. [From Q_{1} with corrections.]

[Q_{3}] 1655. By Jane Bell.

Antony and Cleopatra. 1606 (?)

S. R. 1608, May 20 (Buck). ‘A booke Called Anthony and Cleopatra.’ Edward Blount (Arber, iii. 378).

S. R. 1623, Nov. 8. ‘Anthonie and Cleopatra’, with other playes for F_{1} [vide supra]. Edward Blount and Isaac Jaggard (Arber, iv. 107).

[F_{1}] 1623. The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra.

Coriolanus. 1606 (?)

[F_{1}] 1623. The Tragedy of Coriolanus.

Timon of Athens. 1607 (?)

[F_{1}] 1623. The Lyfe of Tymon of Athens.

Pericles. 1608 (?)

S. R. 1608, May 20 (Buck). ‘A booke called The booke of Pericles prynce of Tyre.’ Edward Blount (Arber, iii. 378).

[Q_{1}] 1609. The Late, And much admired Play, Called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. With the true Relation of the whole Historie, aduentures, and fortunes of the said Prince: As also, The no lesse strange, and worthy accidents, in the Birth and Life, of his Daughter Mariana. As it hath been diuers and sundry times acted by his Maiesties Seruants, at the Globe on the Banck-side. By William Shakespeare. [William White] for Henry Gosson.

[Q_{2}] 1609. [William White] for Henry Gosson. [‘Eneer’ for ‘Enter’ on A_{2}].

[Q_{3}] 1611. By S[imon] S[tafford].

[Q_{4}] ‘Printed for T[homas] P[avier] 1619.’ [The signatures are continuous with those of The Whole Contention printed n.d. in 1619. Probably the printer was William Jaggard; cf. Pollard, 81.]

[Q_{5}] 1630. I. N[orton]for R. B[ird]. [Two issues.]

[Q_{6}] 1635. By Thomas Cotes.

[F_{3}] 1664. Pericles Prince of Tyre. [Distinct text from Qq.]

Cymbeline. 1609 (?)

[F_{1}] 1623. The Tragedie of Cymbeline.

The Winter’s Tale. 1610 (?)

[F_{1}] 1623. The Winters Tale.

The Tempest. 1611

[F_{1}] 1623. The Tempest.

Henry VIII. 1613 (?)

[F_{1}] 1623. The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight.

Doubtful Plays

Besides the seven plays printed in F_{3} (vide supra) Shakespeare has been credited (cf. ch. xxiv) with the authorship of or contributions to An Alarum for London, Arden of Feversham, Fair Em, Merry Devil of Edmonton, Troublesome Reign of King John, Mucedorus, Second Maiden’s Tragedy, Taming of A Shrew, and perhaps more plausibly, Contention of York and Lancaster, Edward III, Sir Thomas More, and T. N. K. (cf. s.v. Beaumont).

Lost Plays

Meres includes ‘Loue Labours Wonne’ in his list of 1598 (App. C, No. lii).

On 9 Sept. 1653 Humphrey Mosely entered in the Stationers’ Register (Eyre, i. 428), in addition to The Merry Devil of Edmonton with an ascription to Shakespeare (cf. ch. xxiv):

‘The History of Cardenio, by M^r Fletcher & Shakespeare.’ ‘Henry y^e first, & Hen: the 2^d. by Shakespeare, & Davenport.’

On 29 June 1660 he entered (Eyre, ii. 271):

‘The History of King Stephen. } Duke Humphrey, a Tragedy. } by Will: Shakspeare.’ Iphis & Iantha or a marriage without } a man, a Comedy. }

Warburton’s list of burnt plays (3 Library, ii. 230) contains:

‘Henry y^e 1^{st}. by Will. Shakespear & Rob. Davenport’, ‘Duke Humphery Will. Shakespear’,

and in a supplementary list:

‘A Play by Will. Shakespear.’

Of Henry II, Stephen, Duke Humphrey, and Iphis and Iantha nothing more is known.

Cardenio is presumably the play given as ‘Cardenno’ and ‘Cardenna’ by the King’s men at Court in 1612–13 and again on 8 June 1613 (App. B). Its theme, from Don Quixote, Part I, chh. xxiii-xxxvii, is that of Double Falsehood, or the Distressed Lovers, published in 1728 by Lewis Theobald as ‘written originally by W. Shakespeare, and now revised and adapted to the stage by M^r. Theobald’. In 1727 it had been produced at Drury Lane. Theobald claimed to have three manuscripts, no one of which is now known. One had formerly, he said, belonged to Betterton, and was in the handwriting of ‘M^r. Downes, the famous Old Prompter’ (cf. App. I). Another came from a ‘Noble Person’, with a tradition ‘that it was given by our Author, as a Present of Value, to a Natural Daughter of his, for whose Sake he wrote it, in the Time of his Retirement from the Stage’. Theobald is much under suspicion of having written Double Falsehood himself (cf. T. R. Lounsbury, The First Editors of Shakespeare, 145).

‘The Historye of Henry the First, written by Damport’ was licensed for the King’s men on 10 Apr. 1624 (Var. iii. 229, 319; Herbert, 27).

EDWARD SHARPHAM (1576–1608).

Edward was the third son of Richard Sharpham of Colehanger in East Allington, Devonshire, where he was baptized on 22 July 1576. He entered the Middle Temple on 9 Oct. 1594. He made his will on 22 Apr. 1608, and was buried on the following day at St. Margaret’s, Westminster. It may be inferred that he died of plague. Unless he is the E. S. who wrote The Discoveries of the Knights of the Post (1597), he is only known by his two plays. There is no justification for identifying him with the Ed. Sharphell who prefixed a sonnet to the Humours Heav’n on Earth (1605) of John Davies of Hereford, calling Davies his ‘beloued Master’, or, consequently, for assuming that he had been a pupil of Davies as writing-master at Magdalen, Oxford.

Dissertations: G. C. Moore Smith, E. S. (1908, 10 N. Q. x. 21), John Mason and E. S. (1913, M. L. R. viii. 371); M. W. Sampson, The Plays of E. S. (1910, Studies in Language and Literature in Celebration of the 70th Birthday of J. M. Hart, 440).

The Fleir. 1606

S. R. 1606, May 13. ‘A Comedie called The fleare. Provided that they are not to printe yt tell they bringe good aucthoritie and licence for the Doinge thereof.’ John Trundell and John Busby (Arber, iii. 321).

1606, Nov. 21. Transfer from Trundell to Busby and Arthur Johnson, with note ‘This booke is aucthorised by Sir George Bucke Master Hartwell and the wardens’ (Arber, iii. 333).

1607. The Fleire. As it hath beene often played in the Blacke-Fryers by the Children of the Reuells. Written by Edward Sharpham of the Middle Temple, Gentleman. F. B. [Epistle to the Reader, by the printer.]

1610; 1615; 1631.

Edition by H. Nibbe (1912, Materialien, xxxvi).

The epistle says that the book has been ‘long lookt for’, that the author is ‘ith’ Country’ and that further ‘Comicall discourses’ from him are forthcoming. A date after the executions for treason on 30 Jan. 1606 is suggested, as in the case of Marston’s Fawn, by ii. 364, ‘I have heard say, they will rise sooner, and goe with more deuotion to see an extraordinarie execution, then to heare a Sermon’, and with this indication allusions to the Union (ii. 258) and Northward Ho! (ii. 397) and resemblances to the Fawn are consistent.

Cupid’s Whirligig. 1607

S. R. 1607, June 29 (Tylney). ‘A Comedie called Cupids Whirley-gigge.’ John Busby and Arthur Johnson (Arber, iii. 354).

1607. Cupid’s Whirligig, As it hath bene sundry times Acted by the Children of the Kings Majesties Reuels. E. Allde, sold by A. Johnson. [Epistle to Robert Hayman, signed ‘E. S.’]

1611; 1616; 1630.

Baker, Biographia Dramatica, ii. 146, cites Coxeter as authority for a false ascription of the play to Shakespeare. But nobody could well have supposed Shakespeare to be indicated by the initials E. S., for which there is really no other candidate than Sharpham. The play must be the further ‘Comicall discourses’ promised by the same publishers in the epistle to The Fleir, and it may be added that Hayman (cf. D. N. B.), like Sharpham, was a Devonshire man. The date may be taken to be 1607, as the King’s Revels are not traceable earlier.

SAMUEL SHEPPARD (> 1606–1652 <).

The known work of this miscellaneous writer belongs to 1646–52, and although it includes a political tract in dramatic form, it is only his vague claim of a share, possibly as amanuensis, in Jonson’s Sejanus (q.v.), which suggests that he might be the unknown S. S. whose initials are on the title-page of The Honest Lawyer (1616).

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (1554–86).

Both his entertainments were printed for the first time with the third (1598) edition of the Arcadia.

The Lady of May. 1579 (?)

1598. The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia. Written by Sir Philip Sidney Knight. Now the third time published, with sundry new additions of the same Author. For William Ponsonby. [The description of the entertainment follows Astrophel and Stella among the ‘new additions’, beginning at the head of sig. 3 B3^v, without title or date.]

Reprints in 1599, 1605, 1613, 1621, 1622, 1623, 1627, 1629, 1633, 1638, 1655, 1662, 1674 editions of the Arcadia.

Editions in Nichols, Elizabeth^{1, 2}, ii. 94 (1788–1823), and Collections of Sidney’s Works.

The entertainment was in the Garden. As the Queen entered the grove, An Honest Man’s Wife of the Country delivered a speech and a written supplication in verse, for decision of the case of her daughter. Then came the daughter, chosen May Lady, and haled this way by six Shepherds on behalf of her lover Espilus and six Foresters on behalf of her lover Therion. The case was put to the Queen by Laius an old Shepherd, Rombus a Schoolmaster, and finally the May Lady herself. Espilus, accompanied by the Shepherds with recorders, and Therion, accompanied by the Foresters with cornets, sang in rivalry. A ‘contention’ followed between Dorcas, an old Shepherd, and Rixus, a young Forester, ‘whether of their fellows had sung better, and whether the estate of shepherds or foresters were the more worshipful’. Rombus tried to intervene. The May Lady appealed to the Queen, who decided for Espilus. Shepherds and Foresters made a consort together, Espilus sang a song, and the May Lady took her leave.

Nichols assigns the entertainment to Elizabeth’s Wanstead visit of 1578. But it might also belong to that of 1579, and possibly to that of 1582. In 1579, but not in 1578, the visit covered May Day. The references in the text are, however, to the month of May, rather than to May Day.

Pastoral Dialogue, c. 1580

1598. A Dialogue between two Shepherds, Vttered in a Pastorall Show at Wilton. [Appended to Arcadia; cf. supra.]

Edition in A. B. Grosart, Poems of Sidney (1877), ii. 50.

This dialogue between Dick and Will appears to belong to the series of poems motived by Sidney’s love for Penelope Devereux. It must therefore date between August 1577, when Sidney first visited his sister, Lady Pembroke, at Wilton, and his own marriage on 20 Sept. 1583. There is no indication that the Queen was present; not improbably the ‘Show’ took place while Sidney was out of favour at Court, and was living at Wilton from March to August 1580.

JOHN SINGER (?-1603 <).

On Singer’s career as an actor, see ch. xv.

On 13 Jan. 1603, about which date he apparently retired from the Admiral’s, Henslowe paid him £5 ‘for his playe called Syngers vallentarey’ (Greg, Henslowe, i. 173; ii. 226). I think the term ‘vallentarey’ must be used by Henslowe, rightly or wrongly, in the sense of ‘valedictory’. Quips on Questions (1600), a book of ‘themes’, is not his, but Armin’s (q.v.).

WILLIAM SLY (?-1608).

On Sly’s career as an actor, see ch. xv.

He has been guessed at as the author of Thomas Lord Cromwell (cf. ch. xxiv).

W. SMITH.

There are traceable (a) Wentworth Smith, who wrote plays for Henslowe’s companies, the Admiral’s, and Worcester’s during 1601–3 (vide infra) and witnessed the will of W. Haughton in 1605; (b) a W. Smith, who wrote Hector of Germany and The Freeman’s Honour (vide infra); (c) a ‘Smith’, whose Fair Foul One Herbert licensed on 28 Nov. 1623 (Chalmers, S. A. 216; Herbert, 26); (d) if Warburton can be trusted, a ‘Will. Smithe’, whose S^t George for England his cook burnt (3 Library, ii. 231). It is possible that (a) and (b) may be identical. A long space of time separates (b) and (c), and if (d) is to be identified with any other, it may most plausibly be with (c). There is nothing to connect any one of them with the William Smith who published sonnets under the title of Chloris (1596), or with any other member of this infernal family, and the ‘W. S.’ of the anonymous Locrine (1595), Thomas Lord Cromwell (1602), The Puritan (1607) is more probably, in each case, aimed at Shakespeare.

The Hector of Germany, c. 1615

S. R. 1615, April 24 (Buck). ‘A play called The Hector of Germany, or the Palsgraue is a harmeles thinge.’ Josias Harrison (Arber, iii. 566). [The four last words of the title are scored through.]

1615. The Hector of Germaine, or the Palsgrave, Prime Elector. A New Play, an Honourable Hystorie. As it hath beene publikely Acted at the Red Bull, and at the Curtaine, by a Companie of Young Men of this Citie. Made by W. Smith, with new Additions. Thomas Creede for Josias Harrison. [Epistle to Sir John Swinnerton, signed ‘W. Smith’; Prologue; after text, ‘Finis. W. Smyth.’ Some copies have a variant t.p.]

Edition by L. W. Payne (1906, Pennsylvania Univ. Publ.).

The epistle says ‘I have begun in a former Play, called the Freemans Honour, acted by the Now-Seruants of the Kings Maiestie, to dignifie the worthy Companie of the Marchantaylors’. If the phrase ‘Now-Seruants’ implies production before 1603, the identification of W. Smith and Wentworth Smith becomes very probable. The prologue explains that the Palsgrave is not Frederick, since ‘Authorities sterne brow’ would not permit ‘To bring him while he lives upon the stage’, and apologizes for the performance by ‘men of trade’.

Lost Plays

Henslowe assigns to Wentworth Smith a share in the following plays:

Plays for the Admiral’s, 1601–2

(i) The Conquest of the West Indies.

With Day and Haughton, Apr.–Sept. 1601.

(ii) 1 Cardinal Wolsey.

With Chettle, Drayton, and Munday, Aug.–Nov. 1601.

(iii), (iv) 1, 2 The Six Clothiers.

With Hathway and Haughton, Oct.–Nov. 1601. Apparently Part 2 was not finished.

(v) Too Good to be True.

With Chettle and Hathway, Nov. 1601–Jan. 1602.

(vi) Love Parts Friendship.

With Chettle, May 1602, conjectured to be the anonymous Trial of Chivalry (q.v.).

(vii) Merry as May be.

With Day and Hathway, Nov. 1602.

Plays for Worcester’s, 1602–3

(viii) Albere Galles.

With Heywood, Sept. 1602, possibly identical with the anonymous Nobody and Somebody (q.v.).

(ix) Marshal Osric.

With Heywood, Sept. 1602, conceivably identical with The Royal King and the Loyal Subject, printed (1637) as by Heywood (q.v.).

(x) The Three (or Two) Brothers.

Oct. 1602.

(xi) 1 Lady Jane.

With Chettle, Dekker, Heywood, and Webster, Oct. 1602. It is not certain that Smith, or any one but Dekker, had a hand in Part 2, which was apparently not finished. Part 1 is doubtless represented by the extant Sir Thomas Wyatt of Dekker (q.v.) and Webster, in which nothing is at all obviously traceable to Smith.

(xii), (xiii) 1, 2 The Black Dog of Newgate.

With Day, Hathway, and another, Nov. 1602–Feb. 1603.

(xiv) The Unfortunate General.

With Day and Hathway, Jan. 1602.

(xv) The Italian Tragedy.

March 1603.

EDMUND SPENSER (1552–99).

The only record of Spenser’s dramatic experiments, unless they are buried amongst the anonymous plays of the Revels Accounts, is to be found in his correspondence of April 1580 with Gabriel Harvey, who wrote, ‘I imagine your Magnificenza will hold us in suspense ... for your nine English Commedies’, and again, ‘I am void of all judgment if your Nine Comedies, whereunto in imitation of Herodotus, you give the names of the Nine Muses (and in one mans fancy not unworthily) come not nearer Ariosto’s Comedies, either for the fineness of plausible elocution, or the rareness of Poetical Invention, than that Elvish Queen doth to his Orlando Furioso’ (Two other Very Commendable Letters, in Harvey’s Works, i. 67, 95). I can hardly suppose that the manuscript play of ‘Farry Queen’ in Warburton’s list (3 Library, ii. 232) had any connexion with Spenser’s comedies.

ROD. STAFFORD.

Probably the ‘Rod. Staff.’ who collaborated with Robert Wilmot (q.v.) in the Inner Temple play of Gismond of Salerne.

WILLIAM STANLEY, EARL OF DERBY (1561–1642).

Derby seems to have had players from 1594 to 1618, who presumably acted the comedies which he was said to be ‘penning’ in June 1599 (cf. ch. xiii), but none of these can be identified, although the company’s anonymous Trial of Chivalry (1605) needs an author. A fantastic theory that his plays were for the Chamberlain’s, and that he wrote them under the name of William Shakespeare, was promulgated by J. Greenstreet in The Genealogist, n.s. vii. 205; viii. 8, 137, and has been elaborately developed by A. Lefranc in Sous le Masque de ‘William Shakespeare’ (1919) and later papers in Le Flambeau and elsewhere. A Midsummer Night’s Dream was not impossibly written for his wedding on 26 Jan. 1595 (cf. App. A and Shakespeare Homage, 154).

JOHN STEPHENS (> 1611–1617 <).

A Gloucester man, who entered Lincoln’s Inn in 1611, but is only known by his slight literary performances, of which the most important are his Essayes of 1615 (cf. App. C, No. lx).

Cynthia’s Revenge > 1613

1613. Cinthias Revenge: or Maenanders Extasie. Written by John Stephens, Gent. For Roger Barnes. [There are two variant t.ps. of which one omits the author’s name. Epistle to Io. Dickinson, signed ‘I. S.’; Epistle to the Reader; Argument; Commendatory Verses, signed ‘F. C.’, ‘B. I.’, ‘G. Rogers’, ‘Tho. Danet’.]

Dissertation: P. Simpson, The Authorship and Original Issue of C. R. (1907, M. L. R. ii. 348).

The epistle to the reader says that the author’s name is ‘purposly concealed ... from the impression’, which accounts for the change of title-page. Stephens claims the authorship in the second edition of his Essayes (1615). Kirkman (Greg, Masques, lxii) was misled into assigning it to ‘John Swallow’, by a too literal interpretation of F. C.’s lines:

One Swallow makes no Summer, most men say, But who disproues that Prouerbe, made this Play.

JOHN STUDLEY (c. 1545–c. 1590).

Translator of Seneca (q.v.).

ROBERT TAILOR (c. 1613).

Tailor also published settings to Sacred Hymns (1615) and wrote commendatory verses to John Taylor’s The Nipping or Snipping of Abuses (1614).

Hog Hath Lost His Pearl. 1613

S. R. 1614, May 23, 1614 (Taverner and Buck). ‘A play booke called Hogge hath lost his pearle.’ Richard Redmer (Arber, iii. 547).

1614. The Hogge hath lost his Pearle. A Comedy. Divers times Publikely acted, by certaine London Prentices. By Robert Tailor. For Richard Redmer. [Prologue and Epilogue.]

Editions in Dodsley^{1–4} (1744–1875) and by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. iii).

Sir H. Wotton wrote to Sir Edmund Bacon (Wotton, ii. 13): ‘On Sunday last at night, and no longer, some sixteen apprentices (of what sort you shall guess by the rest of the story) having secretly learnt a new play without book, intituled The Hog hath lost his Pearl, took up the White-Fryers for their theatre: and having invited thither (as it should seem) rather their mistresses than their masters; who were all to enter per bullettini for a note of distinction from ordinary comedians, towards the end of the play the sheriffs (who by chance had heard of it) came in (as they say) and carried some six or seven of them to perform the last act at Bridewel; the rest are fled. Now it is strange to hear how sharp-witted the City is, for they will needs have Sir John Swinerton, the Lord Mayor, be meant by the Hog, and the late Lord Treasurer [Lord Salisbury] by the Pearl.’ Swinnerton was Lord Mayor in 1612–13. The letter is only dated ‘Tuesday’, but refers to the departure of the King, which was 22 Feb. 1613, as on the previous day. This would give the first Sunday in Lent (21 Feb.) for the date of production. The phrase (I. i) ‘Shrove-Tuesday is at hand’ suggests 14 Feb., but the date originally intended was very likely altered. The Prologue refers to the difficulties of the producers. The play had been ‘toss’d from one house to another’. It does not grunt at ‘state-affairs’ or ‘city vices’. There had been attempts to ‘prevent’ it, but it ‘hath a Knight’s license’, doubtless Sir George Buck’s. In I. i is some chaff, apparently directed at Garlic and the Fortune, and an interview between a player and one Haddit, who writes a jig called Who Buys my Four Ropes of Hard Onions for four angels, and a promise of a box for a new play. Fleay, ii. 256, identifies Haddit with Dekker, but his reasons do not bear analysis, and Haddit is no professional playwright, but a gallant who has run through his fortune. A passage in Act III (Dodsley, p. 465) bears out the suggestion of satire on the house of Cecil.

RICHARD TARLTON (?-1588).

On his career as an actor, cf. ch. xv.

The Seven Deadly Sins. 1585

[MS.] Dulwich MS. xix, ‘The platt of The secound parte of the Seuen Deadlie sinns.’ [This was found pasted inside the boards forming the cover to a manuscript play of the seventeenth century, The Tell Tale (Dulwich MS. xx).]

The text is given by Malone, Supplement (1780), i. 60; Steevens, Variorum (1803), iii. 404; Boswell, Variorum (1821), iii. 348; Collier, iii. 197; Greg, Henslowe Papers, 129; and a photographic facsimile by W. Young, History of Dulwich (1889), ii. 5.

The ‘platt’ names a number of actors and may thereby be assigned to a revival by the Admiral’s or Strange’s men about 1590 (cf. ch. xiii). The play consisted of three episodes illustrating Envy, Sloth, and Lechery, together with an Induction. This renders plausible the conjecture of Fleay, 83, supported by Greg, Henslowe, ii. 153, that it is the Four Plays in One revived by Strange’s for Henslowe on 6 March 1592. And if so, the original two parts may be traceable in the Five Plays in One and the Three Plays in One of the Queen’s men in 1585. Tarlton was of course a Queen’s man, and evidence of his authorship is furnished by Gabriel Harvey, who in his Four Letters (1592, Works, i. 194) attacks Nashe’s Pierce Penilesse (1592) as ‘not Dunsically botched-vp, but right-formally conueied, according to the stile, and tenour of Tarletons president, his famous play of the seauen Deadly sinnes; which most deadly, but most liuely playe, I might haue seene in London; and was verie gently inuited thereunto at Oxford by Tarleton himselfe’. Nashe defends himself against the charge of plagiarism in his Strange News (1592, Works, i. 304, 318), and confirms the indication of authorship.

Doubtful Play

Tarlton has been suggested as the author of the anonymous Famous Victories of Henry V (cf. ch. xxiv).

JOHN TAYLOR (1580–1653).

Known as the Water Poet. His description of the festivities at the wedding of Princess Elizabeth in 1613 (cf. ch. xxiv, C) is only one of innumerable pamphlets in verse and prose, several of which throw light on stage history. Many of these were collected in his folio Workes of 1630, reprinted with others of his writings by the Spenser Society during 1868–78. There is also a collection by C. Hindley (1872).

CHARLES TILNEY (ob. 1586).

Said, on manuscript authority alleged by Collier, to be the author of Locrine (cf. ch. xxiv).

THOMAS TOMKIS (> 1597–1614 <).

Tomkis entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1597, took his B.A. in 1600 and his M.A. in 1604, and became Fellow of Trinity in the same year. He has been confused by Fleay, ii. 260, and others with various members of a musical family of Tomkins.

Lingua. 1602 < > 7

S. R. 1607, Feb. 23 (Wilson). ‘A Commedie called Lingua.’ Simon Waterson (Arber, iii. 340).

1607. Lingua: Or The Combat of the Tongue, And the fiue Senses. For Superiority. G. Eld for Simon Waterson. [Prologue.]

1617; 1622; n.d.; 1632; 1657.

Editions in Dodsley^{1–4} (1744–1874) and by W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ ii) and J. S. Farmer (1913, S. F. T.).--Dissertation: F. S. Boas, Macbeth and L. (1909, M. L. R. iv. 517).

Winstanley (1687) assigned the play to Antony Brewer, but Sir J. Harington, in a memorandum printed by F. J. Furnivall from Addl. MS. 27632 in 7 N. Q. ix. 382, notes ‘The combat of Lingua made by Thom. Tomkis of Trinity colledge in Cambridge’, and this is rendered plausible by the resemblance of the play to Albumazar. It is clearly of an academic type. As to the date there is less certainty. G. C. Moore Smith (M. L. R. iii. 146) supports 1602 by a theory that a compliment (IV. vii) to Queen Psyche is really meant for Elizabeth, and contains allusions to notable events of her reign. I do not find his interpretations very convincing, although I should not like to say that they are impossible. Fleay, ii. 261, starting from a tradition handed down by the publisher of 1657 that Oliver Cromwell acted in the play, conjectures that the play formed part of Sir Oliver Cromwell’s entertainment of James at Hinchinbrook on 27–9 April 1603, and that his four-year-old nephew took the four-line part of Small Beer (IV. v). Either date would fit in with the remark in III. v, ‘About the year 1602 many used this skew kind of language’. Boas, however, prefers a date near that of publication, on account of similarities to passages in Macbeth. The play was translated as Speculum Aestheticum for Maurice of Hesse-Cassel in 1613 by Johannes Rhenanus, who probably accompanied Prince Otto to England in 1611; cf. P. Losch, Johannes Rhenanus (1895).

Albumazar. 1615

S. R. 1615, April 28 (Nidd). ‘Albumazar a comedie acted before his Maiestie at Cambridg 10^o Martii 1614.’ Nicholas Okes (Arber, iii. 566).

1615. Albumazar. A Comedy presented before the Kings Maiestie at Cambridge, the ninth of March, 1614. By the Gentlemen of Trinitie Colledge. Nicholas Okes for Walter Burre. [Prologue.]

1615. Nicholas Okes for Walter Burre. [Another edition with the same t.p.]

1634.... Newly revised and corrected by a speciall Hand. Nicholas Okes.

1634. Nicholas Okes.

1668.... As it is now Acted at His Highness the Duke of York’s Theatre. For Thomas Dring. [Prologue by Dryden.]

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

The play is assigned to ‘M^r Tomkis, Trinit.’ in an account of the royal visit given by S. Pegge from Sir Edward Dering’s MS. in Gent. Mag. xxvi. 224, and a bursar’s account-book for 1615 has the entry, ‘Given M^r. Tomkis for his paines in penning and ordering the Englishe Commedie at our Masters appoyntment, xx^{ll}’ (3 N. Q. xii. 155). Chamberlain wrote to Carleton (Birch, i. 304) that ‘there was no great matter in it more than one good clown’s part’. It is an adaptation of Giambattista Porta’s L’Astrologo (1606). No importance is to be attached to the suggestion of H. I. in 3 N. Q. ix. 178, 259, 302, that Shakespeare was the author and wrote manuscript notes in a copy possessed by H. I. Dryden regards the play as the model of Jonson’s Alchemist (1610):

Subtle was got by our Albumazar, That Alchymist by our Astrologer.

Unless Dryden was mistaken, the performance in 1615 was only a revival, but the payment for ‘penning’ makes this improbable.

Doubtful Later Play

G. C. Moore Smith (M. L. R. iii. 149) supports the attribution by Winstanley to Tomkis of Pathomachia or the Battle of Affections (1630), also called in a running title and in Bodl. MS. Eng. Misc. e. 5 Love’s Load-stone, a University play of c. 1616, in which there are two references to ‘Madame Lingua’.

CYRIL TOURNEUR (?-1626).

Tourneur, or Turnor, first appears as the author of a satire, The Transformed Metamorphosis (1600), but his history and relationships to the Cecils and to Sir Francis Vere suggest that he was connected with a Richard Turnor who served in the Low Countries as water-bailiff and afterwards Lieutenant of Brill during 1585–96. His career as a dramatist was over by 1613, and from December of that year to his death on 28 Feb. 1626 he seems himself to have been employed on foreign service, mainly in the Low Countries but finally at Cadiz, where he was secretary to the council of war under Sir Edward Cecil in 1625. He died in Ireland and left a widow Mary.

Collections

1878. J. C. Collins, The Plays and Poems of C. T. 2 vols.

1888. J. A. Symonds, Webster and Tourneur (_Mermaid Series_).

Dissertations: G. Goodwin in Academy (9 May 1891); T. Seccombe in D. N. B. (1899).

The Atheist’s Tragedy. 1607 < > 11

S. R. 1611, Sept. 14 (Buck). ‘A booke called, The tragedy of the Atheist.’ John Stepneth (Arber, iii. 467).

1611. The Atheist’s Tragedie: Or The honest Man’s Reuenge, As in diuers places it hath often beene Acted. Written by Cyril Tourneur. For John Stepneth and Richard Redmer.

1612. For John Stepneth and Richard Redmer. [Another issue.]

Fleay, ii. 263, attempts to date the play before the close of the siege of Ostend in 1604, but, as E. E. Stoll, John Webster, 210, points out, this merely dates the historic action and proves nothing as to composition. Stoll himself finds some plausible reminiscences of King Lear (1606) and suggests a date near that of publication.

LOST PLAYS

The Nobleman. c. 1612

S. R. 1612, Feb. 15 (Buck). ‘A play booke beinge a Trage-comedye called, The Noble man written by Cyril Tourneur.’ Edward Blount (Arber, iii. 478).

1653, Sept. 9. ‘The Nobleman, or Great Man, by Cyrill Tourneur.’ Humphrey Moseley (Eyre, i. 428).

The play was acted by the King’s at Court on 23 Feb. 1612 and again during the winter of 1612–13. Warburton’s list of plays burnt by his cook (3 Library, ii. 232) contains distinct entries of ‘The Great Man T.’ and ‘The Nobleman T. C. Cyrill Turñuer’. Hazlitt, Manual, 167, says (1892): ‘Dr. Furnivall told me many years ago that the MS. was in the hands of a gentleman at Oxford, who was editing Tourneur’s Works; but I have heard nothing further of it. Music to a piece called The Nobleman is in Addl. MS. B.M. 10444.’

For The Arraignment of London (1613) v.s. Daborne.

Doubtful Plays

Tourneur’s hand has been sought in the Honest Man’s Fortune of the Beaumont (q.v.) and Fletcher series, and in Charlemagne, Revenger’s Tragedy, and Second Maiden’s Tragedy (cf. ch. xxiv).

NICHOLAS TROTTE (c. 1588).

A Gray’s Inn lawyer, who wrote an ‘Introduction’ for the Misfortunes of Arthur of Thomas Hughes (q.v.) in 1588.

RICHARD VENNAR (c. 1555–1615?).

Vennar (Vennard), who has often been confused with William Fennor, a popular rhymer, was of Balliol and Lincoln’s Inn, and lived a shifty life, which ended about 1615 in a debtor’s prison. Its outstanding feature was the affair of England’s Joy, but in 1606 he is said (D. N. B.) to have been in trouble for an attempt to defraud Sir John Spencer of £500 towards the preparation of an imaginary mask under the patronage of Sir John Watts, the Lord Mayor.

England’s Joy. 1602

[Broadsheet] The Plot of the Play, called England’s Joy. To be Played at the Swan this 6 of Nouember, 1602. [No. 98 in collection of Society of Antiquaries.]

Reprints by W. Park in Harleian Miscellany (1813), x. 198; S. Lee (1887, vide infra); W. Martin (1913, vide infra); W. J. Lawrence (1913, vide infra).--Dissertations: S. Lee, The Topical Side of the Elizabethan Drama (N. S. S. Trans. 1887–92, 1); T. S. Graves, A Note on the Swan Theatre (1912, M. P. ix. 431), Tricks of Elizabethan Showmen (South Atlantic Quarterly, April 1915); W. Martin, An Elizabethan Theatre Programme (1913, Selborne Magazine, xxiv. 16); W. J. Lawrence (ii. 57), The Origin of the Theatre Programme.

The document appears to be a ‘bill’. It is 12¾ by 7¾ inches, and contains a synopsis under nine heads, beginning with the civil wars from Edward III to Mary ‘induct by shew and in Action’, and continuing with episodes from the reign of Elizabeth, who is England’s Joy. In sc. viii ‘a great triumph is made with fighting of twelue Gentlemen at Barriers’, and in sc. ix Elizabeth ‘is taken vp into Heauen, when presently appeares, a Throne of blessed Soules, and beneath vnder the Stage set forth with strange fireworkes, diuers blacke and damned Soules, wonderfully discribed in their seuerall torments’. Apart from the bill, Vennar must have given it out that the performers were to be amateurs. Chamberlain, 163, writes to Carleton on 19 Nov. 1602:

‘And, now we are in mirth, I must not forget to tell you of a cousening prancke of one Venner, of Lincolns Inne, that gave out bills of a famous play on Satterday was sevenight on the Banckeside, to be acted only by certain gentlemen and gentlewomen of account. The price at cumming in was two shillings or eighteen pence at least; and when he had gotten most part of the mony into his hands, he wold have shewed them a faire paire of heeles, but he was not so nimble to get up on horse-backe, but that he was faine to forsake that course, and betake himselfe to the water, where he was pursued and taken, and brought before the Lord Chiefe Justice, who wold make nothing of it but a jest and a merriment, and bounde him over in five pound to appeare at the sessions. In the meane time the common people, when they saw themselves deluded, revenged themselves upon the hangings, curtains, chairs, stooles, walles, and whatsoever came in theire way, very outragiously, and made great spoile; there was great store of good companie, and many noblemen.’

Similarly John Manningham in his Diary, 82, 93, notes in Nov. 1602, how

‘Vennar, a gent. of Lincolnes, who had lately playd a notable cunni-catching tricke, and gulled many under couller of a play to be of gent. and reuerens, comming to the court since in a blacke suit, bootes and golden spurres without a rapier, one told him he was not well suited; the golden spurres and his brazen face uns[uited].’

On 27 Nov. he adds, ‘When one said that Vennar the graund connicatcher had golden spurres and a brazen face, “It seemes”, said R. R. “he hath some mettall in him.”’ Vennar’s own account of ‘my publique default of the Swan, where not a collier but cals his deere 12 pense to witnesse the disaster of the day’ was given many years later in ‘An Apology: Written by Richard Vennar, of Lincolnes Inne, abusively called Englands Joy. 1614’, printed by Collier in Illustrations (1866), iii. It vies in impudence with the original offence. He had been in prison and was in debt, and ‘saw daily offering to the God of pleasure, resident at the Globe on the Banke-side’. This suggested his show, ‘for which they should give double payment, to the intent onely, men of ability might make the purchase without repentance’. He continues:

‘My devise was all sorts of musique, beginning with chambers, the harpe of war, and ending with hounds, the cry of peace, of which I was doubly provided for Fox and Hare. The report of gentlemen and gentlewomens actions, being indeed the flagge to our theater, was not meerely falcification, for I had divers Chorus to bee spoken by men of good birth, schollers by profession, protesting that the businesse was meerely abused by the comming of some beagles upon mee that were none of the intended kennell: I meane baylifes, who, siezing mee before the first entrance, spoke an Epilogue instead of a Prologue. This changed the play into the hunting of the fox, which, that the world may know for a verity, I heere promise the next tearme, with the true history of my life, to bee publiquely presented, to insert, in place of musicke for the actes, all those intendments prepared for that daies enterteinment.’

Later on he says, ‘I presented you with a dumbe show’, and jests on getting ‘so much mony for six verses’, which, I suppose, means that the performance was intended to be a spoken one, but was broken off during the prologue. Apparently the new entertainment contemplated by Vennar in 1614 was in fact given, not by him but by William Fennor, to whom John Taylor writes in his A Cast Over Water (1615):

Thou brag’st what fame thou got’st upon the stage. Indeed, thou set’st the people in a rage In playing England’s Joy, that every man Did judge it worse than that was done at Swan.

* * * * *

Upon S. George’s day last, sir, you gave To eight Knights of the Garter (like a knave), Eight manuscripts (or Books) all fairelie writ, Informing them, they were your mother wit: And you compil’d them; then were you regarded, And for another’s wit was well rewarded. All this is true, and this I dare maintaine, The matter came from out a learned braine: And poor old Vennor that plaine dealing man, Who acted England’s Joy first at the Swan, Paid eight crowns for the writing of these things. Besides the covers, and the silken strings.

Robin Goodfellow, in Jonson’s Love Restored (1612), calls the absence of a mask ‘a fine trick, a piece of England’s Joy’, and three characters in the Masque of Augurs (1622) are said to be ‘three of those gentlewomen that should have acted in that famous matter of England’s Joy in six hundred and three’--apparently a slip of Jonson’s as to the exact date. Other allusions to the ‘gullery’ are in Saville, Entertainment of King James at Theobalds (1603); R. Brathwaite, The Poet’s Palfrey (Strappado for the Devil, ed. J. W. Ebsworth, 160); J. Suckling, The Goblins (ed. Hazlitt, ii. 52); W. Davenant, Siege of Rhodes, Pt. ii, prol. It may be added that Vennar’s cozenage was perhaps suggested by traditional stories of similar tricks. One is ascribed to one Qualitees in Merry Tales, Wittie Questions and Quick Answeres, cxxxiii (1567, Hazlitt, Jest Books, i. 145). In this bills were set up ‘vpon postes aboute London’ for ‘an antycke plaie’ at Northumberland Place and ‘all they that shoulde playe therin were gentilmen’. Another is the subject of one of the Jests of George Peele (Bullen, ii. 389). W. Fennor, The Compters Commonwealth (1617), 64, tells of an adventure of ‘one M^r. Venard (that went by the name of Englands Joy)’ in jail, where he afterwards died.

EDWARD DE VERE, EARL OF OXFORD (1550–1604).

Meres (1598) includes the earl in his list of ‘the best for Comedy amongst vs’ but although Oxford had theatrical servants at intervals from 1580 to 1602 (cf. ch. xiii), little is known of their plays, and none can be assigned to him, although the anonymous The Weakest Goeth to the Wall (1600) calls for an author. J. T. Looney, Shakespeare Identified (1920), gives him Shakespeare’s plays, many of which were written after his death.

FRANCIS VERNEY (1584–1615).

Francis, the eldest son of Sir Edmund Verney of Penley, Herts., and Claydon, Bucks., entered Trinity College, Oxford, in 1600, and was knighted on 14 March 1604. As a result of family disputes, he left England about 1608, and became a pirate in the Mediterranean, dying at Messina on 6 Sept. 1615 (Verney Memoirs^2, i. 47). G. C. Moore Smith (M. L. R. iii. 151) gives him the following play.

Antipoe. 1603 < > 8

[MS.] Bodl. MS. 31041, ‘The tragedye of Antipoe with other poetical verses written by mee Nic^o. Leatt Jun. in Allicant In June 1622’, with Epistles to James and the Reader by ‘Francis Verney’. Presumably Verney was the author, and Nicolas only a scribe.

ANTONY WADESON (c. 1601).

Henslowe made payments to him on behalf of the Admiral’s in June and July 1601 for a play called The Honourable Life of the Humorous Earl of Gloucester, with his Conquest of Portugal, but these only amounted to 30_s._, so that possibly the play was not finished.

Doubtful Play

The anonymous Look About You (cf. ch. xxiv) has been ascribed to Wadeson.

LEWIS WAGER (c. 1560).

Wager became Rector of St. James Garlickhithe on 28 March 1560. Some resemblance of his style to that of W. Wager has led to an assumption that they were related. He was a corrector of books.

The Life and Repentance of Mary Magdalene > 1566

S. R. 1566–7. ‘An interlude of the Repentaunce of Mary Magdalen.’ John Charlwood (Arber, i. 335).

1566. A new Enterlude, neuer before this tyme imprinted, entreating of the Life and Repentaunce of Marie Magdalene: not only godlie, learned and fruitefull, but also well furnished with pleasaunt myrth and pastime, very delectable for those which shall heare or reade the same. Made by the learned clarke Lewis Wager. John Charlwood. [Prologue.]

1567. John Charlwood. [Probably a reissue. Two manuscript copies in the Dyce collection seem to be made from this edition.]

Editions by F. I. Carpenter (1902, 1904, Chicago Decennial Publications, ii. 1) and J. S. Farmer (1908, T. F. T.).

A play of Protestant tone, with biblical and allegorical characters, including ‘Infidelitie the Vice’, intended for four [five] actors. There is a Prologue, intended for actors who have ‘vsed this feate at the vniuersitie’ and will take ‘half-pence or pence’ from the audience. Carpenter dates the play c. 1550; but his chief argument that the prologue recommends obedience ‘to the kyng’ is not very convincing.

See also W. Wager, s.v. The Cruel Debtor.

W. WAGER (c. 1559).

Nothing is known of him beyond his plays and the similarity of his name to that of Lewis Wager (q.v.). Joseph Hunter, Chorus Vatum, v. 90, attempts to identify him with William Gager (q.v.), but this is not plausible. On the illegitimate extension of W. into William and other bibliographical confusions about the two Wagers, vide W. W. Greg, Notes on Dramatic Bibliographers (M. S. C. i. 324).

The Longer Thou Livest, the More Fool Thou Art. c. 1559

S. R. 1568–9. ‘A ballett the lenger thou leveste the more ffoole thow.’ Richard Jones (Arber, i. 386).

N.D. A very mery and Pythie Commedie, called The longer thou liuest, the more foole thou art. A Myrrour very necessarie for youth, and specially for such as are like to come to dignitie and promotion: As it maye well appeare in the Matter folowynge. Newly compiled by W. Wager. William Howe for Richard Jones. [Prologue.]

Editions by Brandl (1900, Jahrbuch xxxvi. 1) and J. S. Farmer (1910, S. F. T.).

A Protestant moral of 1,977 lines, with allegorical characters, arranged for four actors. Moros enters ‘synging the foote of many Songes, as fooles were wont’. Elizabeth is prayed for as queen, but the Catholic domination is still recent.

Enough is as Good as a Feast. c. 1560

N.D. A Comedy or Enterlude intituled, Inough is as good as a feast, very fruteful, godly and ful of pleasant mirth. Compiled by W. Wager. By John Allde. [The t.p. has also ‘Seuen may easely play this Enterlude’, with an arrangement of parts. The play was unknown until it appeared in Lord Mostyn’s sale of 1919. The seventeenth-century publishers’ lists record the title, but without ascription to Wager (Greg, Masques, lxvi).]

Edition by S. de Ricci (1920, Huntingdon Reprints, ii).

F. S. Boas (T. L. S. 20 Feb. 1919) describes the play as ‘a morality with a controversial Protestant flavour’; at the end Satan carries off the Vice, Covetouse, on his back. Elizabeth is prayed for.

The Cruel Debtor. c. 1565

S. R. 1565–6. ‘A ballet intituled an interlude the Cruell Detter by Wager.’ Thomas Colwell (Arber, i. 307).

N.D. Fragments. C. iii in Bagford Collection (Harl. MS. 5919); D and D 4(?) formerly in collection of W. B. Scott, now in B.M. (C. 40, e. 48).

Editions by F. J. Furnivall (1878, N. S. S. Trans. 1877–9, 2*) and W. W. Greg (1911, M. S. C. i. 314).

The speakers are Rigour, Flattery, Simulation, Ophiletis, Basileus, and Proniticus.

R. Imelmann in Herrig’s Archiv, cxi. 209, would assign these fragments to Lewis Wager, rather than W. Wager, but the stylistic evidence is hardly conclusive either way, and there is no other.

Lost Play

Warburton’s list of manuscripts burnt by his cook (3 Library, ii. 232) includes ’Tis Good Sleeping in A Whole Skin W. Wager’.

GEORGE WAPULL (c. 1576).

A George Wapull was clerk of the Stationers’ Company from 29 Sept. 1571 to 30 May 1575. In 1584–5 the company assisted him with 10_s._ ‘towards his voyage unto Norembegue’ in America (Arber, i. xliv, 509).

The Tide Tarrieth No Man > 1576

S. R. 1576, Oct. 22. ‘An Enterlude intituled The tide tariethe noe man.’ Hugh Jackson (Arber, ii. 303).

1576. The Tyde taryeth no Man. A Moste Pleasant and merry Commody, right pythie and full of delight. Compiled by George Wapull. Hugh Jackson. [Prologue.]

Editions by J. P. Collier (1864, Illustrations of Early English Literature, ii), E. Ruhl (1907, Jahrbuch, xliii. 1), J. S. Farmer (1910, T. F. T.).

A non-controversial moral, with allegorical and typical characters, including ‘Courage, the vice’, arranged for four actors.

WILLIAM WARNER (c. 1558–1609).

Warner was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and became an attorney. His chief work, Albion’s England (1586), was dedicated to Henry Lord Hunsdon, and his Syrinx (1585) to Sir George Carey, afterwards Lord Hunsdon.

Menaechmi > c. 1592

S. R. 1594, June 10. ‘A booke entituled Menachmi beinge A pleasant and fine Conceyted Comedye taken out of the moste excellent wittie Poett Plautus chosen purposely from out the reste as leaste harmefull and yet moste delightfull.’ Thomas Creede (Arber, ii. 653).

1595. Menaecmi, A pleasant and fine Conceited Comædie, taken out of the most excellent wittie Poet Plautus: Chosen purposely from out the rest, as least harmefull, and yet most delightfull. Written in English, by W. W. Thomas Creede, sold by William Barley. [Epistle by the Printer to the Readers; Argument.]

Editions by J. Nichols (1779, Six Old Plays, i), W. C. Hazlitt (1875, Sh. L. ii. 1), and W. H. D. Rouse (1912, Sh. Classics).

This translation is generally supposed to have influenced the Comedy of Errors. If so, Shakespeare must have had access to it in manuscript, and it must have been available before c. 1592. The epistle speaks of Warner as ‘having diverse of this Poetes Comedies Englished, for the use and delight of his private friends, who in Plautus owne words are not able to understand them’. No others are known.

THOMAS WATSON (c. 1557–92).

An Oxford man, who took no degree, and a lawyer, who did not practise, Watson became an elegant writer of English and Latin verse. He won the patronage of Walsingham at Paris in 1581, and became a member of the literary circle of Lyly and Peele. His most important volume of verse is the Hekatompathia (1582) dedicated to the Earl of Oxford. At the time of his death in Sept. 1592 he was in the service of William Cornwallis, who afterwards wrote to Heneage that he ‘could devise twenty fictions and knaveryes in a play which was his daily practyse and his living’ (Athenaeum, 23 Aug. 1890). This suggests that the poet, and not the episcopal author of Absalon (Mediaeval Stage, ii. 458), is the Watson included by Meres in 1598 amongst our ‘best for Tragedie’. But his plays, other than translations, must, if they exist, be sought amongst the anonymous work of 1581–92, where it would be an interesting task to reconstruct his individuality. In Ulysses upon Ajax (1596) Harington’s anonymous critic says of his etymologies of Ajax, ‘Faith, they are trivial, the froth of witty Tom Watson’s jests, I heard them in Paris fourteen years ago: besides what balductum [trashy] play is not full of them’. In the meantime Oliphant (M. P. viii. 437) has suggested that he may be the author of Thorny Abbey, or, The London Maid, printed by one R. D. with Haughton’s Grim, the Collier of Croydon in Gratiae Theatrales (1662) and there assigned to T. W. Oliphant regards Thorny Abbey as clearly a late revision of an Elizabethan play.

TRANSLATION

Antigone > 1581

S. R. 1581, July 31 (Bp. of London). ‘Aphoclis Antigone, Thoma Watsono interprete.’ John Wolfe (Arber, ii. 398).

1581. Sophoclis Antigone. Interprete Thoma Watsono I. V. studioso. Huic adduntur pompae quaedam, ex singulis Tragoediae actis deriuatae; & post eas, totidem themata sententiis refertissima; eodem Thoma Watsono Authore. John Wolf. [Latin translation. Verses to Philip Earl of Arundel, signed ‘Thomas Watsonus’. Commendatory Verses by Stephanus Broelmannus, Ἰωαννης Κωκος, Philip Harrison, Francis Yomans, Christopher Atkinson, C. Downhale, G. Camden.]

JOHN WEBSTER (?-> 1634).

There is little clue to the personal history of John Webster beyond the description of him on the title-page of his mayoral pageant Monuments of Honour (1624) as ‘Merchant Taylor’, and his claim in the epistle to have been born free of the company. The records of the Merchant Taylors show that freemen of this name were admitted in 1571, 1576, and 1617, and that one of them was assessed towards the coronation expenses in 1604. A John Webster, Merchant Taylor, also received an acknowledgement of a 15_s._ debt from John and Edward Alleyn on 25 July 1591 (Collier, Alleyn Papers, 14). A John Webster married Isabel Sutton at St. Leonard’s Shoreditch on 25 July 1590, and had a daughter Alice baptized there on 9 May 1606. It has been taken for granted that none of the sixteenth-century records can relate to the dramatist, although they may to his father. This presumably rests on the assumption that he must have been a young man when he began to write for Henslowe in 1602. It should, however, be pointed out that a John Webster, as well as a George Webster, appears amongst the Anglo-German actors of Browne’s group in 1596 (cf. ch. xiv) and that the financial record in the Alleyn Papers probably belongs to a series of transactions concerning the winding up of a theatrical company in which Browne and the Alleyns had been interested (cf. ch. xiii, s.v. Admiral’s). It is conceivable therefore that Webster was an older man than has been suspected and had had a career as a player before he became a playwright.

Gildon, Lives of the Poets (1698), reports that Webster was parish clerk of St Andrew’s, Holborn. This cannot be confirmed from parish books, but may be true.

As a dramatist, Webster generally appears in collaboration, chiefly with Dekker, and at rather infrequent intervals from 1602 up to 1624 or later. In 1602 he wrote commendatory verses for a translation by Munday, and in 1612 for Heywood’s Apology for Actors. In 1613 he published his elegy A Monumental Column on the death of Prince Henry, and recorded his friendship with Chapman. His marked tendency to borrow phrases from other writers helps to date his work. He can hardly be identified with the illiterate clothworker of the same name, who acknowledged his will with a mark on 5 Aug. 1625. But he is referred to in the past in Heywood’s Hierarchie of the Angels (1635), Bk. iv, p. 206, ‘Fletcher and Webster ... neither was but Iacke’, and was probably therefore dead.

Collections

1830. A. Dyce. 4 vols. 1857, 1 vol. [Includes Malcontent, Appius and Virginia, and Thracian Wonder.]

1857. W. C. Hazlitt. 4 vols. (Library of Old Authors). [Includes Appius and Virginia, Thracian Wonder, and The Weakest Goeth to the Wall.]

1888. J. A. Symonds, W. and Tourneur (Mermaid Series). [The White Devil and Duchess of Malfi.]

1912. A. H. Thorndike, Webster and Tourneur. (N. E. D.) [White Devil, Duchess of Malfi, Appius and Virginia.]

Dissertations: E. Gosse, J. W. (1883, Seventeenth-Century Studies); A. C. Swinburne, J. W. (1886, Studies in Prose and Poetry, 1894); C. Vopel, J. W. (1888, Bremen diss.); M. Meiners, Metrische Untersuchungen über den Dramatiker J. W. (1893, Halle diss.); W. Archer, Webster, Lamb, and Swinburne (1893, New Review, viii. 96); W. von Wurzbach, J. W. (1898, Jahrbuch, xxxi. 9); J. Morris, J. W. (Fortnightly Review, June 1902); E. E. Stoll, J. W. (1905); L. J. Sturge, W. and the Law; a Parallel (1906, Jahrbuch, xlii, 148); C. Crawford, J. W. and Sir Philip Sidney (1906, Collectanea, i. 20), Montaigne, W., and Marston: Donne and W. (1907, Collectanea, ii. 1); F. E. Pierce, The Collaboration of W. and Dekker (1909, Yale Studies, xxxvii); H. D. Sykes, W. and Sir Thomas Overbury (1613, 11 N. Q. viii. 221, 244, 263, 282, 304); A. F. Bourgeois, W. and the N. E. D. (1914, 11 N. Q. ix. 302, 324, 343); R. Brooke, J. W. and the Elizabethan Drama (1916).

Sir Thomas Wyatt. 1602

With Chettle, Dekker (q.v.), Heywood, and Smith, for Worcester’s.

The Malcontent. 1604

Additions to the play of Marston (q.v.) for the King’s.

Westward Ho! 1604

With Dekker (q.v.) for Paul’s.

Northward Ho! 1605

With Dekker (q.v.) for Paul’s.

Appius and Virginia. c. 1608.

S. R. 1654, May 13. ‘A play called Appeus and Virginia Tragedy written by John Webster.’ Richard Marriott (Eyre, i. 448).

1654. Appius and Virginia. A Tragedy. By Iohn Webster. [No imprint.]

1659. For Humphrey Moseley. [A reissue.]

1679.

Edition by C. W. Dilke (1814–15, O. E. P. v).--Dissertations: J. Lauschke, John Webster’s Tragödie A. und V. Eine Quellenstudie (1899, Leipzig diss.); H. D. Sykes, An Attempt to determine the Date of Webster’s A. and V. (1913, 11 N. Q. vii. 401, 422, 466; viii. 63); R. Brooke, The Authorship of the Later A. and V. (1913, M. L. R. viii. 433), more fully in John Webster (1916); A. M. Clark, A. and V. (1921, M. L. R. xvi. 1).

The play is in Beeston’s list of Cockpit plays in 1639 (Var. iii. 159), Webster’s authorship has generally been accepted, but Stoll, 197, who put the play 1623–39, because of resemblances to Julius Caesar and Coriolanus which he thought implied a knowledge of F_{1}, traced a dependence upon the comic manner of Heywood. Similarly, Sykes is puzzled by words which he thinks borrowed from Heywood and first used by Heywood in works written after Webster’s death. He comes to the conclusion that Heywood may have revised a late work by Webster. There is much to be said for the view taken by Brooke and Clark, after a thorough-going analysis of the problem, that the play is Heywood’s own, possibly with a few touches from Webster’s hand, and may have been written, at any date not long after the production of Coriolanus on the stage (c. 1608), for Queen Anne’s men, from whom it would naturally pass into the Cockpit repertory.

The White Devil. 1609 < > 12

1612. The White Divel; Or, The Tragedy of Paulo Giordano Ursini, Duke of Brachiano, With The Life and Death of Vittoria Corombona the famous Venetian Curtizan. Acted by the Queenes Maiesties Seruants. Written by Iohn Webster. N. O. for Thomas Archer. (Epistle to the Reader; after text, a note.)

1631.... Acted, by the Queenes Maiesties seruants, at the Phœnix, in Drury Lane. I. N. for Hugh Perry.

1665; 1672.

Editions in Dodsley^{1–3} (1744–1825) and by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. iii) and M. W. Sampson (1904, B. L.).--Dissertations: B. Nicholson, Thomas Adams’ Sermon on The W. D. (1881, 6 N. Q. iii. 166); W. W. Greg, W.’s W. D. (1900, M. L. Q. iii. 112); M. Landau, Vittoria Accorambona in der Dichtung im Verhältniss zu ihrer wahren Geschichte (1902, Euphorion, ix. 310); E. M. Cesaresco, Vittoria Accoramboni (1902, Lombard Studies, 131); P. Simpson, An Allusion in W. (1907, M. L. R. ii. 162); L. MacCracken, A Page of Forgotten History (1911); H. D. Sykes, The Date of W.’s Play, the W. D. (1913, 11 N. Q. vii. 342).

The epistle apologizes for the ill success of the play, on the ground that ‘it was acted in so dull a time of winter, presented in so open and blacke a theater, that it wanted ... a full and understanding auditory’, and complains that the spectators at ‘that play-house’ care more for new plays than for good plays. Fleay, ii. 271, dates the production in the winter of 1607–8, taking the French ambassador described in III. i. 73 as a performer ‘at last tilting’ to be M. Goterant who tilted on 24 March 1607, since ‘no other Frenchman’s name occurs in the tilt-lists. It is nothing to Fleay that Goterant was not an ambassador, or that the lists of Jacobean tilters are fragmentary, or that the scene of the play is not England but Italy. Simpson found an inferior limit in a borrowing from Jonson’s Mask of Queens on 2 Feb. 1609. I do not find much conviction in the other indications of a date in 1610 cited by Sampson, xl, or in the parallel with Jonson’s epistle to Catiline (1611), with which Stoll, 21, supports a date in 1612. The Irish notes which Stoll regards as taken from B. Rich, A New Description of Ireland (1610), in fact go back to Stanyhurst’s account of 1577, and though there is a pretty clear borrowing from Tourneur’s Atheist’s Tragedy, that may have been produced some time before its publication in 1611. Nor was Dekker necessarily referring to Webster, when he wrote to the Queen’s men in his epistle before If this be not a Good Play (1612): ‘I wish a Faire and Fortunate Day to your Next New-Play for the Makers-sake and your Owne, because such Brave Triumphes of Poesie and Elaborate Industry, which my Worthy Friends Muse hath there set forth, deserue a Theater full of very Muses themselves to be Spectators. To that Faire Day I wish a Full, Free and Knowing Auditor.’

Webster’s own epistle contains his appreciation ‘of other mens worthy labours; especially of that full and haightned stile of Maister Chapman, the labor’d and understanding workes of Maister Johnson, the no lesse worthy composures of the both worthily excellent Maister Beamont, & Maister Fletcher, and lastly (without wrong last to be named) the right happy and copious industry of M. Shakespeare, M. Decker, & M. Heywood’. In the final note he commends the actors, and in particular ‘the well approved industry of my friend Maister Perkins’.

The Duchess of Malfi. 1613–14

1623. The Tragedy of the Dutchesse of Malfy. As it was Presented priuately, at the Black-Friers; and publiquely at the Globe, By the Kings Maiesties Seruants. The perfect and exact Coppy, with diuerse things Printed, that the length of the Play would not beare in the Presentment. Written by John Webster. Nicholas Okes for Iohn Waterson. [Epistle to George Lord Berkeley, signed ‘John Webster’; Commendatory Verses, signed ‘Thomas Middletonus Poëta et Chron: Londinensis’, ‘Wil: Rowley’, ‘John Ford’; ‘The Actors Names. Bosola, J. Lowin. Ferdinand, 1 R. Burbidge, 2 J. Taylor. Cardinall, 1 H. Cundaile, 2 R. Robinson. Antonio, 1 W. Ostler, 2 R. Benfeild. Delio, J. Underwood. Forobosco, N. Towley. Pescara, J. Rice. Silvio, T. Pollard. Mad-men, N. Towley, J. Underwood, etc. Cardinals M^{is}, J. Tomson. The Doctor, etc., R. Pallant. Duchess, R. Sharpe.’]

1640; 1678; N.D.

Editions by C. E. Vaughan (1896, T. D.), M. W. Sampson (1904, B. L.), and W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).--Dissertations: K. Kiesow, _Die verschiedenen Bearbeitungen der Novelle von der Herzogin von Amalfi des Bandello in den Literaturen des xvi. und xvii. Jahrhunderts_ (1895, Anglia, xvii. 199); J. T. Murray, _The D. of M. List of the King’s Company_ (1910, E. D. C. ii. 146); W. J. Lawrence, The Date of the D. of M. (Athenaeum for 21 Nov. 1919); W. Archer, The D. of M. (Nineteenth Century for Jan. 1920).

The actor-list records two distinct casts, one before Ostler’s death on 16 Dec. 1614, the other after Burbadge’s death on 13 March 1619, and before that of Tooley in June 1623. Stoll, 29, quotes the Anglopotrida of Orazio Busino (cf. the abstract in V. P. xv. 134), which appears to show that the play was on the stage at some date not very long before Busino wrote on 7 Feb. 1618:

Prendono giuoco gli Inglesi della nostra religione come di cosa detestabile, et superstitiosa, ne mai rappresentano qualsivoglia attione pubblica, sia pura Tragisatiricomica, che non inserischino dentro uitij, et scelleragini di qualche religioso catolico, facendone risate, et molti scherni, con lor gusto, et ramarico de’ buoni, fu appunto veduto dai nostri, in una Commedia introdur’un frate franciscano, astuto, et ripieno di varie impietà, cosi d’avaritia come di libidine: et il tutto poi ruiscì in una Tragedia, facendoli mozzar la vista in scena. Un altra volta rappresentarono la grandezza d’un cardinale, con li habiti formali, et proprij molti belli, et ricchi, con la sua Corte, facendo in scena erger un Altare, dove finse di far oratione, ordinando una processione: et poi lo ridussero in pubblico con una Meretrice in seno. Dimostrò di dar il Velleno ad una sua sorella, per interesse d’honore: et d’ andar in oltre alla guerra, con depponer prima l’habito cardinalitio sopra l’altare col mezzo de’ suoi Cappellani, con gravità, et finalmente si fece cingere la spada, metter la serpa, con tanto garbo, che niente più: et tutto ciò fanno in sprezzo, delle grandezze ecclesiastice vilipese, et odiate a morte in questo Regno. Di Londra a’ 7 febaio 1618.

The date of first production may reasonably be put in 1613–14. Crawford has pointed out the resemblances between the play and A Monumental Column (1613) and definite borrowings from Donne’s Anatomy of the World (1612), Chapman’s Petrarch’s Seven Penitentiall Psalms (1612), and Chapman’s Middle Temple mask of 15 Feb. 1613. Lawrence thinks that Campion’s mask of 14 Feb. 1613 is also drawn upon. But it is not impossible that the extant text has undergone revision, in view of borrowings from the 6th edition (1615) of Sir Thomas Overbury’s Characters, to which Sykes calls attention, and of the apparent allusion pointed out by Vaughan in I. i. 5 to the purging of the French Court by Louis XIII after the assassination of Marshall d’Ancre on 14 April 1617. It need not be inferred that this is the ‘enterlude concerninge the late Marquesse d’Ancre’, which the Privy Council ordered the Master of Revels to stay on 22 June 1617 (M. S. C. i. 376).

Later Plays

The Devil’s Law Case (1623).

A Cure for a Cuckold (1661), with W. Rowley.

On the authorship and dates of these, cf. Brooke, 250, 255, and H. D. Sykes in 11 N. Q. vii. 106; ix. 382, 404, 443, 463.

Lost Plays

The following are recorded in Henslowe’s diary:

For the Admiral’s:

Caesar’s Fall or The Two Shapes.

With Dekker, Drayton, Middleton, and Munday, May 1602.

For Worcester’s:

Christmas Comes but Once a Year.

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

In the epistle to The Devil’s Law Case, Webster says to Sir T. Finch, ‘Some of my other works, as The White Devil, The Duchess of Malfi, Guise and others, you have formerly seen’, and a Guise is ascribed to him as a comedy in Archer’s play-list of 1656 and included without ascription as a tragedy in Kirkman’s of 1661 and 1671 (Greg, Masques, lxxii). Rogers and Ley’s list of 1656 had given it to Marston (q.v.). Collier forged an entry in Henslowe’s diary meant to suggest that this was the Massacre at Paris (cf. s.v. Marlowe).

In Sept. 1624 Herbert licensed ‘a new Tragedy called A Late Murther of the Sonn upon the Mother: Written by Forde, and Webster’ (Herbert, 29).

Doubtful Plays

The ascription to Webster on the t.p. of The Thracian Wonder is not generally accepted. His hand has been suggested in Revenger’s Tragedy and The Weakest Goeth to the Wall.

GEORGE WHETSTONE (1544?-87?).

Whetstone was a Londoner by origin. After a riotous youth, he turned to literature interspersed with adventure, possibly acting at Canterbury c. 1571 (cf. ch. xv), serving in the Low Countries in 1572–4, the Newfoundland voyage in 1578–9, and the Low Countries again in 1585–6. His chief literary associates were Thomas Churchyard and George Gascoigne.

After writing his one play, Promos and Cassandra, he translated its source, the 5th Novel of the 8th Decade of Giraldi Cinthio’s Hecatomithi (1565) in his Heptameron of Civil Discourses (1582). Both Italian and English are in Hazlitt, Shakespeare’s Library (1875, iii). Like some other dramatists, Whetstone turned upon the stage, and attacked it in his Touchstone for the Time (1584; cf. App. C, No. xxxvi).

Promos and Cassandra. 1578

S. R. 1578, July 31. ‘The famous historie of Promos and Casandra Devided into twoe Comicall Discourses Compiled by George Whetstone gent.’ Richard Jones (Arber, ii. 334).

1578. The Right Excellent and famous Historye, of Promos and Cassandra; Deuided into two Commicall Discourses.... The worke of George Whetstones Gent. Richard Jones. [Epistles to his ‘kinsman’ William Fleetwood, dated 29 July 1578, and signed ‘George Whetstone’, and from the Printer to the Reader, signed ‘R.I.’; Argument; Text signed ‘G. Whetstone’; Colophon with imprint and date ‘August 20, 1578’.]

Editions in Six Old Plays, i. 1 (1779), and by W. C. Hazlitt, Shakespeare’s Library, vi. 201 (1875), and J. S. Farmer (1910, T. F. T.). There are two parts, arranged in acts and scenes. Whetstone’s epistle is of some critical interest (cf. App. C, No. xix). In the Heptameron he says the play was ‘yet never presented upon stage’. The character of the s.ds. suggests, however, that it was written for presentation.

NATHANIEL WIBURNE (c. 1597).

Possible author of the academic Machiavellus (cf. App. K).

GEORGE WILKINS (fl. 1604–8).

Lee (D. N. B.) after personally consulting the register of St. Leonard’s Shoreditch, confirms the extract in Collier, iii. 348, of the burial on 19 Aug. 1603 of ‘George Wilkins, the poet’. It must therefore be assumed that the date of 9 Aug. 1613 given for the entry by T. E. Tomlins in Sh. Soc. Papers, i. 34, from Ellis’s History of Shoreditch (1798) is an error, and that the ‘poet’ was distinct from the dramatist. Nothing is known of Wilkins except that he wrote pamphlets from c. 1604 to 1608, and towards the end of that period was also engaged in play-writing both for the King’s and the Queen’s men. A George Wilkins of St. Sepulchre’s, described as a victualler and aged 36, was a fellow witness with Shakespeare in Belott v. Mountjoy on 19 June 1612 (C. W. Wallace, N. U. S. x. 289).

The Miseries of Enforced Marriage. 1607

S. R. 1607, July 31 (Buck). ‘A tragedie called the Miserye of inforced Marriage.’ George Vyncent (Arber, iii. 357).

1607. The Miseries of Inforst Manage. As it is now playd by his Maiesties Seruants. By George Wilkins. For George Vincent.

1611; 1629; 1637.

Editions in Dodsley^{2–4} (1780–1874) and by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. ii) and J. S. Farmer (1913, S. F. T.).

The play, which was based on the life of Walter Calverley, as given in pamphlets of 1605, appears to have been still on the stage when it was printed. An allusion in III. ii to fighting with a windmill implies some knowledge of Don Quixote, but of this there are other traces by 1607. The Clown is called Robin in II. ii, and Fleay, ii. 276, suggests that Armin took the part. He comes in singing:

From London am I come, Though not with pipe and drum,

in reference to Kempe’s morris.

Doubtful Plays

Wilkins probably wrote Acts I, II of Pericles, and it has been suggested that he also wrote certain scenes of Timon of Athens; but the relation of his work to Shakespeare’s cannot be gone into here.

The anonymous Yorkshire Tragedy has also been ascribed to him.

ROBERT WILMOT (> 1566–91 <).

A student of the Inner Temple, and afterwards Rector of North Ockendon, Essex, from 28 Nov. 1582 and of Horndon-on-the-Hill, Essex, from 2 Dec. 1585. William Webbe, A Discourse of English Poetry (ed. Arber, 35), commends his writing.

Tancred and Gismund. 1566 (?)

Written with Rod. Staff[ord], Hen[ry] No[el], G. Al. and Chr[istopher] Hat[ton].

[MSS.] (a) Lansdowne MS. 786, f. 1, ‘Gismond of Salern in Loue’.

(b) Brit. Mus. Hargrave MS. 205, f. 9, ‘The Tragedie of Gismond of Salerne’.

[Both MSS. have three sonnets ‘of the Quenes maydes’, and Prologue and Epilogue.]

(c) A fragment, now unknown, formerly belonging to Milton’s father-in-law, Richard Powell.

1591. The Tragedie of Tancred and Gismund. Compiled by the Gentlemen of the Inner Temple, and by them presented before her Maiestie. Newly reuiued and polished according to the decorum of these daies. By R. W. Thomas Scarlet, sold by R. Robinson. [Epistles to Lady Mary Peter and Lady Anne Gray, signed ‘Robert Wilmot’; to R. W. signed ‘Guil. Webbe’ and dated ‘Pyrgo in Essex August the eighth 1591’; to the Inner and Middle Temple and other Readers, signed ‘R. Wilmot’; two Sonnets (2 and 3 of MSS.); Arguments; Prologue; Epilogue signed ‘R. W.’; Introductiones (dumb-shows). Some copies are dated 1592.]

Editions in Dodsley^{1–4} (1744–1874) and by J. S. Farmer (1912, S. F. T.) from 1591, and by A. Brandl (1898, Q. W. D.) and J. W. Cunliffe (1912, E. E. C. T.) and J. S. Farmer (S. F. T.) from MS.--Dissertations: J. W. Cunliffe, Gismond of Salerne (1906, _M. L. A._ xxi. 435); A. Klein, The Decorum of These Days (1918, _M. L. A._ xxxiii. 244).

The MSS. represent the play as originally produced, probably, from an allusion in one of the sonnets, at Greenwich. The print represents a later revision by Wilmot, involving much re-writing and the insertion of new scenes and the dumb-shows. Webbe’s epistle is an encouragement to Wilmot to publish his ‘waste papers’, and refers to Tancred as ‘framed’ by the Inner Temple, and to Wilmot as ‘disrobing him of his antique curiosity and adorning him with the approved guise of our stateliest English terms’. Wilmot’s own Epistle to the Readers apologizes for the indecorum of publishing a play, excuses it by the example of Beza’s Abraham and Buchanan’s Jephthes, and refers to ‘the love that hath been these twenty-four years betwixt’ himself and Gismund. This seems to date the original production in 1567. But I find no evidence that Elizabeth was at Greenwich in 1567. Shrovetide 1566 seems the nearest date at which a play is likely to have been given there. Wilmot was clearly not the sole author of the original play; to Act I he affixes ‘Exegit Rod. Staff.’; to Act II, ‘Per Hen. No.’; to Act III, ‘G. Al.’; to Act IV, ‘Composuit Chr. Hat.’; to the Epilogue, ‘R. W.’ Probably Act V, which has no indication of authorship, was also his own.

W. H. Cooke, Students Admitted to the Inner Temple, 1547–1660 (1878), gives the admission of Christopher Hatton in 1559–60, but Wilmot is not traceable in the list; nor are Hen. No., G. Al., or Rod. Staff. But the first may be Elizabeth’s Gentleman Pensioner, Henry Noel (q.v.), and Cunliffe, lxxxvi, notes that a ‘Master Stafford’ was fined £5 for refusing to act as Marshal at the Inner Temple in 1556–7.

Doubtful Play

Hazlitt assigns to Wilmot The Three Ladies of London, but the R. W. of the title-page is almost certainly Robert Wilson (q.v.).

ROBERT WILSON (> 1572–1600).

For Wilson’s career as an actor and a discussion as to whether there was more than one dramatist of the name, cf. ch. xv.

The Three Ladies of London. c. 1581

1584. A right excellent and famous Comœdy called the three Ladies of London. Wherein is notably declared and set foorth, how by the meanes of Lucar, Love and Conscience is so corrupted, that the one is married to Dissimulation, the other fraught with all abhomination. A perfect patterne for all Estates to looke into, and a worke right worthie to be marked. Written by R. W. as it hath been publiquely played. Roger Warde. [Prologue. At end of play ‘Paule Bucke’ (an actor; cf. ch. xv).]

1592. John Danter.

Editions by J. P. Collier, Five Old Plays (1851, Roxb. Club), in Dodsley^4 (1874), vi, and by J. S. Farmer (1911, T. F. T.).

The stylistic resemblance of this to the next two plays justifies the attribution to Wilson, although Hazlitt suggests Wilmot. Gosson describes the play in 1582 (P. C. 185) together with a play in answer called London Against the Three Ladies, but does not indicate whether either play was then in print. In B ii Peter’s pence are dated as ‘not muche more than 26 yeares, it was in Queen Maries time’. As the Act reviving Peter’s pence was passed in the winter of 1554–5, the play was probably written in 1581.

The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London. c. 1589

S. R. 1590, July 31 (Wood). ‘A comodie of the plesant and statelie morrall of the Three lordes of London.’ Richard Jones (Arber, ii. 556).

1590. The Pleasant and Stately Morall, of the three Lordes and three Ladies of London. With the great Joy and Pompe, Solempnized at their Mariages: Commically interlaced with much honest Mirth, for pleasure and recreation, among many Morall obseruations and other important matters of due regard. By R. W. R. Jones. [Woodcut, on which cf. Bibl. Note to ch. xviii; ‘Preface’, i.e. prologue.]

Editions by J. P. Collier (1851, Five Old Plays), in Dodsley^4, vi. 371 (1874), and by J. S. Farmer (1912, T. F. T.).--Dissertation: H. Fernow, The 3 L. and 3 L. By R. W. (1885, Hamburg programme).

Fleay, ii. 280, fixes the date by the allusions (C, C^v) to the recent death of Tarlton (q.v.) in Sept. 1588.

The Cobbler’s Prophecy > 1594

S. R. 1594, June 8. ‘A booke intituled the Coblers prophesie.’ Cuthbert Burby (Arber, ii. 653).

1594. The Coblers Prophesie. Written by Robert Wilson, Gent. John Danter for Cuthbert Burby.

Editions by W. Dibelius (1897, Jahrbuch, xxxiii. 3), J. S. Farmer (1911, T. F. T.), and A. C. Wood (1914, M. S. R.).

The general character of this play, with its reference (i. 36) to an audience who ‘sit and see’ and its comfits cast, suggests the Court rather than the popular stage.

Doubtful Plays

Wilson’s hand has been sought in Clyomon and Clamydes, Fair Em, Knack to Know a Knave, Pedlar’s Prophecy (cf. ch. xxiv).

Lost Plays

Short and Sweet (c. 1579). Vide Catiline’s Conspiracy (infra).

The following is a complete list of plays for the Admiral’s men in which a share is assigned to Wilson by Henslowe:

(i, ii) 1, 2, Earl Godwin and his Three Sons.

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

(iii) Pierce of Exton.

With Chettle, Dekker, and Drayton, April, 1598; but apparently unfinished.

(iv) 1 Black Bateman of the North.

With Chettle, Dekker, and Drayton, May 1598.

(v) 2 Black Bateman of the North.

With Chettle, June 1598.

(vi) Funeral of Richard Cœur-de-Lion.

With Chettle, Drayton, and Munday, June 1598.

(vii) The Madman’s Morris.

With Dekker and Drayton, July 1598.

(viii) Hannibal and Hermes.

With Dekker and Drayton, July 1598.

(ix) Pierce of Winchester.

With Dekker and Drayton, July–Aug. 1598.

(x) Chance Medley.

With Chettle or Dekker, Drayton, and Munday, Aug. 1598.

(xi) Catiline’s Conspiracy.

With Chettle, Aug. 1598; but apparently not finished; unless the fact that the authors only received one ‘earnest’ of £1 5_s._ was due to the play being no more than a revision of Wilson’s old Short and Sweet, which Lodge (cf. App. C, No. xxiii) contrasts about 1579 with Gosson’s play on Catiline.

(xii, xiii) 1, 2 Sir John Oldcastle.

With Drayton (q.v.), Hathaway, and Munday, Oct.–Dec. 1599.

(xiv) 2 Henry Richmond.

Nov. 1599, apparently with others, as shown by Robert Shaw’s order for payment (Greg, Henslowe Papers, 49), on which a scenario of one act is endorsed.

(xv) Owen Tudor.

With Drayton, Hathaway, and Munday, Jan. 1600; but apparently not finished.

(xvi) 1 Fair Constance of Rome.

June 1600. The Diary gives the payments as made to Dekker, Drayton, Hathaway, and Munday, but a letter of 14 June from Robert Shaw (Greg, Henslowe Papers, 55) indicates that Wilson had a fifth share.

ANTHONY WINGFIELD (c. 1550–1615).

Possible author of the academic Pedantius (cf. App. K).

NATHANIEL WOODES (?).

A minister of Norwich, only known as author of the following play.

The Conflict of Conscience. > 1581

1581. An excellent new Commedie Intituled: The Conflict of Conscience. Contayninge, A most lamentable example, of the dolefull desperation of a miserable worldlinge, termed, by the name of Philologus, who forsooke the trueth of God’s Gospel, for feare of the losse of lyfe, & worldly goods. Compiled, by Nathaniell Woodes, Minister, in Norwich. Richard Bradocke. [Prologue.]

Editions by J. P. Collier (1851, Five Old Plays), in Dodsley^4, vi. 29 (1874), and by J. S. Farmer (1911, T. F. T.).

The characters are allegorical, typical and personal and arranged for six actors ‘most convenient for such as be disposed either to shew this Comedie in private houses or otherwise’. Philologus is Francis Spiera, a pervert to Rome about the middle of the sixteenth century. The play is strongly Protestant, and is probably much earlier than 1581. It is divided into a prologue and acts and scenes. Act VI is practically an epilogue.

HENRY WOTTON (1568–1639).

Izaak Walton (Reliquiae Wottonianae, 1651) tells us that, while a student at Queen’s College, Oxford, in 1586, Wotton ‘was by the chief of that College, persuasively enjoined to write a play for their private use;--it was the Tragedy of Tancredo--which was so interwoven with sentences, and for the method and exact personating those humours, passions, and dispositions, which he proposed to represent, so performed, that the gravest of that society declared, he had, in a slight employment, given an early and a solid testimony of his future abilities’.

CHRISTOPHER WREN (1591–1658).

Author of the academic Physiponomachia (cf. App. K).

ROBERT YARINGTON (c. 1601?).

Nothing is known of Yarington, but this is hardly sufficient reason for denying him the ascription of the title-page.

Two Lamentable Tragedies. 1594 < > 1601

1601. Two Lamentable Tragedies. The one, of the murder of Maister Beech a Chaundler in Thames-streete, and his boye, done by Thomas Merry. The other of a young childe murthered in a Wood by two Ruffins, with the consent of his Vnckle. By Rob. Yarington. For Mathew Lawe. [Running title, ‘Two Tragedies in One.’ Induction.]

Editions by A. H. Bullen (1885, O. E. P. iv) and J. S. Farmer (1913, S. F. T.).--Dissertation: R. A. Law, Y.’s T. L. T. (1910, M. L. R. v. 167).

This deals in alternate scenes with (a) the murder of Beech by Merry on 23 Aug. 1594, and (b) a version, with an Italian setting, of the Babes in the Wood, on which a ballad, with a Norfolk setting, was licensed in 1595. Greg, Henslowe, ii. 208, following a hint of Fleay, ii. 285, connects the play with Henslowe’s entries of payments, on behalf of the Admiral’s, (i) of £5 in Nov. and Dec. 1599 to Day and Haughton for Thomas Merry or Beech’s Tragedy, (ii) of 10_s._ in Nov. 1599 and 10_s._ in Sept. 1601 to Chettle for The Orphan’s Tragedy, and (iii) of £2 to Day in Jan. 1600 for an Italian tragedy. He supposes that (ii) and (iii) were the same play, that it was finished, and that in 1601 Chettle combined it with (i), possibly dropping out Day’s contributions to both pieces. Yarington he dismisses as a scribe. In the alternate scenes of the extant version he discerns distinct hands, presumably those of Haughton and Chettle respectively. Law does not think that there are necessarily two hands at all, finds imitation of Leire (1594) in scenes belonging to both plots, and reinstates Yarington. Oliphant (M. P. viii. 435) boldly conjectures that ‘Rob. Yarington’ might be a misreading of ‘W^m Haughton’. Bullen thought that this play, Arden of Feversham, and A Warning for Fair Women might all be by the same hand.

CHRISTOPHER YELVERTON (c. 1535–1612).

Yelverton entered Gray’s Inn in 1552. He is mentioned as a poet in Jasper Heywood’s verses before Thomas Newton’s translation (1560) of Seneca’s Thyestes, and wrote an epilogue to the Gray’s Inn Jocasta of Gascoigne (q.v.) and Kinwelmershe in 1566. He also helped to devise the dumb-shows for the Gray’s Inn Misfortunes of Arthur of Thomas Hughes (q.v.) on 28 Feb. 1588. He became a Justice of the Queen’s Bench on 2 Feb. 1602 and was knighted on 23 July 1603.

PRINTED IN ENGLAND AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Cf. ch. xxii.

[2] Quarterly Review (April 1908), 446.

[3] A copy at Berlin of the Strassburg Terence of 1496 has the manuscript note to the engraving of the Theatrum, ‘ein offen stat der weltlichkeit da man zu sicht, ubi fiunt chorei, ludi et de alijs leutitatibus, sicut nos facimus oster spill’ (Herrmann, 300). Leo Battista Alberti’s De Re Edificatoria was written about 1451 and printed in 1485. Vitruvius, De Architectura, v. 3–9, deals with the theatre. The essential passage on the scene is v. 6, 8–9 ‘Ipsae autem scenae suas habent rationes explicitas ita, uti mediae valvae ornatus habeant aulae regiae, dextra ac sinistra hospitalia, secundum autem spatia ad ornatus comparata, quae loca Graeci περιάκτους dicunt ab eo, quod machinae sunt in his locis versatiles trigonoe habentes singulares species ornationis, quae, cum aut fabularum mutationes sunt futurae seu deorum adventus, cum tonitribus repentinis [ea] versentur mutentque speciem ornationis in frontes. secundum ea loca versurae sunt procurrentes, quae efficiunt una a foro, altera a peregre aditus in scaenam. genera autem sunt scaenarum tria: unum quod dicitur tragicum, alterum comicum, tertium satyricum. horum autem ornatus sunt inter se dissimili disparique ratione, quod tragicae deformantur columnis et fastigiis et signis reliquisque regalibus rebus; comicae autem aedificiorum privatorum et maenianorum habent speciem prospectusque fenestris dispositos imitatione, communium aedificiorum rationibus; satyricae vero ornantur arboribus, speluncis, montibus reliquisque agrestibus rebus in topeodis speciem deformati’; cf. G. Lanson, in Revue de la Renaissance (1904), 72.

[4] ‘Tu enim primus Tragoediae ... in medio foro pulpitum ad quinque pedum altitudinem erectum pulcherrime exornasti: eamdemque, postquam in Hadriani mole ... est acta, rursus intra tuos penates, tamquam in media Circi cavea, toto consessu umbraculis tecto, admisso populo et pluribus tui ordinis spectatoribus honorifice excepisti. Tu etiam primus picturatae scenae faciem, quum Pomponiani comoediam agerent, nostro saeculo ostendisti’; cf. Marcantonius Sabellicus, Vita Pomponii (Op. 1502, f. 55), ‘Pari studio veterum spectandi consuetudinem desuetae civitati restituit, primorum Antistitum atriis suo theatro usus, in quibus Plauti, Terentii, recentiorum etiam quaedam agerentur fabulae, quas ipse honestos adolescentes et docuit, et agentibus praefuit’; cf. also D’Ancona, ii. 65; Creizenach, ii. 1.

[5] D’Ancona, ii. 74.

[6] D’Ancona, ii. 84; Herrmann, 353; Flechsig, 51. The scenic wall is described in the contemporary narrative of P. Palliolo, Le Feste pel Conferimento del Patriziato Romano a Giuliano e Lorenzo de’ Medici (ed. O. Guerrini, 1885), 45, 63, ‘Guardando avanti, se appresenta la fronte della scena, in v compassi distinta per mezzo di colonne quadre, con basi e capitelli coperti de oro. In ciascuno compasso è uno uscio di grandezza conveniente a private case.... La parte inferiore di questa fronte di quattro frigi è ornata.... A gli usci delle scene furono poste portiere di panno de oro. El proscenio fu coperto tutto di tapeti con uno ornatissimo altare in mezzo.’ The side-doors were in ‘le teste del proscenio’ (Palliolo, 98). I have not seen M. A. Altieri, Giuliano de’ Medici, eletto cittadino Romano (ed. L. Pasqualucci, 1881), or N. Napolitano, Triumphi de gli mirandi Spettaculi (1519). Altieri names an untraceable Piero Possello as the architect; Guerrini suggests Pietro Rossello.

[7] D’Ancona, ii. 128, from Diario Ferrarese, ‘in lo suo cortile ... fu fato suso uno tribunale di legname, con case v merlade, con una finestra e uscio per ciascuna: poi venne una fusta di verso le caneve e cusine, e traversò il cortile con dieci persone dentro con remi e vela, del naturale’; Bapt. Guarinus, Carm. iv:

Et remis puppim et velo sine fluctibus actam Vidimus in portus nare, Epidamne, tuos, Vidimus effictam celsis cum moenibus urbem, Structaque per latas tecta superba vias. Ardua creverunt gradibus spectacula multis, Velaruntque omnes stragula picta foros.

[8] D’Ancona, ii. 129.

[9] Ibid. 130.

[10] Ibid. 132, 135. The two Marsigli, with Il Bianchino and Nicoletto Segna, appear to have painted scenes and ships for the earlier Ferrarese productions.

[11] Ibid. 134.

[12] Ibid. 381, from G. Campori, Lettere artistiche inedite, 5, ‘Era la sua forma quadrangula, protensa alquanto in longitudine: li doi lati l’uno al altro de rimpecto, havevano per ciaschuno octo architravi con colonne ben conrespondenti et proportionate alla larghezza et alteza de dicti archi: le base et capitelli pomposissimamente con finissimi colori penti, et de fogliami ornati, representavano alla mente un edificio eterne ed antiquo, pieno de delectatione: li archi con relevo di fiori rendevano prospectiva mirabile: la largheza di ciascheuno era braza quactro vel cerca: la alteza proporzionata ad quella. Dentro nel prospecto eran panni d’oro et alcune verdure, si come le recitationi recerchavano: una delle bande era ornata delli sei quadri del Cesareo triumpho per man del singulare Mantengha: li doi altri lati discontro erano con simili archi, ma de numero inferiore, che chiascheuno ne haveva sei. Doj bande era scena data ad actorj et recitatorj: le doe altre erano ad scalini, deputati per le donne et daltro, per todeschi, trombecti et musici. Al jongere del’ angulo de un de’ grandi et minorj lati, se vedevano quactro altissime colonne colle basi orbiculate, le quali sustentavano quactro venti principali: fra loro era una grocta, benchè facta ad arte, tamen naturalissima: sopra quella era un ciel grande fulgentissimo de varij lumi, in modo de lucidissime stelle, con una artificiata rota de segni, al moto de’ quali girava mo il sole, mo la luna nelle case proprie: dentro era la rota de Fortuna con sei tempi: regno, regnavj, regnabo: in mezo resideva la dea aurea con un sceptro con un delphin. Dintorno alla scena al frontespitio da basso era li triumphi del Petrarcha, ancor loro penti per man del p^o. Mantengha: sopra eran candelierj vistosissimi deaurati tucti: nel mezo era un scudo colle arme per tucto della C^a. M^g.; sopra la aquila aurea bicapitata col regno et diadema imperiale: ciascheuno teneva tre doppieri; ad ogni lato era le insegne. Alli doi maiorj, quelle della S^{ta}. de N. S. et quelle della Cesarea Maestà: alli minorj lati quelle del C^o. Sig. Re, et quelle della Ill^{ma}. Sig^a. da Venetia; tra li archi pendevano poi quelle de V. Ex., quelle del Sig. duca Alberto Alemano: imprese de Sig. Marchese et Sig^a. Marchesana: sopre erano più alte statue argentate, aurate et de più colorj metallici, parte tronche, parte integre, che assai ornavano quel loco: poi ultimo era il cielo de panno torchino, stellato con quelli segni che quella sera correvano nel nostro hemisperio.’ Flechsig, 26, thinks that the architect was Ercole Albergati (Il Zafarano).

[13] D’Ancona, i. 485; Mediaeval Stage, ii. 79, 83, 135.

[14] Ferrari, 50; D’Ancona, ii. 1, give examples of these at Ferrara and elsewhere. The Favola d’Orfeo, originally produced about 1471, seems to have been recast as Orphei tragedia for Ferrara in 1486. It had five acts, Pastorale, Ninfale, Eroico, Negromantico, Baccanale; in the fourth, the way to hell and hell itself were shown--‘duplici actu haec scena utitur’.

[15] J. W. Cunliffe, Early English Classical Tragedies, xl; F. A. Foster, in E. S. xliv. 8.

[16] Herrmann, 280, 284; cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 208.

[17] Translation by Hans Nithart, printed by C. Dinckmut (Ulm, 1486); cf. Herrmann, 292, who reproduces specimen cuts from this and the other sources described.

[18] Edition printed by Johannes Trechsel (Lyons, 1493); cf. Herrmann, 300. The editor claims for the woodcuts that ‘effecimus, ut etiam illitteratus ex imaginibus, quas cuilibet scenae praeposuimus, legere atque accipere comica argumenta valeat’. Badius also edited a Paris Terence of 1502, with Praenotamenta based on Vitruvius and other classical writers, in which he suggests the use in antiquity of ‘tapeta ... qualia nunc fiunt in Flandria’.

[19] Edition printed by Johannes Grüninger (Strassburg, 1496); cf. Herrmann, 318.

[20] Editions printed by Lazarus Soardus (Venice, 1497 and 1499); cf. Herrmann, 346. The Theatrum and other cuts are also reproduced in The Mask for July 1909.

[21] Flechsig, 84, citing as possibly a stage design an example of idealized architecture inscribed ‘Bramanti Architecti Opus’ and reproduced by E. Müntz, Hist. de l’Art pendant la Renaissance, ii. 299. Bramante was at Rome about 1505, and was helped on St. Peter’s by Baldassarre Peruzzi. But there is nothing obviously scenic in the drawing.

[22] D’Ancona, ii. 394, ‘Ma quello che è stato il meglio in tutte queste feste e representationi, è stato tute le sene, dove si sono representate, quale ha facto uno M^o. Peregrino depintore, che sta con il Sig^{re}.; ch’ è una contracta et prospettiva di una terra cum case, chiesie, campanili et zardini, che la persona non si può satiare a guardarla per le diverse cose che ge sono, tute de inzegno et bene intese, quale non credo se guasti, ma che la salvaràno per usarla de le altre fiate’.

[23] Ibid., ‘il caso accadete a Ferrara’.

[24] Ibid. 102, ‘La scena poi era finta una città bellissima con le strade, palazzi, chiese, torri, strade vere, e ogni cosa di rilevo, ma ajutata ancora da bonissima pintura e prospettiva bene intesa’; the description has further details. Genga is not named, but Serlio (cf. App. G) speaks of his theatrical work for Duke Francesco Maria of Urbino (succ. 1508). Vasari, vi. 316, says that he had also done stage designs for Francesco’s predecessor Guidobaldo.

[25] Vasari, iv. 600. Some of Peruzzi’s designs for Calandra are in the Uffizi; Ferrari (tav. vi) reproduces one.

[26] D’Ancona, ii. 89, ‘Sonandosi li pifari si lasciò cascare la tela; dove era pinto Fra Mariano con alcuni Diavoli che giocavano con esso da ogni lato della tela; et poi a mezzo della tela vi era un breve che dicea: Questi sono li capricci di Fra Mariano; et sonandosi tuttavia, et il Papa mirando con il suo occhiale la scena, che era molto bella, di mano di Raffaele, et rappresentava si bene per mia fè forami di prospective, et molto furono laudate, et mirando ancora il cielo, che molto si rappresentava bello, et poi li candelieri, che erano formati in lettere, che ogni lettera substenìa cinque torcie, et diceano: Leo Pon. Maximus’.

[27] Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, xxxii. 80:

Quale al cader de le cortine suole Parer, fra mille lampade, la scena, D’archi, et di più d’una superba mole D’oro, e di statue e di pitture piena.

This passage was added in the edition of 1532, but a more brief allusion in that of 1516 (xliii. 10, ‘Vo’ levarti dalla scena i panni’) points to the use of a curtain, rising rather than falling, before 1519; cf. p. 31; vol. i, p. 181; Creizenach, ii. 299; Lawrence (i. 111), The Story of a Peculiar Stage Curtain.

[28] Ferrari (tav. xii) reproduces from Uffizi, 5282, an idealization by Serlio of the piazzetta of S. Marco at Venice as a scenario.

[29] Cf. App. G. Book ii first appeared in French (1545).

[30] De Sommi, Dial. iv (c. 1565, D’Ancona, ii. 419), ‘Ben che paia di certa vaghezza il vedersi in scena una camera aperta, ben parata, dentro a la quale, dirò così per esempio, uno amante si consulti con una ruffiana, et che paia aver del verisimile, è però tanto fuor del naturale esser la stanza senza il muro dinanzi, il che necessariamente far bisogna, che a me ne pare non molto convenirsi: oltre che non so se il recitare in quel loco, si potrà dire che sia in scena. Ben si potrà per fuggir questi due inconvenienti, aprire come una loggia od un verone dove rimanesse alcuno a ragionare’.

[31] Creizenach, ii. 271.

[32] Ferrari, 105, with engravings; A. Magrini, Il teatro Olympico (1847). This is noticed by the English travellers, Fynes Morison, Itinerary, i. 2. 4 (ed. 1907, i. 376), ‘a Theater for Playes, which was little, but very faire and pleasant’, and T. Coryat, Crudities, ii. 7, ‘The scene also is a very faire and beautifull place to behold’. He says the house would hold 3,000. In Histriomastix, ii. 322, the ‘base trash’ of Sir Oliver Owlet’s players is compared unfavourably with the splendour of Italian theatres. A permanent theatre had been set up in the Sala grande of the Corte Vecchia at Ferrara in 1529, with scenery by Dosso Dossi representing Ferrara, for a revival of the Cassaria and the production of Ariosto’s Lena; it was burnt down, just before Ariosto’s death, in 1532 (Flechsig, 23; Gardner, King of Court Poets, 203, 239, 258).

[33] Probably some temporary additions to the permanent decoration of the scena was possible, as Ferrari (tav. xv) gives a design for a scenario by Scamozzi.

[34] Ferrari, 100.

[35] Engravings, by Jean de Gourmont and another, of this type of stage are reproduced by Bapst, 145, 153, and by Rigal in Petit de Julleville, iii. 264, 296; cf. M. B. Evans, An Early Type of Stage (M. P. ix. 421).

[36] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 217.

[37] Baschet, 6; D’Ancona, ii. 456; H. Prunières, L’Opéra Italien en France (1913), xx; A. Solerti, La rappresentazione della Calandra a Lione nel 1548 (1901, Raccolta di Studii Critici ded. ad A. d’ Ancona), from La Magnifica et Triumphale Entrata del Christianissimo Re di Francia Henrico Secundo (1549).

[38] Cf. ch. xiv (Italians).

[39] D’Ancona, ii. 457.

[40] Brantôme, Recueil des Dames, i. 2 ([OE]uvres, ed. 1890, x. 47), ‘Elle eut opinion qu’elle avoit porté malheur aux affaires du royaume, ainsi qu’il succéda; elle n’en fit plus jouer’. Ingegneri says of tragedies, ‘Alcuni oltra dicio le stimano di triste augurio’.

[41] E. Rigal in Rev. d’Hist. Litt. xii. 1, 203; cf. the opposite view of J. Haraszti in xi. 680 and xvi. 285.

[42] Sainte-Marthe, Elogia (1606), 175.

[43] G. Lanson in Rev. d’Hist. Litt. x. 432. In Northward Hoe, iv. 1, Bellamont is writing a tragedy of Astyanax, which he will have produced ‘in the French court by French gallants’, with ‘the stage hung all with black velvet’.

[44] Lanson, loc. cit. 422. A description of a tragi-comedy called Genièvre, based on Ariosto, at Fontainebleau in 1564 neglects the staging, but gives a picture of the audience as

une jeune presse De tous costez sur les tapis tendus, Honnestement aux girons espandus De leur maîtresse.

B. Rossi’s Fiammella was given at Paris in 1584 with a setting of ‘boschi’.

[45] Lanson, loc. cit. 424.

[46] The plan is in J. A. Du Cerceau, Les Plus Excellens Bastimens de France (1576–9), and is reproduced in W. H. Ward, French Châteaux and Gardens in the Sixteenth Century, 14; cf. R. Blomfield, Hist. of French Architecture, i. 81, who, however, thinks that Du Cerceau’s ‘bastiment en manière de théâtre’ was not the long room, but the open courtyard, in the form of a square with concave angles and semicircular projections on each side, which occupies the middle of the block.

[47] Prunières, Ballet de Cour, 72, 134.

[48] Bapst, 147, reproduces an example. This is apparently the type of French stage described by J. C. Scaliger, Poetice (1561), i. 21, ‘Nunc in Gallia ita agunt fabulas, ut omnia in conspectu sint; universus apparatus dispositis sublimibus sedibus. Personae ipsae nunquam discedunt: qui silent pro absentibus habentur’.

[49] Rigal, 36, 46, 53.

[50] The full text is printed by E. Dacier from B. N. f. fr. 24330 in Mémoires de la Soc. de l’Hist. de Paris (1901), xxviii. 105, and is analysed by Rigal, 247. The designs have recently (1920) been published in H. C. Lancaster’s edition; reproductions, from the originals or from models made for the Exposition of 1878, will be found of Durval’s Agarite in Rigal, f.p., Lawrence, i. 241, Thorndike, 154; of Hardy’s Cornélie in Rigal, Alexandre Hardy (1890), f.p., Bapst, 185; of Pandoste in Jusserand, Shakespeare in France, 71, 75; of Mairet’s Sylvanire in E. Faguet, Hist. de la Litt. Fr. ii. 31; and of Pyrame et Thisbé, Corneille’s L’Illusion Comique, and Du Ryer’s Lisandre et Caliste in Petit de Julleville, Hist. iv. 220, 270, 354.

[51] ‘Il faut un antre ... d’où sort un hermite’ (Dacier, 116), ‘une fenestre qui soit vis à vis d’une autre fenestre grillée pour la prison, où Lisandre puisse parler à Caliste’ (116), ‘un beau palais eslevé de trois ou quatre marches’ (117), ‘un palais ou sénat fort riche’ (117), ‘une case où il y ayt pour enseigne L’Ormeau’ (117), ‘une mer’ (117), ‘une tente’ (121), ‘un hermitage où l’on monte et descend’ (123), ‘une fenestre où se donne une lettre’ (124), ‘une tour, une corde nouée pour descendre de la tour, un pont-levis qui se lâche quand il est nécessaire’ (125), ‘une sortie d’un roy en forme de palais’ (127).

[52] ‘Il faut aussy une belle chambre, une table, deux tabourets, une écritoire’ (117), ‘une belle chambre, où il y ayt un beau lict, des sièges pour s’asseoir; la dicte chambre s’ouvre et se ferme plusieurs fois’ (121), ‘forme de salle garnie de sièges où l’on peint une dame’ (126).

[53] Dacier, 119.

[54] Ibid. 119.

[55] ‘Forme de fontaine en grotte coulante ou de peinture’ (Dacier, 127); ‘Au milieu du théâtre, dit la persepective, doit avoir une grande boutique d’orfèvre, fort superbe d’orfèvrerie et autre joyaux’ (136); ‘Il faut deux superbes maisons ornées de peinture; au milieu du théâtre, une persepective où il y ait deux passages entre les deux maisons’ (137).

[56] ‘Il faut que le théâtre soit tout en pastoralle, antres, verdures, et fleurs’ (116), ‘Il faut ... le petit Chastellet de la rue Saint Jacques, et faire paroistre une rue où sont les bouchers’ (116), ‘en pastoralle à la discrétion du feinteur’ (124), ‘Il faut le théâtre en rues et maisons’ (129, for Rotrou’s Les Ménechmes), ‘La décoration du théâtre doit estre en boutique’ (136), ‘le feinteur doit faire paraitre sur le théâtre la place Royalle ou l’imiter à peu près’ (133).

[57] ‘Il faut que cela soit caché durant le premier acte, et l’on ne faict paroistre cela qu’au second acte, et se referme au mesme acte’ (116), ‘un eschaffaut qui soit caché’ (117), ‘le vaisseau paraist au quatriesme acte’ (120). For the use of curtains to effect these discoveries, cf. Rigal, 243, 253, who, however, traces to a guess of Lemazurier, Galerie Historique, i. 4, the often repeated statement that to represent a change of scene ‘on levait ou on tirait une tapisserie, et cela se faisait jusqu’à dix ou douze fois dans la même pièce’.

[58] It is so, e.g., in the design for Agarite.

[59] ‘Non sic tolerari potest, ut longe lateque dissita loca in unum subito proscenium cogantur; qua in re per se absurdissima et nullo veterum exemplo comprobata nimium sibi hodie quidam indulserunt’; cf. Creizenach, ii. 102. Spingarn, Literary Criticism in the Renaissance, 89, 206, 290, discusses the origin of the unities, and cites Castelvetro, Poetica (1570), 534, ‘La mutatione tragica non può tirar con esso seco se non una giornata e un luogo’, and Jean de la Taille, Art de Tragédie (1572), ‘Il faut toujours représenter l’histoire ou le jeu en un même jour, en un même temps, et en un même lieu’.

[60] Mediaeval Stage, ii. 257; Lawrence (i. 123), Early French Players in England. It is only a guess of Mr. Lawrence’s that these visitors played Maistre Pierre Patelin, a farce which requires a background with more than one domus. Karl Young, in M. P. ii. 97, traces some influence of French farces on the work of John Heywood. There had been ‘Fransche-men that playt’ at Dundee in 1490, and ‘mynstrells of Fraunce’, not necessarily actors, played before Henry VII at Abingdon in 1507.

[61] Halle, i. 176.

[62] Halle, ii. 86.

[63] Mediaeval Stage, ii. 196; cf. ch. xii (Paul’s). Spinelli’s letter is preserved in Marino Sanuto, Diarii, xlvi. 595, ‘La sala dove disnamo et si rapresentò la comedia haveva nella fronte una grande zoglia di bosso, che di mezzo conteneva in lettere d’oro: Terentii Formio. Da l’un di canti poi vi era in lettere antique in carta: cedant arma togae. Da l’altro: Foedus pacis non movebitur. Sotto poi la zoglia si vide: honori et laudi pacifici.... Per li altri canti de la sala vi erano sparsi de li altri moti pertinenti alla pace’.

[64] V. P. iv. 115 translates ‘zoglia di bosso’ as ‘a garland of box’, but Florio gives ‘soglia’ as ‘the threshold or hanse of a doore; also the transome or lintle over a dore’.

[65] Murray, ii. 168; cf. ch. xii (Westminster).

[66] Halle, ii. 109.

[67] Cf. ch. viii.

[68] The memorandum on the reform of the Revels office in 1573, which I attribute to Edward Buggin, tells us (Tudor Revels, 37; cf. ch. iii) that ‘The connynge of the office resteth in skill of devise, in vnderstandinge of historyes, in iudgement of comedies tragedyes and showes, in sight of perspective and architecture, some smacke of geometrye and other thynges’. If Sir George Buck, however, in 1612, thought that a knowledge of perspective was required by the Art of Revels, he veiled it under the expression ‘other arts’ (cf. ch. iii).

[69] Mundus et Infans, Hickscorner, Youth, Johan Evangelist, Magnificence, Four Elements, Calisto and Melibaea, Nature, Love, Weather, Johan Johan, Pardoner and Friar, Four PP., Gentleness and Nobility, Witty and Witless, Kinge Johan, Godly Queen Hester, Wit and Science, Thersites, with the fragmentary Albion Knight. To these must now be added Henry Medwall’s Fulgens and Lucres (N.D., but 1500 <), formerly only known by a fragment (cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 458), but recently found in the Mostyn collection, described by F. S. Boas and A. W. Reed in T. L. S. (20 Feb. and 3 April 1919), and reprinted by S. de Ricci (1920).

[70] Wealth and Health, Nice Wanton, Lusty Juventus, Impatient Poverty, Respublica, Jacob and Esau, and perhaps Enough is as Good as a Feast, with the fragmentary Love Feigned and Unfeigned.

[71] Trial of Treasure, Like Will to Like, The Longer Thou Livest, The More Fool Thou Art, Marriage of Wit and Science, Marriage between Wit and Wisdom, New Custom, The Tide Tarrieth no Man, All for Money, Disobedient Child, Conflict of Conscience, Pedlar’s Prophecy, Misogonus, Glass of Government, Three Ladies of London, King Darius, Mary Magdalene, Apius and Virginia, with the fragmentary Cruel Debtor.

[72] For details of date and authorship cf. chh. xxiii, xxiv, and Mediaeval Stage, ii. 439, 443. Albright, 29, attempts a classification on the basis of staging, but not, I think, very successfully.

[73] Cf. e.g. Hickscorner, 544; Youth, 84, 201, 590, 633; Johan Johan, 667; Godly Queen Hester, 201, 635, 886; Wit and Science, 969; Wit and Wisdom, 3, p. 60; Nice Wanton, 416; Impatient Poverty, 164, 726, 746, 861, 988; Respublica, V. i. 38; Longer Thou Livest, 628, 1234; Conflict of Conscience, III. i. 2; et ad infinitum. Characters in action are said to be in place. For the platea cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 80, 135, but Kinge Johan, 1377, has a direction for an alarm ‘extra locum’.

[74] Cf. e.g. Wit and Science, 193, ‘Wyt speketh at the doore’; Longer Thou Livest, 523, ‘Betweene whiles let Moros put in his head’, 583, ‘Crie without the doore’, &c., &c.

[75] Cf. ch. vii.

[76] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 216, and for the making of ‘room’ or ‘a hall’ for a mask, ch. v.

[77] Cf. M. L. Spencer, Corpus Christi Pageants in England, 184; Creizenach, ii. 101.

[78] Wallace, ii. 48, ‘The Blackfriars stage was elastic in depth as well as width, and could according to the demands of the given play be varied by curtains or traverses of any required number placed at any required distance between the balcony and the front of the stage’; Prölss, 89; Albright, 58; cf. p. 78.

[79] Volpone, v. 2801 (cf. p. 111); White Devil, V. iv. 70:

‘Flamineo. I will see them, They are behind the travers. Ile discover Their superstitious howling.

Cornelia, the Moore and 3 other Ladies discovered, winding Marcello’s coarse’;

Duchess of Malfi, IV. i. 54:

‘Here is discover’d, behind a travers, the artificiall figures of Antonio and his children, appearing as if they were dead.’

[80] Duke of Guise, v. 3 (quoted by Albright, 58), ‘The scene draws, behind it a Traverse’, and later, ‘The Traverse is drawn. The King rises from his Chair, comes forward’.

[81] The Revels Accounts for 1511 (Brewer, ii. 1497) include 10_d._ for a rope used for a ‘travas’ in the hall at Greenwich and stolen during a disguising. Puttenham (1589), i. 17, in an attempt to reconstruct the methods of classical tragedy, says that the ‘floore or place where the players vttered ... had in it sundrie little diuisions by curteins as trauerses to serue for seueral roomes where they might repaire vnto and change their garments and come in againe, as their speaches and parts were to be renewed’.

[82] There was a traverse in the nursery of Edward V in 1474; cf. H. O. *28, ‘Item, we will that our sayd sonne in his chamber and for all nighte lyverye to be sette, the traverse drawne anone upon eight of the clocke’.

[83] Rimbault, 150, 167. There is an elaborate description of ‘a fayer traverse of black taffata’ set up in the chapel at Whitehall for the funeral of James in 1625 and afterwards borrowed for the ceremony in Westminster Abbey.

[84] The chapel of Ahasuerus come in and sing (860). On the possibility that plays may have been acted in the chapel under Elizabeth, cf. ch. xii.

[85] G. G. Needle, I. iv. 34; II. iv. 20, ‘here, euen by this poste, Ich sat’; Jack Juggler, 908, ‘Joll his hed to a post’.

[86] The manuscript of Misogonus was written at Kettering. The prologue of Mary Magdalene is for travelling actors, who had given it at a university. Thersites contains local references (cf. Boas, 20) suggesting Oxford. Both this and The Disobedient Child are adaptations of dialogues of Ravisius Textor, but the adapters seem to be responsible for the staging.

[87] Cf. ch. xxii.

[88] II. ii. ‘Fowre women bravelie apparelled, sitting singing in Lamiaes windowe, with wrought Smockes, and Cawles, in their hands, as if they were a working’. Supposes, IV. iv, is a dialogue between Dalio the cook, at Erostrato’s window, and visitors outside. At the beginning, ‘Dalio commeth to the wyndowe, and there maketh them answere’; at the end, ‘Dalio draweth his hed in at the wyndowe, the Scenese commeth out’. The dialogue of sc. v proceeds at the door, and finally ‘Dalio pulleth the Scenese in at the dores’. In Two Ital. Gent. 435, ‘Victoria comes to the windowe, and throwes out a letter’. It must not be assumed on the analogy of later plays, and is in fact unlikely, that the windows of these early ‘houses’, or those of the ‘case’ at Ferrara in 1486, were upper floor windows.

[89] There is a reference to a falling curtain, not necessarily a stage one, in Alchemist, IV. ii. 6, ‘O, for a suite, To fall now, like a cortine: flap’. Such curtains were certainly used in masks; cf. ch. vi.

[90] Donne, Poems (ed. Grierson), i. 441; J. Hannah, Courtly Poets, 29. Graves, 20, quotes with this epigram Drummond, Cypress Grove, ‘Every one cometh there to act his part of this tragi-comedy, called life, which done, the courtaine is drawn, and he removing is said to dy’. But of course many stage deaths are followed by the drawing of curtains which are not front curtains.

[91] Inns of Court and University plays naturally run on analogous lines. For the ‘houses’ at Cambridge in 1564 and at Oxford in 1566, cf. ch. vii. The three Cambridge Latin comedies, Hymenaeus (1579), Victoria (c. 1580–3), Pedantius (c. 1581), follow the Italian tradition. For Victoria, which has the same plot as Two Ital. Gent., Fraunce directs, ‘Quatuor extruendae sunt domus, nimirum Fidelis, 1^a, Fortunij, 2^a, Cornelij, 3^a Octauiani, 4^a. Quin et sacellum quoddam erigendum est, in quo constituendum est Cardinalis cuiusdam Sepulchrum, ita efformatum, vt claudi aperirique possit. In Sacello autem Lampas ardens ponenda est’. The earliest extant tragedies, Grimald’s Christus Redivivus (c. 1540) and Archipropheta (c. 1547), antedate the pseudo-Senecan influence. Practical convenience, rather than dramatic theory, imposed upon the former a unity of action before the tomb. Grimald says, ‘Loca item, haud usque eò discriminari censebat; quin unum in proscenium, facilè & citra negocium conduci queant’. The latter was mainly before Herod’s palace, but seems to have showed also John’s prison at Macherus. There is an opening scene, as in Promos and Cassandra, of approach to the palace (Boas, 28, 35). Christopherson’s Jephthah, Watson’s (?) Absalon, and Gager’s Meleager (1582) observe classical unity. The latter has two houses, in one of which an altar may have been ‘discovered’. Boas, 170, quotes two s.ds., ‘Transeunt venatores e Regia ad fanum Dianae’ and ‘Accendit ligna in ara, in remotiore scenae parte extructa’. Gager’s later plays (Boas, 179) seem to be under the influence of theatrical staging. On Legge’s Richardus Tertius vide p. 43, infra.

[92] I do not suggest that the actual ‘templum’ in Serlio’s design, which is painted on the back-cloth, was practicable. The ruffiana’s house was. About the shop or tavern, half-way up the rake of the stage, I am not sure. There is an echo of the ruffiana, quite late, in London Prodigal (1605), V. i. 44, ‘Enter Ruffyn’.

[93] The early editions have few s.ds. Mr. Bond supplies many, which are based on a profound misunderstanding of Lyly’s methods of staging, to some of the features of which Reynolds in M. P. i. 581, ii. 69, and Lawrence, i. 237, have called attention.

[94] Possibly I. i might be an approach scene outside the city, as prisoners are sent (76) ‘into the citie’, but this may only mean to the interior of the city from the market-place.

[95] Action is continuous between II. i, at the cave, and II. ii, in which Sapho will ‘crosse the Ferrie’. Phao told Sibylla (II. i. 14) that he was out of his way and benighted, but this was a mere excuse for addressing her.

[96] The palace itself was not necessarily staged. If it was, it was used with the lunary bank, after visiting which Cynthia goes ‘in’ (IV. iii. 171). She comes ‘out’ and goes ‘in’ again (V. iii. 17, 285), but these terms may only refer to a stage-door. Nor do I think that the ‘solitarie cell’ spoken of by Endymion (II. i. 41) was staged.

[97] Yet Eumenides, who was sent to Thessaly in III. i, has only reached the fountain twenty years later (III. iii. 17), although he is believed at Court to be dead (IV. iii. 54). The time of the play cannot be reduced to consistency; cf. Bond, iii. 14.

[98] In IV. ii. 96 Protea, in a scene before the rock, says to Petulius, ‘Follow me at this doore, and out at the other’. During the transit she is metamorphosed, but the device is rather clumsy. The doors do not prove that a domus of Erisichthon was visible; they may be merely stage-doors.

[99] Possibly The Cobler’s Prophecy is also a Chapel or Paul’s play; it was given before an audience who ‘sit and see’, and to whom the presenters ‘cast comfets’ (39). The domus required for a background are (a) Ralph’s, (b) Mars’s court, (c) Venus’s court, (d) the Duke’s court, (e) the cabin of Contempt. From (a) to (b) is ‘not farre hence’ (138) and ‘a flight shoot vp the hill’ (578); between are a wood and a spot near Charon’s ferry. From (b) to (c) leads ‘Adowne the hill’ (776). At the end (e) is burnt, and foreshortening of space is suggested by the s.d. (1564), ‘Enter the Duke ... then compasse the stage, from one part let a smoke arise: at which place they all stay’. At the beginning (3) ‘on the stage Mercurie from one end Ceres from another meete’. Summer’s Last Will and Testament, which cannot be definitely assigned either to the Chapel or to Paul’s, continues the manner of the old interlude; it has a stage (1570), but the abstract action requires no setting beyond the tiled hall (205, 359, 932, 974) in which the performance was given. The Wars of Cyrus is a Chapel play, but must be classed, from the point of view of staging, with the plays given in public theatres (cf. p. 48).

[100] Act III has the s.d., ‘The storme. Enter Æneas and Dido in the Caue at seuerall times’ (996).... ‘Exeunt to the Caue’ (1059). They are supposed to remain in the cave during the interval between Acts III and IV, after which, ‘Anna. Behold where both of them come forth the Caue’ (1075).

[101] ‘Here the Curtaines draw, there is discouered Iupiter dandling Ganimed vpon his knee’ (1).... ‘Exeunt Iupiter cum Ganimed’ (120). But as Jupiter first says, ‘Come Ganimed, we must about this gear’, it may be that they walk off. If so, perhaps they are merely ‘discouered’ in the wood, and the curtains are front curtains.

[102] So too (897),

This day they both a hunting forth will ride Into these woods, adioyning to these walles.

[103] At the end of the banquet scene (598), ‘Exeunt omnes’ towards the interior of the palace, when ‘Enter Venus at another doore, and takes Ascanius by the sleeue’. She carries him to the grove, and here he presumably remains until the next Act (III), when ‘Enter Iuno to Ascanius asleepe’ (811). He is then removed again, perhaps to make room for the hunting party. I suppose the ‘another doore’ of 598 to mean a stage-door.

[104] Cf. ch. xxii.

[105] Direct evidence pointing to performance at Court is only available for two of the five, Cambyses and Orestes.

[106] Cambyses, 75, 303, 380, 968, 1041, 1055; Patient Grissell, 212, 338, 966, 1048, 1185, 1291, 1972, 1984, 2069; Orestes, 221, 1108; Clyomon and Clamydes, 1421, 1717, 1776, 1901, 1907, 1931, 1951, 2008, 2058, 2078; Common Conditions, 2, 110, 544, 838, 1397, 1570; &c. Of course, the technical meaning of ‘place’ shades into the ordinary one.

[107] A similar instruction clears the stage at the end (1197) of a corpse, as in many later plays; cf. p. 80.

[108] The s.d. ‘one of their wives come out’ (813) does not necessarily imply a clown’s domus. Cambyses fluctuates between the actor’s notion that personages come ‘out’ from the tiring-house, and the earlier notion of play-makers and audience that they go ‘out’ from the stage. Thus ‘Enter Venus leading out her son’ (843), but ‘goe out Venus and Cupid’ at the end of the same episode (880).

[109] ‘Come, let us run his arse against the poste’ (186); cf. pp. 27, 75.

[110] For later examples cf. p. 99.

[111] Lawrence (i. 41), Title and Locality Boards on the Pre-Restoration Stage.

[112] Lawrence, i. 55. No English example of an inscribed miracle-play domus has come to light.

[113] Gregory Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays, i. 185, 197 (cf. App. C, No. xxxiv). Sidney’s main argument is foreshadowed in Whetstone’s Epistle to Promos and Cassandra (1578; cf. App. C, No. xix), ‘The Englishman in this quallitie, is most vaine, indiscreete, and out of order; he fyrst groundes his worke on impossibilities: then in three howers ronnes he throwe the worlde: marryes, gets children, makes children men, men to conquer kingdomes, murder monsters, and bringeth Gods from Heaven, and fetcheth Divels from Hel’.

[114] Cf. p. 20.

[115] Gibson had used written titles to name his pageant buildings; cf. Brewer, ii. 1501; Halle, i. 40, 54. The Westminster accounts c. 1566 (cf. ch. xii) include an item for ‘drawing the tytle of the comedee’. The Revels officers paid ‘for the garnyshinge of xiiij titles’ in 1579–80, and for the ‘painting of ix. titles with copartmentes’ in 1580–1 (Feuillerat, Eliz. 328, 338). The latter number agrees with that of the plays and tilt challenges for the year; the former is above that of the nine plays recorded, and Lawrence thinks that the balance was for locality-titles. But titles were also sometimes used in the course of action. Thus Tide Tarrieth for No Man has the s.d. (1439), ‘Christianity must enter with a sword, with a title of pollicy, but on the other syde of the tytle, must be written gods word, also a shield, wheron must be written riches, but on the other syde of the shield must be Fayth’. Later on (1501) Faithful ‘turneth the titles’. Prologues, such as those of Damon and Pythias, Respublica, and Conflict of Conscience, which announce the names of the plays, tell rather against the use of title-boards for those plays. For the possible use of both title- and scene-boards at a later date, cf. pp. 126, 154.

[116] Cf. pp. 60, 63.

[117] In the Latin academic drama the transition between classical and romantic staging is represented by Legge’s Richardus Tertius (1580). This is Senecan in general character, but unity of place is not strictly observed. A s.d. to the first Actio (iii. 64) is explicit for the use of a curtain to discover a recessed interior, ’ A curtaine being drawne, let the queene appeare in y^e sanctuary, her 5 daughters and maydes about her, sittinge on packs, fardells, chests, cofers. The queene sitting on y^e ground with fardells about her’.

[118] Cf. p. 21.

[119] Cf. ch. vii.

[120] Feuillerat, Eliz. 365.

[121] Cf. ch. xi.

[122] There are four presenters, but, in order to avoid crowding the stage, they are reduced to two by the sending of the others to bed within the hut (128).

[123] Albright, 66; Reynolds, i. 11.

[124] Queen’s, Three Lords and Three Ladies of London, 1, 2 Troublesome Reign of King John, Selimus, Looking-Glass for London and England, Famous Victories of Henry V, James IV, King Leir, True Tragedy of Richard III; Sussex’s, George a Greene, Titus Andronicus; Pembroke’s, Edward II, Taming of a Shrew, 2, 3 Henry VI, Richard III; Strange’s or Admiral’s, 1, 2 Tamburlaine, Spanish Tragedy, Orlando Furioso, Fair Em, Battle of Alcazar, Knack to Know a Knave, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 1 Henry VI, Comedy of Errors, Jew of Malta, Wounds of Civil War, Dr. Faustus, Four Prentices of London; Admiral’s, Knack to Know an Honest Man, Blind Beggar of Alexandria, Humorous Day’s Mirth, Two Angry Women of Abingdon, Look About You, Shoemaker’s Holiday, Old Fortunatus, Patient Grissell, 1 Sir John Oldcastle, Captain Thomas Stukeley, 1, 2 Robert Earl of Huntingdon, Englishmen for my Money; Chamberlain’s, Edward III, 1 Richard II, Sir Thomas More, Taming of the Shrew, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard II, King John, Merchant of Venice, 1, 2 Henry IV, Every Man in his Humour, Warning for Fair Women, A Larum for London, Thomas Lord Cromwell (the last two possibly Globe plays); Derby’s, 1, 2 Edward IV, Trial of Chivalry; Oxford’s, Weakest Goeth to the Wall; Chapel, Wars of Cyrus; Unknown, Arden of Feversham, Soliman and Perseda, Edward I, Jack Straw, Locrine, Mucedorus, Alphonsus, 1, 2 Contention of York and Lancaster.

[125] Quarterly Review, ccviii. 446.

[126] I here use ‘scene’ in the sense of a continuous section of action in an unchanged locality, and do not follow either the usage of the playwrights, which tends to be based upon the neo-classical principle that the entrance or exit of a speaker of importance constitutes a fresh scene, or the divisions of the editors, who often assume a change of locality where none has taken place; cf. ch. xxii. I do not regard a scene as broken by a momentary clearance of the stage, or by the opening of a recess in the background while speakers remain on the stage, or by the transference of action from one point to another of the background if this transference merely represents a journey over a foreshortened distance between neighbouring houses.

[127] Albright, 114; Thorndike, 102.

[128] Downfall of R. Hood, V. i.

[129] Alphonsus, 163; K. to K. Honest Man, 71. The friar’s cell of T. G. V. i may be in an urban setting, as Silvia bids Eglamour go ‘out at the postern by the abbey wall’; that of R. J. II. iii, vi; III. iii; IV. i; V. 2 seems to be in rural environs. How far there is interior action is not clear. None is suggested by II. or V. In III. iii (Q_{2}) the Friar bids Romeo ‘come forth’ (1), and Romeo falls ‘upon the ground’ (69). Then ‘Enter Nurse and knocke’ (71). After discussing the knock, which is twice repeated, the Friar bids Romeo ‘Run to my study’ and calls ‘I come’. Then ‘Enter Nurse’ (79) with ‘Let me come in’. Romeo has not gone, but is still ‘There on the ground’ (83). Q_{1} is in the main consistent with this, but the first s.d. is merely ‘Nurse knockes’, and after talking to Romeo, ‘Nurse offers to goe in and turnes againe’ (163). In IV. i (Q_{1}, and Q_{2}) the Friar observes Juliet coming ‘towards my Cell’ (17), and later Juliet says ‘Shut the door’ (44); cf. p. 83.

[130] Downfall of R. Hood, III. ii, ‘Curtaines open, Robin Hoode sleepes on a greene banke and Marian strewing flowers on him’ ... ‘yonder is the bower’; Death of R. Hood, I. v; cf. I. iv, ‘Let us to thy bower’.

[131] B. B. of Alexandria, scc. i, iv; Battle of Alcazar, ii. 325, where the presenter describes Nemesis as awaking the Furies, ‘In caue as dark as hell, and beds of steele’, and the corresponding s.d. in the plot (H. P. 139) is ‘Enter aboue Nemesis ... to them lying behinde the Curtaines 3 Furies’.

[132] K. Leir, scc. xxvii-xxxii.

[133] K. Leir, sc. xxiv, ‘Enter the Gallian King and Queene, and Mumford, with a basket, disguised like Countrey folke’. Leir meets them, complaining of ‘this vnfruitfull soyle’, and (2178) ‘She bringeth him to the table’; B. B. of Alexandria, sc. iii.

[134] B. B. of Alexandria, sc. iii.

[135] Locrine, III. i (d.s.), ‘A Crocadile sitting on a riuers banke, and a little snake stinging it. Then let both of them fall into the water’; IV. v. 1756 (a desert scene), ‘Fling himselfe into the riuer’; V. vi. 2248 (a battle-field scene), ‘She drowneth her selfe’; Weakest Goeth to the Wall, I. i (d.s.), ‘The Dutches of Burgundie ... leaps into a Riuer, leauing the child vpon the banke’; Trial of Chivalry, C_{4}^v, ‘yon fayre Riuer side, which parts our Camps’; E_{2}, ‘This is our meeting place; here runs the streame That parts our camps’; cf. p. 90. A. of Feversham, IV. ii and iii are, like part of Sapho and Phao (cf. p. 33), near a ferry, and ‘Shakebag falles into a ditch’, but the river is not necessarily shown.

[136] Two late testimonies may be held to support the theory. In T. N. K. (King’s, c. 1613), III. i. 31, ‘Enter Palamon as out of a Bush’, but cf. III. vi. 1, ‘Enter Palamon from the Bush’. The Prologue to Woman Killed with Kindness (Worcester’s, 1603) says:

I come but like a harbinger, being sent To tell you what these preparations mean: Look for no glorious state; our Muse is bent Upon a barren subject, a bare scene. We could afford this twig a timber tree. Whose strength might boldly on your favours build; Our russet, tissue; drone, a honey bee; Our barren plot, a large and spacious field.

These rhetorical antitheses are an apology for meanness of theme, rather than, like the prologues to Henry V, for scenic imperfections, and I hesitate to believe that, when the actor said ‘twig’, he pointed to a branch which served as sole symbol on the stage for a woodland.

[137] Looking-Glass, V. iii. 2059, 2075, ‘Lo, a pleasant shade, a spreading vine ... A Serpent deuoureth the vine’; O. Furioso, 572, ‘Sacrepant hangs vp the Roundelayes on the trees’ (cf. A. Y. L. III. ii. 1, ‘Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love’); B. B. of Alexandria, sc. vi, ‘Here’s a branch, forsooth, of your little son turned to a mandrake tree’; Old Fortunatus, 1–357, where Fortunatus dreams under a tree, 1861–2128, where there are apple-and nut-trees in a wilderness; &c., &c. Simon Forman in 1611 saw Macbeth and Banquo ‘ridinge thorowe a wod’ (N. S. S. Trans. 1875–6, 417), although from the extant text we could have inferred no trees in I. iii.

[138] M. N. D. II-IV. i; Mucedorus, I.; II. iii; III. iii-v; IV. ii, iii; V. i; T. A. Women of Abingdon, scc. vii, ix-xii.

[139] Edw. I, 2391, ‘I must hang vp my weapon vppon this tree’; Alphonsus, II. i. 417, ‘this wood; where in ambushment lie’. For a river cf. p. 51, n. 8 (Locrine).

[140] Hen. V, IV, prol. 49.

[141] 1 Tamb. 705, ‘Sound trumpets to the battell, and he runs in’; 1286, ‘They sound the battell within, and stay’; 2 Tamb. 2922, ‘Sound to the battell, and Sigismond comes out wounded’; 1 Contention, sc. xii. 1, ‘Alarmes within, and the Chambers be discharged, like as it were a fight at sea’.

[142] Alphonsus, II. i, ii; 1 Hen. IV, V. i-iv. The whole of Edw. III, III, IV, V, is spread over Creçy and other vaguely located battle-fields in France.

[143] 1 Contention, sc. xxii. 1, ‘Alarmes to the battaile, and then enter the Duke of Somerset and Richard fighting, and Richard kils him vnder the signe of the Castle in saint Albones’. The s.d. of 2 Hen. VI, V. ii. 66, is only ‘Enter Richard, and Somerset to fight’, but the dialogue shows that the ‘alehouse paltry sign’ was represented.

[144] 1 Contention, sc. xxii, 62 (with the alehouse), ‘Alarmes againe, and then enter three or foure, bearing the Duke of Buckingham wounded to his Tent’; 2 Tamb. IV. i. 3674, ‘Amyras and Celebinus issues from the tent where Caliphas sits a sleepe’ ... 3764 (after Caliphas has spoken from within the tent), ‘He goes in and brings him out’; Locrine, 1423, ‘mee thinkes I heare some shriking noise. That draweth near to our pauillion’; James IV, 2272, ‘Lords, troop about my tent’; Edw. I, 1595, ‘King Edward ... goes into the Queenes Chamber, the Queenes Tent opens, shee is discouered in her bed’ ... 1674, ‘They close the Tent’ ... 1750, ‘The Queenes Tent opens’ ... 1867, ‘The Nurse closeth the Tent’ ... 1898, ‘Enter ... to giue the Queene Musicke at her Tent’, and in a later scene, 2141, ‘They all passe ... to the Kings pavilion, the King sits in his Tent with his pages about him’ ... 2152, ‘they all march to the Chamber. Bishop speakes to her [the Queen] in her bed’; 1 Troilus and Cressida, plot (Henslowe Papers, 142), ‘Enter ... to them Achillis in his Tent’; Trial of Chivalry, C_{4}^v, ‘this is the Pauilion of the Princesse .... Here is the key that opens to the Tent’ ... D, ‘Discouer her sitting in a chayre asleepe’ and a dialogue in the tent follows. The presence of a tent, not mentioned in dialogue or s.ds., can often be inferred in camp scenes, in which personages sit, or in those which end with a ‘Come, let us in’; e.g. Locrine, 564, 1147.

[145] Richard III, V. iii, iv, v (a continuous scene); 1 Hen. IV, V. i, ii, iii, iv (probably similar); cf. p. 51, n. 8 (Trial of Chivalry).

[146] Edw. I, 900, 1082, 2303 (after a battle), ‘Then make the proclamation vpon the walles’ (s.d.); James IV, 2003 (after parley), ‘They descend downe, open the gates, and humble them’; Soliman and Perseda, III. iv; V. iv. 16, ‘The Drum sounds a parle. Perseda comes vpon the walls in mans apparell. Basilisco and Piston, vpon the walles.... Then Perseda comes down to Soliman, and Basilisco and Piston’; 2 Contention, sc. xviii, ‘Enter the Lord Maire of Yorke vpon the wals’ ... (after parley) ‘Exit Maire’ ... ‘The Maire opens the dore, and brings the keies in his hand’; K. John, II. i. 201, ‘Enter a Citizen vpon the walles’ ... ‘Heere after excursions, Enter the Herald of France with Trumpets to the gates’ ... ‘Enter the two kings with their powers at seuerall doores’ ... (after parley) ‘Now, citizens of Angiers, ope your gates’; cf. 1 Troublesome Raigne, scc. ii-x; 2 Contention, sc. xxi; George a Greene, sc. v; Orlando Furioso, I. ii; 2 Tamburlaine, III. iii; Selimus, scc. xii, xxvii-xxxi; Wounds of Civil War, V. ii-iv; Edw. III, I. ii; Death of R. Hood, V. ii; Stukeley, II; Frederick and Basilea and 1 Troilus and Cressida plots (Henslowe Papers, 137, 142), &c. Wall scenes are not always siege scenes. Thus in 2 Troub. Raigne, sc. i, ‘Enter yong Arthur on the walls.... He leapes’ (cf. K. J. IV. iii); in 1 Contention, sc. xvi, ‘Enter the Lord Skayles vpon the Tower walles walking. Enter three or four Citizens below’ (cf. 2 Hen. VI, IV. v). Analogous is 2 Hen. VI, IV. ix (Kenilworth), ‘Enter King, Queene, and Somerset on the Tarras.... Enter Multitudes with Halters about their neckes’.

[147] In Alarum for London, 203, a gun is fired at Antwerp from the walls of the castle; cf. 1 Hen. VI below.

[148] 2 Tamburlaine, V. i, ‘Enter the Gouernour of Babylon vpon the walles’ ... (after parley) ‘Alarme, and they scale the walles’, after which the governor is hung in chains from the walls and shot at; Selimus, 1200, ‘Alarum, Scale the walles’, 2391, ‘Allarum, beats them off the walles; cf. 1 Hen. VI below. Hen. V, III. i-iii (a continuous scene) opens with ‘Alarum: Scaling Ladders at Harflew’. Henry says ‘Once more vnto the breach’, but later a parley is sounded from the town, and ‘Enter the King and all his Traine before the Gates’, where submission is made, and they ‘enter the Towne’. Sometimes an assault appears to be on the gates rather than the walls; e.g. 1 Edw. IV, I. iv-vi; 1 Hen. VI, I. iii.

[149] Cf. p. 106, n. 6. The fullest use of walls is made in 1 Hen. VI, a sixteenth-century play, although the extant text was first printed in 1623. An analysis is necessary. The walls are those of Orleans in I, II, of Rouen in III, of Bordeaux in IV, of Angiers in V. In I. iv, ‘Enter the Master Gunner of Orleance, and his Boy’. They tell how

the English, in the suburbs close entrencht, Wont through a secret grate of iron barres, In yonder tower, to ouer-peere the citie.

The Gunner bids the Boy watch, and tell him if he sees any English. Then ‘Enter Salisbury and Talbot on the turrets, with others’, and later ‘Enter the Boy with a Linstock’. The English talk of attacking ‘heere, at the bulwarke of the bridge’, and ‘Here they shot, and Salisbury falls downe’. After an Exeunt which clears the stage, there is fighting in the open, during which a French relieving party ‘enter the Towne with souldiers’, and later ‘Enter on the Walls, Puzel, Dolphin, Reigneir, Alanson, and Souldiers’. In II. i, which follows, a French watch is set, lest English come ‘neere to the walles’. Then ‘Enter Talbot, Bedford, and Burgundy, with scaling Ladders’; Bedford will go ‘to yond corner’, Burgundy ‘to this’, and Talbot mount ‘heere’. They assault, and ‘The French leape ore the walles in their shirts. Enter seuerall wayes, Bastard, Alanson, Reignier, halfe ready, and halfe unready’. They discourse and are pursued by the English, who then ‘retreat’, and in turn discourse ‘here ... in the market-place’, rejoicing at how the French did ‘Leape o’re the Walls for refuge in the field’. Then, after a clearance, comes a scene at the Countess of Auvergne’s castle. In III. ii the Pucell enters before the gates of Rouen, obtains access by a trick, and then ‘Enter Pucell on the top, thrusting out a torch burning’. Other French watch without for the signal from ‘yonder tower’ or ‘turret’, and then follow into the town and expel the English, after which, ‘Enter Talbot and Burgonie without: within, Pucell, Charles, Bastard, and Reigneir on the walls’. After parley, ‘Exeunt from the walls’, and fighting in front leaves the English victorious, and again able to enter the town. In IV. ii ‘Enter Talbot ... before Burdeaux’, summons the French general ‘vnto the Wall’, and ‘Enter Generall aloft’. In V. iii the English are victorious before Angiers, sound for a parley before the castle, and ‘Enter Reignier on the walles’. After parley, Reignier says ‘I descend’, and then ‘Enter Reignier’ to welcome the English.

[150] In Looking-Glass, II. i, ‘Enters Remilia’ and after discourse bids her ladies ‘Shut close these curtaines straight and shadow me’; whereupon ‘They draw the Curtaines and Musicke plaies’. Then enter the Magi, and ‘The Magi with their rods beate the ground, and from vnder the same riseth a braue Arbour’. Rasni enters and will ‘drawe neare Remilias royall tent’. Then ‘He drawes the Curtaines, and findes her stroken with thunder, blacke.’ She is borne out. Presumably the same arbour is used in IV. iii, where Alvida’s ladies ‘enter the bowers’. Both scenes are apparently near the palace at Nineveh and not in a camp. The earlier action of L. L. L. is in a park, near a manor house, which is not necessarily represented. But at IV. iii. 373 the King wishes to devise entertainment ‘in their tents’ for the ‘girls of France’, and Biron says, ‘First, from the park let us conduct them thither’. Presumably therefore V. ii passes near the tents.

[151] Looking-Glass, II. i; IV. iii (supra); Edw. III, II. i. 61, at Roxborough Castle, ‘Then in the sommer arber sit by me’; 2 Hen. IV, V. iii (infra). In Sp. Trag. II. ii. 42, Horatio and Belimperia agree to meet in ‘thy father’s pleasant bower’. In II. iv they enter with ‘let us to the bower’ and set an attendant to ‘watch without the gate’. While they sit ‘within these leauy bowers’ they are betrayed, and (s.d.) ‘They hang him in the Arbor’. In II. v (not really a new scene) Hieronimo emerges from his house, where a woman’s cry ‘within this garden’ has plucked him from his ‘naked bed’, finds Horatio hanging ‘in my bower’, and (s.d.) ‘He cuts him downe’. In III. xii (an addition of the 1602 text) Hieronimo ranges ‘this hidious orchard’, where Horatio was murdered before ‘this the very tree’. Finally, in IV. ii Isabella enters ‘this garden plot’, and (s.d.) ‘She cuts downe the Arbour’.

[152] Sp. Trag. III. xii^a (supra); Shoemaker’s Holiday, sc. ii, ‘this flowry banke’, sc. iv, ‘these meddowes’; 1 Hen. VI, II. iv, ‘From off this brier pluck a white rose with me’, &c. In R. J. II. i (Q_{1}, but Q_{2} has apparently the same setting) Romeo enters, followed by friends, who say, ‘He came this way, and leapt this orchard wall’, and refer to ‘those trees’. They go, and in II. ii (presumably the same scene) Romeo speaks under Juliet’s window ‘ouer my head’. She says ‘The Orchard walles are high and hard to climb’, and he, ‘By loues light winges did I oreperch these wals’, and later swears by the blessed moon, ‘That tips with siluer all these fruit trees tops’.

[153] R. J. II. ii (supra); Sp. Trag. II. v (supra); Look About You, sc. v (a bowling green under Gloucester’s chamber in the Fleet); 1 Oldcastle, I. iii, II. i (a grove before Cobham’s gate and an inn); &c. In 1 Contention, sc. ii. 64, Elinor sends for a conjurer to do a spell ‘on the backside of my orchard heere’. In sc. iv she enters with the conjurer, says ‘I will stand upon this Tower here’, and (s.d.) ‘She goes vp to the Tower’. Then the conjurer will ‘frame a cirkle here vpon the earth’. A spirit ascends; spies enter; and ‘Exet Elnor aboue’. York calls ‘Who’s within there?’ The setting of 2 Hen. VI, I. ii, is much the same, except that the references to the tower are replaced by the s.d. ‘Enter Elianor aloft’. In 2 Hen. VI, II. ii, the scene is ‘this close walke’ at the Duke of York’s. Similarly, scc. i, iv of Humourous Day’s Mirth are before Labervele’s house in a ‘green’, which is his wife’s ‘close walk’, which is kept locked, and into which a visitor intrudes. But in sc. vii, also before Labervele’s, the ‘close walk’ is referred to as distinct from the place of the scene.

[154] 2 Troublesome Raigne, sc. viii, ‘Enter two Friars laying a Cloth’. One says, ‘I meruaile why they dine heere in the Orchard’. We need not marvel; it was to avoid interior action. In 2 Hen. IV, V. iii, the scene is Shallow’s orchard, ‘where, in an arbour, we will eat a last year’s pippin of mine own graffing, with a dish of caraways, and so forth’.

[155] Famous Victories, sc. ii, 5, ‘we will watch here at Billingsgate ward’; Jack Straw, iii (Smithfield); W. for Fair Women, II. 115, ‘here at a friends of mine in Lumberd Street’; IV. 1511, ‘Enter two Carpenters vnder Newgate’; Shoemaker’s Holiday, sc. xi (Tower Street, vide infra); Cromwell, V. ii, iii (Westminster and Lambeth, vide infra); Arden of F. II. ii (Paul’s Churchyard, vide infra); 2 Hen. VI, IV. vi, ‘Enter Iacke Cade and the rest, and strikes his staffe on London stone’; &c.

[156] Span. Tragedy, III. vi. 104, ‘He turnes him off’ (s.d.); Sir T. More, sc. xvii. More is brought in by the Lieutenant of the Tower and delivered to the sheriff. He says (1911), ‘Oh, is this the place? I promise ye it is a goodly scaffolde’, and ‘your stayre is somewhat weake’. Lords enter ‘As he is going vp the stayres’ (s.d.), and he jests with ‘this straunge woodden horsse’ and ‘Truely heers a moste sweet Gallerie’ (where the marginal s.d. is ‘walking’). Apparently the block is not visible; he is told it is ‘to the Easte side’ and ‘exit’ in that direction.

[157] Rich. II, I. iii, ‘The trumpets sound and the King enters with his nobles; when they are set, enter the Duke of Norfolke in armes defendent’. No one is ‘to touch the listes’ (43), and when the duel is stopped the combatants’ returne backe to their chaires againe’ (120).

[158] S. and P. I. iii. There is an open place in Rhodes which a mule and ass can enter. Knights and ladies are welcomed and go ‘forwards to the tilt’ with an ‘Exeunt’ (126). Action continues in the same place. Piston bids Basilisco ‘stay with me and looke vpon the tilters’, and ‘Will you vp the ladder, sir, and see the tilting?’ The s.d. follows (180), ‘Then they go vp the ladders and they sound within to the first course’. Piston and Basilisco then describe the courses as these proceed, evidently out of sight of the audience. The tiltyard may be supposed to run like that at Westminster, parallel to the public road and divided from it by a wall, up which ladders can be placed for the commoner spectators. In V. ii Erastus is arrested in public and tried on the spot before the Marshal. He is bound to ‘that post’ (83) and strangled. The witnesses are to be killed. Soliman says (118),

Lord Marshall, hale them to the towers top. And throw them headlong downe into the valley;

and we get the s.ds. ‘Then the Marshall beares them to the tower top’ (122), and ‘Then they are both tumbled downe’ (130). Presumably they disappear behind.

[159] James IV, I. ii. 1, ‘Enter Slipper, Nano, and Andrew, with their billes, readie written, in their hands’. They dispute as to whose bill shall stand highest, and then post the bills.

[160] Lord Cromwell, III. i. 41 (in Italy):

Content thee, man; here set vp these two billes, And let us keep our standing on the bridge,

followed by s.ds., ‘One standes at one end, and one at tother’, and ‘Enter Friskiball, the Marchant, and reades the billes’. In V. ii. 1 (Westminster) Cromwell says, ‘Is the Barge readie?’ and (12) ‘Set on before there, and away to Lambeth’. After an ‘Exeunt’, V. iii begins ‘Halberts, stand close vnto the water-side’, and (16) ‘Enter Cromwell’.

[161] Cf. ch. xix, p. 44. Wounds of Civil War has several such scenes. In I. i. 1, ‘Enter on the Capitoll Sulpitius Tribune ... whom placed, and their Lictors before them with their Rods and Axes, Sulpitius beginneth’ ... (146) ‘Here enter Scilla with Captaines and Souldiers’. Scilla’s party are not in the Capitol; they ‘braue the Capitoll’ (149), are ‘before the Capitoll’ (218), but Scilla talks to the senators, and Marius trusts to see Scilla’s head ‘on highest top of all this Capitoll’. Presently Scilla bids (249) ‘all that loue Scilla come downe to him’, and (258) ‘Here let them goe downe’. In II. i the action is in the open, but (417) ‘yond Capitoll’ is named; III. i seems to be in ‘this Capitoll’ (841). In IV. i Marius and his troops enter before the seated Senate. Octavius, the consul, ‘sits commanding in his throne’ (1390). From Marius’ company, ‘Cynna presseth vp’ (s.d.) to ‘yonder emptie seate’ (1408), and presently Marius is called up and (1484) ‘He takes his seate’. In V. v. 2231 ‘Scilla seated in his roabes of state is saluted by the Citizens’. Similarly in T. A. I. i, ‘Enter the Tribunes and Senatours aloft: and then enter Saturninus and his followers at one doore, and Bassianus and his followers’. Saturninus bids the tribunes ‘open the gates and let me in’ (63) and ‘They goe vp into the Senate house’. Titus enters and buries his sons in his family tomb, and (299) ‘Enter aloft the Emperour’ and speaks to Titus. There is a Venetian senate house in K. to K. an Honest Man, scc. iii, xvii, but I do not find a similar interplay with the outside citizens here.

[162] W. for Fair Women, II. 93 (Lombard Street), ‘While Master Sanders and he are in busy talk one to the other, Browne steps to a corner.... Enter a Gentleman with a man with a torch before. Browne draws to strike’; Arden of F. II. ii. 41, ‘Stand close, and take you fittest standing, And at his comming foorth speed him’.

[163] T. G. IV. ii (cf. IV. iii. 16, ‘Now must we to her window’, and III. i. 35, 114, where Valentine has a rope-ladder to scale Silvia’s window ‘in an upper tower’ and ‘aloft, far from the ground’); IV. iv. 91, ‘That’s her chamber’; R. J. (orchard scenes), II. ii; III. v, ‘Enter Romeo and Juliet at the window’ (Q_{1} where Q_{2} has ‘aloft’; on the difficulty presented by Juliet’s chamber, cf. p. 94); M. V. II. vi. 1, ‘This is the penthouse vnder which Lorenzo Desired us to make a stand’ ... ‘Jessica aboue’ (s.d.) ... ‘Descend, for you must be my torch-bearer’ ... ‘Enter Jessica’ (having come down within from the casement forbidden her by Shylock and advised by Lancelot in II. v); Englishmen for my Money, sc. ix (where Vandalle, come to woo Pisaro’s daughter in the dark, is drawn up in a basket and left dangling in mid-air, while later (1999) Pisaro is heard ‘at the window’ and ‘Enter Pisaro aboue’); Two A. Women, 1495, ‘Enter Mall in the window’; Sp. Trag. II. ii, where spies ‘in secret’ and ‘aboue’ overhear the loves of Horatio and Belimperia below. Lovers are not concerned in Sp. Trag. III. ii, ‘Enter Hieronimo ... A Letter falleth’; III. ix, ‘Belimperia, at a window’; The Shrew, V. i. 17, ‘Pedant lookes out of the window’.

[164] In T. A. I. i a coffin is brought in, apparently in the market-place, while the Senators are visible in the Capitol (cf. p. 58, n. 2), and (90) ‘They open the Tombe’ and (150) ‘Sound trumpets, and lay the coffin in the Tombe’. R. J. V. iii is in a churchyard with ‘yond yew trees’ (3). A torch ‘burneth in the Capels monument’ (127), also called a ‘vault’ (86, &c.) and ‘the tomb’ (262). Romeo will ‘descend into this bed of death’ (28), and Q_{1} adds the s.d. ‘Romeo opens the tombe’ (45). He kills Paris, whose blood ‘stains The stony entrance of this sepulchre’ (141). Juliet awakes and speaks, and must of course be visible. The Admiral’s inventories of 1598 (Henslowe Papers, 116) include ‘j tombe’, ‘j tome of Guido, j tome of Dido’.

[165] George a Greene, sc. xi, ‘Enter a Shoemaker sitting vpon the Stage at worke’, where a shop is not essential; but may be implied by ‘Stay till I lay in my tooles’ (1005); Locrine, II. ii, ‘Enter Strumbo, Dorothy, Trompart cobling shooes and singing’ (569) ... ‘Come sirrha shut vp’ (660); R. and J. V. i. 55, ‘This should be the house. Being holiday, the beggar’s shop is shut. What, ho! apothecary!’ where the elaborate description of the shop which precedes leaves some doubt how far it was represented; Shoemaker’s Holiday, scc. iii, ‘Open my shop windows’; v, ‘Ile goe in’; viii, ‘Shut vp the shop’; xi, ‘Enter Hodge at his shop-board, Rafe, Friske, Hans, and a boy at worke’ (all before or in Eyre’s shop); x, ‘Enter Iane in a Semsters shop working, and Hammon muffled at another doore, he stands aloofe’ (another shop); 1 Edw. IV, IV. iii, ‘Enter two prentizes, preparing the Goldsmiths shop with plate.... Enter mistris Shoare, with her worke in her hand.... The boy departs, and she sits sowing in her shop. Enter the King disguised’.

[166] Arden of F. II. ii. 52,

‘Here enters a prentise.

Tis very late; I were best shute vp my stall, For heere will be ould filching, when the presse Comes foorth of Paules.

Then lettes he downe his window, and it breaks Black Wils head’.

[167] Shoemaker’s Holiday, sc. xi, ‘the signe of the Last in Tower-street, mas yonders the house’; 1 Edw. IV, IV. iii, ‘Heres Lombard Streete, and heres the Pelican’. The Admiral’s inventories of 1598 (Henslowe Papers, 117) include ‘j syne for Mother Redcap’.

[168] Cf. ch. xix, p. 11. The introduction of a meal goes rather beyond the neo-classic analogy, but presents no great difficulty. If a banquet can be brought into a garden or orchard, it can be brought into a porch or courtyard. It is not always possible to determine whether a meal is in a threshold scene or a hall scene (cf. p. 64), but in 1 Edw. IV, III. ii, ‘Enter Nell and Dudgeon, with a table couered’ is pretty clearly at the door of the Tanner’s cottage.

[169] In the theatre usage personages go ‘in’, even where they merely go ‘off’ without entering a house (cf. e.g. p. 53, n. 2). The interlude usage is less regular, and sometimes personages go ‘out’, as they would appear to the audience to do.

[170] Soliman and Perseda, II. i. 227, ‘Sound vp the Drum to Lucinaes doore’ (s.d.). Doors are conspicuous in K. to K. Honest Man; thus sc. ii. 82, ‘Enter Lelio with his sword drawen, hee knockes at his doore’; sc. v. 395, ’tis time to knocke vp Lelios householde traine. He knockes’ ... ‘What mean this troup of armed men about my dore?’; sc. v. 519 (Bristeo’s), ‘Come breake vp the doore’; sc. vii. 662, ‘Enter Annetta and Lucida with their worke in their handes.... Here let vs sit awhile’ ... (738) ‘Get you in ... Here put them in at doore’; sc. vii. 894 (Lelio’s), ‘Underneath this wall, watch all this night: If any man shall attempt to breake your sisters doore, Be stout, assaile him’; sc. vii. 828 (a Senator’s), ‘What make you lingering here about my doores?’; sc. ix. 1034 (Lelio’s), ‘Heaue me the doores from of the hinges straight’; sc. xv. 1385 (Lelio’s), ‘my door doth ope’ (cf. p. 62, on the courtyard scene in the same play).

[171] Thus Humorous Day’s Mirth, sc. v (Moren’s), 111, ‘We’ll draw thee out of the house by the heels’ ... 143, ‘Thrust this ass out of the doors’ ... 188, ‘Get you out of my house!’, but 190, ‘Well, come in, sweet bird’; Shoemaker’s Holiday, sc. xii (Lord Mayor’s), ‘Get you in’, but ‘The Earl of Lincoln at the gate is newly lighted’.

[172] James IV, II. i, ‘Enter the Countesse of Arrain, with Ida, her daughter, in theyr porch, sitting at worke’ ... (753) ‘Come, will it please you enter, gentle sir? Offer to Exeunt’; cf. Arden of F. (vide infra) and the penthouse in M. V. II. vi. 1 (p. 58).

[173] Perhaps the best example is in Arden of Feversham. Arden’s house at Aldersgate is described by Michael to the murderers in II. ii. 189:

The dores Ile leaue unlockt against you come, No sooner shall ye enter through the latch, Ouer the thresholde to the inner court, But on your left hand shall you see the staires That leads directly to my M. Chamber.

Here, then, is III. i. Arden and Francklin talk and go to bed. Michael, in remorse, alarms them with an outcry, and when they appear, explains that he ‘fell asleepe, Vpon the thresholde leaning to the staires’ and had a bad dream. Arden then finds that ‘the dores were all unlockt’. Later (III. iv. 8) Michael lies about this to the murderers:

Francklin and my master Were very late conferring in the porch, And Francklin left his napkin where he sat With certain gold knit in it, as he said. Being in bed, he did bethinke himselfe, And comming down he found the dores vnshut: He lockt the gates, and brought away the keyes.

When the murderers come in III. ii, Will bids Shakebag ‘show me to this house’, and Shakebag says ‘This is the doore; but soft, me thinks tis shut’. They are therefore at the outer door of the courtyard; cf. p. 69, n. 2. Similarly 1 Rich. II, III. ii, which begins with ‘Enter Woodstock, Lancaster, and Yorke, at Plashey’, and ‘heere at Plasshy house I’le bid you wellcome’, is clearly in a courtyard. A servant says (114), ‘Ther’s a horseman at the gate.... He will not off an’s horse-backe till the inner gate be open’. Gloucester bids ‘open the inner gate ... lett hime in’, and (s.d.) ‘Enter a spruce Courtier a horse-backe’. It is also before the house, for the Courtier says, ‘Is he within’, and ‘I’le in and speake with the duke’. Rather more difficult is Englishmen for my Money, sc. iv, ‘Enter Pisaro’ with others, and says, ‘Proud am I that my roofe containes such friends’ (748), also ‘I would not haue you fall out in my house’ (895). He sends his daughters ‘in’ (827, 851), so must be in the porch, and a ‘knock within’ (s.d.) and ‘Stirre and see who knocks!’ (796) suggest a courtyard gate. But later in the play (cf. p. 58, n. 4) the street seems to be directly before the same house.

[174] In K. to K. Honest Man, scc. x-xii (continuous scene at Servio’s), Phillida is called ‘forth’ (1058) and bidden keep certain prisoners ‘in the vpper loft’. Presently she enters ‘with the keyes’ and after the s.d. ‘Here open the doore’ calls them out and gives them a signet to pass ‘the Porter of the gates’, which Servio (1143) calls ‘my castell gates’. In 1 Hen. VI, II. iii, the Countess of Auvergne, to entrap Talbot, bids her porter ‘bring the keyes to me’; presumably Talbot’s men are supposed to break in the gates at the s.d. ‘a Peale of Ordnance’. Rich. III, III. vii, is at Baynard’s Castle. Buckingham bids Gloucester (55) ‘get you vp to the leads’ to receive the Mayor, who enters with citizens, and (95) ‘Enter Richard with two bishops a lofte’. Similarly in Rich. II, III. iii. 62, ‘Richard appeareth on the walls’ of Flint Castle, and then comes down (178) to the ‘base court’. B. Beggar of Alexandria, sc. ii, is before the house of Elimine’s father and ‘Enter Elimine above on the walls’. She is in a ‘tower’ and comes down, but there is nothing to suggest a courtyard.

[175] 1 Sir John Oldcastle, IV. iv, v (a continuous scene), is partly ‘neare vnto the entrance of the Tower’, beyond the porter’s lodge, partly in Oldcastle’s chamber there, with a ‘window that goes out into the leads’; cf. p. 67.

[176] Famous Victories, sc. vi, 60, ‘What a rapping keep you at the Kings Court gate!’; Jack Straw, II. ii (a City gate).

[177] A Shrew, ind. 1, ‘Enter a Tapster, beating out of his doores Slie Droonken’; 1 Oldcastle, V. iii-vii (inn and barn); True Tragedy of Rich. III, sc. viii, ‘Earle Riuers speakes out of his chamber’ in an inn-yard, where he has been locked up; James IV, III. ii (stable); Looking Glass, V. ii. 2037, ‘Enter the temple Omnes’. Selimus, sc. xxi. 2019, has

Thy bodie in this auntient monument, Where our great predecessours sleep in rest: Suppose the Temple of Mahomet, Thy wofull son Selimus thus doth place.

Is the third line really a s.d., in which case it does not suggest realistic staging, or a misunderstood line of the speech, really meant to run, ‘Supposed the Temple of great Mahomet’?

[178] Patient Grissell, 755–1652, reads like a threshold scene, and ‘Get you in!’ is repeated (848, 1065, 1481), but Grissell’s russet gown and pitcher are hung up and several times referred to (817, 828, 1018, 1582). Old Fortunatus, 733–855, at the palace of Babylon, must be a threshold scene as the Soldan points to ‘yon towre’ (769), but this is not inconsistent with the revealing of a casket, with the s.d. (799) ‘Draw a Curtaine’. We need not therefore assume that M. V. II. vii, ix, in which Portia bids ‘Draw aside the Curtaines’ and ‘Draw the Curtain’, or III. ii are hall scenes, and all the Belmont scenes may be, like V. i, in a garden backed by a portico; or rather the hall referred to in V. i. 89, ‘That light we see is burning in my hall’, may take the form of a portico.

[179] Cf. p. 58, n. 2.

[180] Thus in Rich. II, V. iii, iv (a continuous scene), Aumerle has leave to ‘turne the key’ (36). Then ‘The Duke of Yorke knokes at the doore and crieth, My leige ... Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there’. Cf. 1 Troublesome Raigne, sc. xiii. 81:

He stayes my Lord but at the Presence door: Pleaseth your Highnes, I will call him in.

[181] Famous Victories, scc. iv, v (a continuous scene), ‘Jayler, bring the prisoner to the barre’ (iv. 1).... ‘Thou shalt be my Lord chiefe Justice, and thou shalt sit in the chaire’ (v. 10); Sir T. More, sc. ii. 104, ‘An Arras is drawne, and behinde it (as in sessions) sit the L. Maior.... Lifter the prisoner at the barre’; Warning for Fair Women, II. 1180, ‘Enter some to prepare the judgement seat to the Lord Mayor....(1193) Browne is brought in and the Clerk says, ‘To the barre, George Browne’; M. V. IV. i; 1 Sir John Oldcastle, V. x; &c.

[182] Bacon and Bungay, scc. vii, ix (Regent House), where visitors ‘sit to heare and see this strange dispute’ (1207), and later, ‘Enter Miles, with a cloth and trenchers and salt’ (1295); Shoemaker’s Holiday, sc. xv (Leadenhall); Englishmen for my Money, sc. iii (Exchange).

[183] 1 Troublesome Raigne, sc. xi, in a convent, entails the opening of a coffer large enough to hold a nun and a press large enough to hold a priest; 2 Troublesome Raigne, sc. iii, before St. Edmund’s shrine, has a numerous company who swear on an altar. Alphonsus, IV. i, begins ‘Let there be a brazen Head set in the middle of the place behind the Stage, out of the which cast flames of fire’. It is in the ‘sacred seate’ of Mahomet, who speaks from the head, and bids the priests ‘call in’ visitors ‘which now are drawing to my Temple ward’.

[184] T. of a Shrew, scc. ix, xi, xiii; Sir T. More, scc. ix, ‘Enter S^r Thomas Moore, M^r Roper, and Seruing men setting stooles’; xiii, ‘Enter ... Moore ... as in his house at Chelsey’ ... (1413) ‘Sit good Madame [in margin, ‘lowe stooles’] ... (1521) ‘Entreate their Lordships come into the hall’. E. M. I. III. i, ii (a continuous scene), is at Thorello’s house, and in III. iii. 1592 it is described with ‘I saw no body to be kist, vnlesse they would haue kist the post, in the middle of the warehouse; for there I left them all ... How? were they not gone in then?’ But I. iv. 570, also at Thorello’s, has ‘Within sir, in the warehouse’. Probably the warehouse was represented as an open portico.

[185] Cf. p. 63, nn. 3, 4.

[186] Sir T. More, scc. ix, xiii (stools, vide supra); x, where the Council ‘sit’ to ‘this little borde’ (1176); R. J. I. v (stools, vide supra); James IV, I. i. 141, ‘Enstall and crowne her’; Sp. Tragedy, I. iii. 8, ‘Wherefore sit I in a regall throne’; 1 Rich. II, II. ii. 81, ‘Please you, assend your throne’; 1 Tamburlaine, IV. ii. 1474, ‘He [Tamburlaine] gets vp vpon him [Bajazet] to his chaire’; Dr. Faustus, 1010 (addition of 1616 text), ‘His Maiesty is comming to the Hall; Go backe, and see the State in readinesse’; Look About You, sc. xix, ‘Enter young Henry Crowned ... Henry the elder places his Sonne, the two Queenes on eyther hand, himselfe at his feete, Leyster and Lancaster below him’; this must have involved an elaborate ‘state’.

[187] Bacon and Bungay, sc. ix. (vide supra); T. of a Shrew, sc. ix. 32, ‘They couer the bord and fetch in the meate’; 1 Edw. IV, IV. ii, ‘They bring forth a table and serue in the banquet’; Patient Grissell, 1899, ‘A Table is set’; Humorous Day’s Mirth, scc. viii, x-xii (Verone’s ordinary), on which cf. p. 70.

[188] 1 Rich. II, IV. ii; Death of R. Hood, II. ii; R. J. I. v, where a servant says, ‘Away with the joint-stools, remove the court-cupboard’, and Capulet ‘turn the tables up’; cf. ch. vi.

[189] M. N. D. v (cf. III. i. 58); Sir T. More, sc. ix; Sp. Tragedy, IV. iii, iv (a continuous scene), on which cf. p. 93, n. 1.

[190] 2 Tamburlaine, III. iii. 2969, ‘The Arras is drawen, and Zenocrate lies in her bed of state, Tamburlaine sitting by her: three Phisitians about her bed, tempering potions. Theridamas, Techelles, Vsumcasane, and the three sonnes’.... (3110, at end of sc.) ‘The Arras is drawen’; Selimus, sc. x. 861, ‘I needs must sleepe. Bassaes withdraw your selues from me awhile’.... ‘They stand aside while the curtins are drawne’ (s.d.) ... (952) ‘A Messenger enters, Baiazet awaketh’; Battle of Alcazar, d.s. 24, ‘Enter Muly Mahamet and his sonne, and his two young brethren, the Moore sheweth them the bed, and then takes his leaue of them, and they betake them to their rest’ ... (36) ‘Enter the Moore and two murdrers bringing in his unkle Abdelmunen, then they draw the curtains and smoother the yong princes in the bed. Which done in sight of the vnkle they strangle him in his Chaire, and then goe forth’; Edw. I, sc. xxv. 2668, ‘Elinor in child-bed with her daughter Ione, and other Ladies’; True Tragedy of Rich. III, sc. i, ‘Now Nobles, draw the Curtaines and depart ... (s.d.) The King dies in his bed’; sc. xiii, where murderers are called ‘vp’, and murder of princes in bed is visible; Famous Victories, sc. viii. 1, ‘Enter the King with his Lords’ ... (10), ‘Draw the Curtaines and depart my chamber a while’ ... ‘He sleepeth ... Enter the Prince’ (s.d.) ... ‘I wil goe, nay but why doo I not go to the Chamber of my sick father?’ ... (23) ‘Exit’ [having presumably taken the crown] ... (25) ‘King. Now my Lords ... Remoue my chaire a little backe, and set me right’ ... (47) ‘Prince [who has re-entered]. I came into your Chamber ... And after that, seeing the Crowne, I tooke it’ ... (87) ‘Draw the Curtaines, depart my Chamber, ... Exeunt omnes, The King dieth’. In the analogous 2 Hen. IV, IV. iv, v (a continuous scene divided, with unanimity in ill-doing, by modern editors in the middle of a speech), the King says (IV. iv. 131), ‘Beare me hence Into some other chamber’, Warwick (IV. v. 4), ‘Call for the Musick in the other Roome’, and the King ‘Set me the Crowne vpon my Pillow here’. The Prince enters and the Lords go to ‘the other roome’; he takes the crown and ‘Exit’. Later (56) the Lords say, ‘This doore is open, he is gone this way’, and ‘He came not through the chamber where we staide’. The Prince returns and the Lords are bidden ‘Depart the chamber’. Later (233) the King asks the name of ‘the lodging where I first did swound’, and bids ‘beare me to that Chamber’. Then the scene, and in F_{1} the act, ends. In 1 Contention, sc. x. 1, ‘Then the Curtaines being drawne, Duke Humphrey is discouered in his bed, and two men lying on his brest and smothering him in his bed. And then enter the Duke of Suffolke to them’. He bids ‘draw the Curtaines againe and get you gone’. The King enters and bids him call Gloucester. He goes out, and returns to say that Gloucester is dead. Warwick says, ‘Enter his priuie chamber my Lord and view the bodie’, and (50), ‘Warwicke drawes the curtaines and showes Duke Humphrey in his bed’. The analogous 2 Hen. VI, III. ii, omits the murder coram populo and begins ‘Enter two or three running ouer the Stage, from the Murther of Duke Humfrey’. It then follows the earlier model until (132) the King bids Warwick ‘Enter his Chamber’ and we get the brief s.d. (146) ‘Bed put forth’, and Warwick speaks again. The next scene is another death scene, which begins in 1 Contention, sc. xi, ‘Enter King and Salsbury, and then the Curtaines be drawne, and the Cardinal is discouered in his bed, rauing and staring as if he were madde’, and in 2 Hen. VI, III. iii, ‘Enter the King ... to the Cardinal in bed’, ending (32) ‘Close vp his eyes, and draw the Curtaine close’. In 1 Rich. II, V. i, Lapoole enters ‘with a light’ and murderers, whom he bids ‘stay in the next with-draweing chamber ther’. Then (48), ‘He drawes the curtayne’, says of Gloucester ‘He sleepes vppon his bed’, and Exit. Gloucester, awaked by ghosts, says (110), ‘The doores are all made fast ... and nothing heere appeeres, But the vast circute of this emptie roome’. Lapoole, returning, says, ‘Hee’s ryssen from his bed’. Gloucester bids him ‘shutt to the doores’ and ‘sits to wright’. The murderers enter and kill him. Lapoole bids ‘lay hime in his bed’ and ‘shutt the doore, as if he ther had dyd’, and they (247) ‘Exeunt with the bodye’. In Death of R. Hood, ii, ind., the presenter says ‘Draw but that vaile, And there King John sits sleeping in his chaire’, and the s.d. follows, ‘Drawe the curten: the King sits sleeping ... Enter Queene ... She ascends, and seeing no motion, she fetcheth her children one by one; but seeing yet no motion, she descendeth, wringing her hands, and departeth’. In R. J. IV. iii, iv, v (continuous action), Juliet drinks her potion and Q_{1}, has the s.d. (IV. iii. 58) ‘She fals vpon her bed within the Curtaines’. Action follows before the house, until the Nurse, bidden to call Juliet, finds her dead. Then successively ‘Enter’ Lady Capulet, Capulet, the Friar, and Paris, to all of whom Juliet is visible. After lament, the Friar, in Q_{2} (IV. v. 91), bids them all ‘go you in’, but in Q_{1}, ‘They all but the Nurse goe foorth, casting Rosemary on her and shutting the Curtens’. The Nurse, then, in both texts, addresses the musicians, who came with Paris. On the difficulty of this scene, in relation to II. ii and III. v, cf. p. 94.

[191] Wounds of Civil War, III. ii, 913, ‘Enter old Marius with his keeper, and two souldiers’. There is (965) ‘this homely bed’, on which (972) ‘He lies downe’ (s.d.), and when freed (1066) ‘from walls to woods I wend’. In Edw. II, 2448–2568 (at Kenilworth), keepers say that the King is ‘in a vault vp to the knees in water’, of which (2455) ‘I opened but the doore’. Then (2474) ‘Heere is the keyes, this is the lake’ and (2486), ‘Heeres a light to go into the dungeon’. Then (2490) Edward speaks and, presumably having been brought out, is bid (2520) ‘lie on this bed’. He is murdered with a table and featherbed brought from ‘the next roome’ (2478), and the body borne out. In 1 Tr. Raigne, sc. xii, Hubert enters, bids his men (8) ‘stay within that entry’ and when called set Arthur ‘in this chayre’. He then bids Arthur (13) ‘take the benefice of the faire evening’, and ‘Enter Arthur’ who is later (131) bid ‘Goe in with me’. K. J. IV. i has precisely analogous indications, except that the attendants stand (2) ‘within the arras’, until Hubert stamps ‘Vpon the bosome of the ground’. In Rich. III, I. iv, Clarence talks with his keeper, and sleeps. Murderers enter, to whom the keeper says (97), ‘Here are the keies, there sits the Duke a sleepe’. They stab him, threaten to ‘chop him in the malmsey but in the next roome’ (161, 277), and bear the body out. In Rich. II, V. v (at Pontefract) Richard muses on ‘this prison where I liue’. He is visited by a groom of his stable (70), ‘where no man neuer comes, but that sad dog, That brings me foode’. Then (95) ‘Enter one to Richard with meate’ and (105) ‘The murderers rush in’, and (119) the bodies are cleared away. Sir T. More, sc. xvi, ‘Enter Sir Thomas Moore, the Lieutenant, and a seruant attending as in his chamber in the Tower’; Lord Cromwell, V. v, ‘Enter Cromwell in the Tower.... Enter the Lieutenant of the Tower and officers.... Enter all the Nobles’; Dead Man’s Fortune, plot (Henslowe Papers, 134), ‘Here the laydes speakes in prysoun’; Death of R. Hood, IV. i:

Brand. Come, come, here is the door. Lady Bruce. O God, how dark it is. Brand. Go in, go in; it’s higher up the stairs.... He seems to lock a door.

In Old Fortunatus, 2572, Montrose says of Ampedo, ‘Drag him to yonder towre, there shackle him’. Later (2608) Andelocia is brought to join him in ‘this prison’ and the attendants bid ‘lift in his legs’. The brothers converse in ‘fetters’. In 1 Oldcastle, IV. iv, v (a continuous scene), ‘Enter the Bishop of Rochester with his men, in liuerie coates’. They have brought him ‘heere into the Tower’ (1965) and may ‘go backe vnto the Porters Lodge’ or attend him ‘here without’. But they slip away. The Bishop calls the Lieutenant and demands to see Oldcastle. A message is sent to Oldcastle by Harpoole. Then (1995), ‘Enter sir Iohn Oldcastle’, and while the Bishop dismisses the Lieutenant, Harpoole communicates a plot ‘aside’ to Oldcastle. Then the Bishop addresses Oldcastle, and as they talk Oldcastle and Harpoole lay hands upon him. They take his upper garments, which Oldcastle puts on. Harpoole says (2016) ‘the window that goes out into the leads is sure enough’ and he will ‘conuay him after, and bind him surely in the inner room’. Then (2023) ‘Enter seruing men againe’. Oldcastle, disguised as the Bishop, comes towards them, saying, ‘The inner roomes be very hot and close’. Harpoole tells him that he will ‘downe vpon them’. He then pretends to attack him. The serving-men join in, and (2049) ‘Sir John escapes’. The Lieutenant enters and asks who is brawling ‘so neare vnto the entrance of the Tower’. Then (2057) ‘Rochester calls within’, and as they go in and bring him out bound, Harpoole gets away; cf. p. 62, n. 2. Look About You, sc. v, is a similar scene in the Fleet, partly in Gloucester’s chamber (811), the door of which can be shut, partly (865) on a bowling green. Analogous to some of the prison scenes is Alarum for London, sc. xii, in which a Burgher’s Wife shows Van End a vault where her wealth is hid, and (1310) ‘She pushes him downe’, and he is stoned there.

[192] Bacon and Bungay, I. ii. 172, ‘Enter frier Bacon’, with others, says ‘Why flocke you thus to Bacon’s secret cell?’, and conjures; II. ii is in a street, but Bacon says (603) ‘weele to my studie straight’, and II. iii begins (616), ‘Bacon and Edward goes into the study’, where Edward *sits and looks in ‘this glasse prospectiue’ (620), but his vision is represented on some part of the stage; in IV. i. 1530, ‘Enter Frier Bacon drawing the courtaines, with a white sticke, a booke in his hand, and a lampe lighted by him, and the brazen head and Miles, with weapons by him’. Miles is bid watch the head, and ‘Draw closse the courtaines’ and ‘Here he [Bacon] falleth asleepe’ (1568). Miles ‘will set me downe by a post’ (1577). Presently (1604), ‘Heere the Head speakes and a lightning flasheth forth, and a hand appeares that breaketh down the Head with a hammer’. Miles calls to Bacon (1607) ‘Out of your bed’; IV. iii. 1744 begins ‘Enter frier Bacon with frier Bungay to his cell’. A woodcut in Q_{2} of 1630, after the revival by the Palsgrave’s men, seems to illustrate II. iii; the back wall has a window to the left and the head on a bracket in the centre; before it is the glass on a table, with Edward gazing in it; Bacon sits to the right. Miles stands to the left; no side-walls are visible. In Locrine, I. iii. 309, ‘Enter Strumbo aboue in a gowne, with inke and paper in his hand’; Dr. Faustus, ind. 28, ‘And this the man that in his study sits’, followed by s.d. ‘Enter Faustus in his Study’, 433, ‘Enter Faustus in his Study ... (514) Enter [Mephastophilis] with diuels, giuing crownes and rich apparell to Faustus, and daunce, and then depart’, with probably other scenes. In T. A. V. ii. 1, ‘Enter Tamora, and her two sonnes disguised’ ... (9) ‘They knocke and Titus opens his studie doore’. Tamora twice (33, 43) bids him ‘come downe’, and (80) says, ‘See heere he comes’. The killing of Tamora’s sons follows, after which Titus bids (205) ‘bring them in’. In Sir T. More, sc. viii. 735, ‘A table beeing couered with a greene Carpet, a state Cushion on it, and the Pursse and Mace lying thereon Enter Sir Thomas Moore’.... (765) ‘Enter Surrey, Erasmus and attendants’. Erasmus says (779), ‘Is yond Sir Thomas?’ and Surrey (784), ‘That Studie is the generall watche of England’. The original text is imperfect, but in the revision Erasmus is bid ‘sitt’, and later More bids him ‘in’ (ed. Greg, pp. 84, 86). Lord Cromwell has three studies; in II. i, ii (continuous action at Antwerp), ‘Cromwell in his study with bagges of money before him casting of account’, while Bagot enters in front, soliloquizes, and then (II. ii. 23) with ‘See where he is’ addresses Cromwell; in III. ii (Bologna), the action begins as a hall scene, for (15) ‘They haue begirt you round about the house’ and (47) ‘Cromwell shuts the dore’ (s.d.), but there is an inner room, for (115) ‘Hodge [disguised as the Earl of Bedford] sits in the study, and Cromwell calls in the States’, and (126) ‘Goe draw the curtaines, let vs see the Earle’; in IV. v (London), ‘Enter Gardiner in his studie, and his man’. E. M. I. I. iii, is before Cob’s house, and Tib is bid show Matheo ‘vp to Signior Bobadilla’ (Q_{1} 392). In I. iv ‘Bobadilla discouers himselfe on a bench; to him, Tib’. She announces ‘a gentleman below’; Matheo is bid ‘come vp’, enters from ‘within’, and admires the ‘lodging’. In 1 Oldcastle, V. i. 2086, ‘Enter Cambridge, Scroope, and Gray, as in a chamber, and set downe at a table, consulting about their treason: King Harry and Suffolke listning at the doore’ ... (2114) ‘They rise from the table, and the King steps in to them, with his Lordes’. Stukeley, i. 121, begins with Old Stukeley leaving his host’s door to visit his son. He says (149), ‘I’ll to the Temple to see my son’, and presumably crosses the stage during his speech of 171–86, which ends ‘But soft this is his chamber as I take it’. Then ‘He knocks’, and after parley with a page, says, ‘Give me the key of his study’ and ‘methinks the door stands open’, enters, criticizes the contents of the study, emerges, and (237) *‘Old Stukeley goes again to the study’. Then (244) ‘Enter Stukeley at the further end of the stage’ and joins his father. Finally the boy is bid (335) ‘lock the door’. In Downfall of R. Hood, ind., ‘Enter Sir John Eltham and knocke at Skeltons doore’. He says, ‘Howe, maister Skelton, what at studie hard?’ and (s.d.) ‘Opens the doore’. In 2 Edw. IV, IV. ii, ‘Enter D. Shaw, pensiuely reading on his booke’. He is visited by a Ghost, who gives him a task, and adds, ‘That done, return; and in thy study end Thy loathed life’.

[193] Old Fortunatus, 1315–1860, is before or in the hall of a court; at 1701, ‘A curtaine being drawne, where Andelocia lies sleeping in Agripines lap’. In Downfall of R. Hood, ind., is a s.d. of a court scene, presumably in a hall, and ‘presently Ely ascends the chaire ... Enter Robert Earl of Huntingdon, leading Marian: ... they infolde each other, and sit downe within the curteines ... drawing the curteins, all (but the Prior) enter, and are kindely receiued by Robin Hood. The curteins are again shut’.

[194] Jew of Malta, i. 36, ‘Enter Barabas in his Counting-house, with heapes of gold before him’. Later his house is taken for a nunnery; he has hid treasure (536) ‘underneath the plancke That runs along the vpper chamber floore’, and Abigail becomes a nun, and (658) throws the treasure from ‘aboue’. He gets another house, and Pilia-Borza describes (iii. 1167) how ‘I chanc’d to cast mine eye vp to the Iewes counting-house’, saw money-bags, and climbed up and stole by night. Arden of Feversham, I., III. v, IV. i, V. i are at Arden’s house at Feversham. From I. I should assume a porch before the house, where Arden and his wife breakfast and (369) ‘Then she throwes down the broth on the grounde’; cf. 55, ‘Call her foorth’, and 637, ‘Lets in’. It can hardly be a hall scene, as part of the continuous action is ‘neare’ the house (318) and at 245 we get ‘This is the painters [Clarke’s] house’, who is called out. There is no difficulty in III. v or IV. i; cf. III. v. 164, ‘let vs in’. But V. i, taken by itself, reads like a hall scene with a counting-house behind. Black Will and Shakebag are hidden in a ‘counting-house’, which has a ‘door’ and a ‘key’ (113, 145, 153). A chair and stool are to be ready for Mosbie and Arden (130). Alice bids Michael (169) ‘Fetch in the tables, And when thou hast done, stand before the counting-house doore’, and (179) ‘When my husband is come in, lock the streete doore’. When Arden comes with Mosbie, they are (229) ‘in my house’. They play at tables and the murderers creep out and kill Arden, and (261), ‘Then they lay the body in the Counting-house’. Susan says (267), ‘The blood cleaueth to the ground’, and Mosbie bids (275) ‘strew rushes on it’. Presently, when guests have come and gone, (342) ‘Then they open the counting-house doore and looke vppon Arden’, and (363) ‘Then they beare the body into the fields’. Francklin enters, having found the body, with rushes in its shoe, ‘Which argueth he was murthred in this roome’, and looking about ‘this chamber’, they find blood ‘in the place where he was wont to sit’ (411–15).

[195] In 1 Hen. IV, II. iv, Henry calls Poins (1) ‘out of that fat roome’ and bids him (32) ‘Stand in some by-roome’ while the Prince talks to the Drawer. The Vintner (91) bids the Drawer look to guests ‘within’, and says Falstaff is ‘at the doore’. He enters and later goes out to dismiss a court messenger who is (317) ‘at doore’ and returns. He has a chair and cushion (416). When the Sheriff comes, Henry bids Falstaff (549) ‘hide thee behind the Arras, the rest walke vp aboue’. Later (578) Falstaff is found ‘a sleepe behind the Arras’. This looks like a hall scene, and with it III. iii, where Mrs. Quickly is miscalled (72) ‘in mine owne house’ and Falstaff says (112) ‘I fell a sleepe here, behind the Arras’, is consistent. But in 2 Hen. IV, II. iv, Falstaff and Doll come out of their supper room. The Drawer announces (75) ‘Antient Pistol’s belowe’, and is bid (109) ‘call him vp’ and (202) ‘thrust him downe staires’. Later (381) ‘Peyto knockes at doore’; so does Bardolph (397), to announce that ‘a dozen captaines stay at doore’. This is clearly an upper parlour. In Look About You, scc. ix, x (continuous action), Gloucester, disguised as Faukenbridge, and a Pursuivant have stepped into the Salutation tavern (1470), and are in ‘the Bel, our roome next the Barre’ (1639), with a stool (1504) and fire (1520). But at 1525 the action shifts. Skink enters, apparently in a room called the Crown, and asks whether Faukenbridge was ‘below’ (1533). Presumably he descends, for (1578) he sends the sheriff’s party ‘vp them stayres’ to the Crown. This part of the action is before the inn, rather than in the Bell. Humorous Day’s Mirth, scc. viii, x-xii, in Verone’s ordinary, with tables and a court cupboard, seems to be a hall scene; at viii. 254 ‘convey them into the inward parlour by the inward room’ does not entail any action within the supposed inward room.

[196] W. for Fair Women, II. 601. The scene does not itself prove interior action, but cf. the later reference (800), ‘Was he so suted when you dranke with him, Here in the buttery’.

[197] In Jew of Malta, V. 2316, Barabas has ‘made a dainty Gallery, The floore whereof, this Cable being cut, Doth fall asunder; so that it doth sinke Into a deepe pit past recouery’, and at 2345 is s.d. ‘A charge, the cable cut, A Caldron discouered’.

[198] Cf. pp. 51, 53, 55–6, 58–9, 62.

[199] A. E. Richards, Studies in English Faust Literature: i. The English Wagner Book of 1594 (1907). The book was entered in S. R. on 16 Nov. 1593 (Arber, ii. 640). A later edition of 1680 is reprinted as The Second Report of Dr. John Faustus by W. J. Thoms, Early Prose Romances (1828), iii. Richards gives the date of the first edition of the German book by Fridericus Schotus of Toledo as 1593. An edition of 1714 is reprinted by J. Scheible, Das Kloster, iii. 1. This has nothing corresponding to the stage-play of the English version.

[200] 1 Contention, sc. i. 1 (court scene), sc. xx. 1 (garden scene); Locrine, III. vi. 1278 (battle scene); &c., &c.

[201] Henslowe Papers, 130, ‘To them Pride, Gluttony Wrath and Couetousness at one dore, at an other dore Enuie, Sloth and Lechery’ (l. 6) ... ‘Enter Ferrex ... with ... soldiers one way ... to them At a nother dore, Porrex ... and soldiers’ (26) ... ‘Enter Queene, with 2 Counsailors ... to them Ferrex and Porrex seuerall waies ... Gorboduk entreing in The midst between’ (30) ... ‘Enter Ferrex and Porrex seuerally’ (36). I suppose that, strictly, ‘seuerally’ might also mean successively by the same door, and perhaps does mean this in Isle of Gulls, ind. 1 (Blackfriars), ‘Enter seuerally 3 Gentlemen as to see a play’.

[202] e. g. Alphonsus, II. i. 1 (battle scene); Selimus, 2430 (battle scene); Locrine, V. v. 2022, 2061 (battle scene); Old Fortunatus, 2675 (threshold scene); &c., &c. Archer, 469, calculates that of 43 examples (sixteenth and seventeenth century) taken at random, 11 use ‘one ... the other’, 21 ‘one ... an other’, and 11 ‘several’.

[203] Selimus, 658, ‘at diuerse doores’; Fair Em, sc. ix, ‘at two sundry doors’; James IV, II. ii. 1, ‘one way ... another way’; Look About You, 464, ‘two waies’; Weakest Goeth to the Wall, 3, ‘one way ... another way’; Jew of Malta, 230, ‘Enter Gouernor ... met by’. Further variants are the seventeenth-century Lear (Q_{1}), II. i. 1, ‘meeting’, and Custom of Country, IV. iv, ‘at both doors’.

[204] 1 Rich. II, I. i, ‘at seuerall doores’.

[205] Fair Em, sc. iv, ‘Enter Manvile ... Enter Valingford at another door ... Enter Mountney at another door’; Patient Grissell, 1105, ‘Enter Vrcenze and Onophrio at seuerall doores, and Farneze in the mid’st’; Trial of Chivalry, sign. I_{3}^{v}, ‘Enter at one dore ... at the other dore ... Enter in the middest’. Examples from seventeenth-century public theatres are Four Prentices of London, prol., ‘Enter three in blacke clokes, at three doores’; Travels of 3 English Brothers, p. 90, ‘Enter three seuerall waies the three Brothers’; Nobody and Somebody, 1322, ‘Enter at one doore ... at another doore ... at another doore’; Silver Age, V. ii, ‘Exeunt three wayes’. It may be accident that these are all plays of Queen Anne’s men, at the Curtain or Red Bull. For the middle entrance in private theatres, cf. p. 132.

[206] Downfall of R. Hood, I. i (ind.), after Eltham has knocked at Skelton’s study door (cf. p. 69), ‘At euery doore all the players runne out’; Englishmen for my Money, 393, ‘Enter Pisaro, Delion the Frenchman, Vandalle the Dutchman, Aluaro the Italian, and other Marchants, at seuerall doores’; cf. the seventeenth-century 1 Honest Whore, sc. xiii (Fortune), ‘Enter ... the Duke, Castruchio, Pioratto, and Sinezi from severall doores muffled’.

[207] Locrine, IV. ii. 1460 (not an entry), ‘Locrine at one side of the stage’; Sir T. More, sc. i. 1, ‘Enter at one end John Lincolne ... at the other end enters Fraunces’; Stukeley, 245, ‘Enter Stukeley at the further end of the stage’, 2382, ‘Two trumpets sound at either end’; Look About You, sc. ii. 76, ‘Enter ... on the one side ... on the other part’. Very elaborate are the s.ds. of John a Kent, III. i. The scene is before a Castle. A speaker says, ‘See, he [John a Cumber] sets the Castell gate wide ope’. Then follows dialogue, interspersed with the s.ds. ‘Musique whyle he opens the door’.... ‘From one end of the Stage enter an antique ... Into the Castell ... Exit’.... ‘From the other end of the Stage enter another Antique ... Exit into the Castell’.... ‘From under the Stage the third antique ... Exit into the Castell’.... ‘The fourth out of a tree, if possible it may be ... Exit into the Castell’. Then John a Cumber ‘Exit into the Castell, and makes fast the dore’. John a Kent enters, and ‘He tryes the dore’. John a Cumber and others enter ‘on the walles’ and later ‘They discend’. For an earlier example of ‘end’, cf. Cobler’s Prophecy (p. 35, n. 1), and for a later The Dumb Knight (Whitefriars), i, iv. In 2 Return from Parnassus (Univ. play), IV. i begins ‘Sir Radericke and Prodigo, at one corner of the Stage, Recorder and Amoretto at the other’.

[208] Cf. p. 98.

[209] Soliman and Perseda, I. iv. 47, ‘Enter Basilisco riding of a mule’ ... (71) ‘Piston getteth vp on his Asse, and rideth with him to the doore’; cf. 1 Rich. II (quoted p. 61, n. 3), and for the private stage, Liberality and Prodigality, passim, and Summer’s Last Will and Testament, 968. W. J. Lawrence, Horses upon the Elizabethan Stage (T. L. S. 5 June 1919), deprecates a literal acceptance of Forman’s notice of Macbeth and Banquo ‘riding through a wood’, attempts to explain away the third example here given, and neglects the rest. I think some kind of ‘hobby’ more likely than a trained animal. In the Mask of Flowers, Silenus is ‘mounted upon an artificiall asse, which sometimes being taken with strains of musicke, did bow down his eares and listen with great attention’; cf. T. S. Graves, The Ass as Actor (1916, South Atlantic Quarterly, XV. 175).

[210] Knack to Know an Honest Man, sc. ix. 1034 (cf. p. 60, n. 3).

[211] Leir, 2625 (open country scene near a beacon), ‘Mumford followes him to the dore’; cf. p. 60, supra.

[212] Cf. ch. xviii, p. 544.

[213] 2 Angry Women, sc. x. 2250, ‘A plague on this poast, I would the Carpenter had bin hangd that set it vp for me. Where are yee now?’; Englishmen for my Money, scc. vii-ix (continuous scene), 1406, ‘Take heede, sir! hers a post’ ... (1654) ‘Watt be dis Post?... This Post; why tis the May-pole on Iuie-bridge going to Westminster.... Soft, heere’s an other: Oh now I know in deede where I am; wee are now at the fardest end of Shoredich, for this is the May-pole’.... (1701) ‘Ic weit neit waer dat ic be, ic goe and hit my nose op dit post, and ic goe and hit my nose op danden post’.

[214] 3 Lords and 3 Ladies, sign. I_{3}^v.

[215] Cf. p. 57, n. 4, and for Kempe, ch. xviii, p. 545.

[216] Cf. p. 57, n. 5; p. 58, n. 1.

[217] Cf. p. 64, n. 3; p. 67, n. 1.

[218] Graves, 88.

[219] Cf. ch. xix, p. 42; Mediaeval Stage, ii. 86, 142. Heywood, Apology (1608), thinks that the theatre of Julius Caesar at Rome had ‘the covering of the stage, which we call the heavens (where upon any occasion their gods descended)’.

[220] Battle of Alcazar, 1263 (s.d.), ‘Lightning and thunder ... Heere the blazing Starre ... Fire workes’; Looking Glass, 1556 (s.d.), ‘A hand from out a cloud, threatneth a burning sword’; 2 Contention, sc. v. 9 (s.d.), ‘Three sunnes appeare in the aire’ (cf. 3 Hen. VI, II. i. 25); Stukeley, 2272 (s.d.), ‘With a sudden thunderclap the sky is on fire and the blazing star appears’.

[221] 1 Troublesome Raign, sc. xiii. 131 (s.d.), ‘There the fiue Moones appeare’. The Bastard casts up his eyes ‘to heauen’ (130) at the sight, and the moons are in ‘the skie’ (163), but the episode follows immediately after the coronation which is certainly in ‘the presence’ (81). Perhaps this is why in K. J., IV. ii. 181, the appearance of the moons is only narrated.

[222] The Admiral’s inventories of 1598 (Henslowe Papers, 117) include ‘the clothe of the Sone and Moone’.

[223] Alphonsus, prol. (1), ‘After you haue sounded thrise, let Venus be let downe from the top of the stage’; epil. (1916), ‘Enter Venus with the Muses’ ... (1937), ‘Exit Venus; or if you can conueniently, let a chaire come down from the top of the Stage and draw her vp’. In Old Fortunatus, 840, Fortunatus, at the Soldan’s court, gets a magic hat, wishes he were in Cyprus, and ‘Exit’. The bystanders speak of him as going ‘through the ayre’ and ‘through the clouds’. Angels descend from heaven to a tower in the Wagner Book play (cf. p. 72).

[224] One of the 1616 additions to the text of Dr. Faustus (sc. xiv) has the s.d. ‘Musicke while the Throne descends’ before the vision of heaven, and ‘Hell is discouered’ before that of hell. On the other hand, in Death of R. Hood, ii, ind. (cf. p. 66), the king is in a chair behind a curtain, and the fact that the queen ‘ascends’ and ‘descends’ may suggest that this chair is the ‘state’. However this may be, I do not see how any space behind the curtain can have been high enough to allow any dignity to the elaborate states required by some court scenes; cf. p. 64, n. 5. The throne imagined in the Wagner Book (cf. p. 72) had 22 steps. Out-of-door scenes, in which the ‘state’ appears to be used, are Alphonsus, II. i. 461 (battle scene), ‘Alphonsus sit in the Chaire’ (s.d.); II. i (a crowning on the field); Locrine, IV. ii. 1490 (camp scene), ‘Let him go into his chaire’ (s.d.); Old Fortunatus, sc. i. 72 (dream scene in wood), ‘Fortune takes her Chaire, the Kings lying at her feete, shee treading on them as shee goes vp’ ... (148), ‘She comes downe’.

[225] Henslowe, i. 4, ‘Itm pd for carpenters worke & mackinge the throne in the heuenes the 4 of Iune 1595 ... vij^{li} ij^s’.

[226] E. M. I. (F_{1}), prol. 14,

One such to-day, as other plays should be; Where neither chorus wafts you o’er the seas, Nor creaking throne comes down the boys to please.

[227] Cf. p. 89.

[228] Cf. vol. ii, p. 546.

[229] Mettenleiter, Musikgeschichte von Regensburg, 256; Herz, 46, ‘ein Theater darinnen er mit allerley musikalischen Instrumenten auf mehr denn zehnerley Weise gespielt, und über der Theaterbühne noch eine Bühne 30 Schuh hoch auf 6 grosse Säulen, über welche ein Dach gemacht worden, darunter ein viereckiger Spund, wodurch die sie schöne Actiones verrichtet haben’; cf. ch. xiv and C. H. Kaulfuss-Diesch, Die Inszenierung des deutschen Dramas an der Wende des sechzehnten und siebzehnten Jahrhunderts (1905).

[230] Prölss, 73; Brodmeier, 5, 43, 57; cf. Reynolds, i. 7, and in M. P. ix. 59; Albright, 151; Lawrence, i. 40.

[231] Cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Vennor. The only extant Swan play is Middleton’s Chaste Maid in Cheapside of 1611. Chamber scenes are III. i, ii, iii; IV. i; V. ii. Some of these would probably have been treated in a sixteenth-century play as threshold scenes. But III. ii, a child-bed scene, would have called for curtains. In Chaste Maid, however, the opening s.d. is ‘A bed thrust out upon the stage; Allwit’s wife in it’. We cannot therefore assume curtains; cf. p. 113. The room is above (ll. 102, 124) and is set with stools and rushes. In V. iv, two funeral processions meet in the street, and ‘while all the company seem to weep and mourn, there is a sad song in the music-room’.

[232] Florio, Dictionary, ‘Scena ... forepart of a theatre where players make them readie, being trimmed with hangings’ (cf. vol. ii, p. 539); Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, ind. 151, ‘I am none of your fresh Pictures, that use to beautifie the decay’d dead Arras, in a publique Theater’; Heywood, Apology, 18 (Melpomene loq.), ‘Then did I tread on arras; cloth of tissue Hung round the fore-front of my stage’; Flecknoe (cf. App. I), ‘Theaters ... of former times ... were but plain and simple, with no other scenes, nor decorations of the stage, but onely old tapestry, and the stage strew’d with rushes’.

[233] 1 Hen. VI, I. i. 1, ‘Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night!’; Lucr. 766 (of night), ‘Black stage for tragedies and murders fell’; Warning for Fair Women, ind. 74, ‘The stage is hung with blacke, and I perceive The auditors prepar’d for tragedie’; II. 6, ‘But now we come unto the dismal act, And in these sable curtains shut we up The comic entrance to our direful play’; Daniel, Civil Wars (Works, ii. 231), ‘Let her be made the sable stage, whereon Shall first be acted bloody tragedies’; 2 Antonio and Mellida (Paul’s, 1599), prol. 20, ‘Hurry amain from our black-visaged shows’; Northward Hoe, IV. i (of court play), ‘the stage hung all with black velvet’; Dekker (iii. 296), Lanthorne and Candlelight (1608), ‘But now, when the stage of the world was hung with blacke, they jetted vppe and downe like proud tragedians’; Insatiate Countess, IV. v. 4 ‘The stage of heaven is hung with solemn black, A time best fitting to act tragedies’; Anon., Elegy on Burbage (Collier, Actors, 53), ‘Since thou art gone, dear Dick, a tragic night Will wrap our black-hung stage’; cf. Malone in Variorum, iii. 103; Graves, Night Scenes in the Elizabethan Theatres (E. S. xlvii. 63); Lawrence, Night Performances in the Elizabethan Theatres (E. S. xlviii. 213). In several of the passages quoted above, the black-hung stage is a metaphor for night, but I agree with Lawrence that black hangings cannot well have been used in the theatre to indicate night scenes as well as tragedy. I do not know why he suggests that a ‘prevalent idea that the stage was hung with blue for comedies’, for which, if it exists, there is certainly no evidence, is ‘due to a curious surmise of Malone’s’. Malone (Var. iii. 108) only suggests that ‘pieces of drapery tinged with blue’ may have been ‘suspended across the stage to represent the heavens’--quite a different thing. But, of course, there is no evidence for that either. According to Reich, Der Mimus, I. ii. 705, the colour of the siparium in the Indian theatre is varied according to the character of the play.

[234] Cf. p. 30; vol. i, p. 231. On the removal of bodies W. Archer (Quarterly Review, ccviii. 454) says, ‘In over a hundred plays which we have minutely examined (including all Shakespeare’s tragedies) there is only a small minority of cases in which explicit provision is not made, either by stage-direction or by a line in the text, for the removal of bodies. The few exceptions to this rule are clearly mere inadvertences, or else are due to the fact that there is a crowd of people on the stage in whose exit a body can be dragged or carried off almost unobserved’. In Old Fortunatus, 1206, after his sons have lamented over their dead father, ‘They both fall asleepe: Fortune and a companie of Satyres enter with Musicke, and playing about Fortunatus body, take him away’. Of course, a body left dead in the alcove need not be removed; the closing curtains cover it.

[235] Cf. p. 26.

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