The Elizabethan Stage (Vol 3 of 4)

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Title: The Elizabethan Stage (Vol 3 of 4)
Author: Chambers, E. K. (Edmund Kerchever)
Language: English
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THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE

VOL. III

Oxford University Press

_London_ _Edinburgh_ _Glasgow_ _Copenhagen_
_New York_ _Toronto_ _Melbourne_ _Cape Town_
_Bombay_ _Calcutta_ _Madras_ _Shanghai_

Humphrey Milford Publisher to the UNIVERSITY

[Illustration: FROM THE VENICE TERENCE OF 1499]

THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE
BY E. K. CHAMBERS. VOL. III

OXFORD: AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
M.CMXXIII

Printed in England

CONTENTS

VOLUME III

PAGE
XIX. STAGING AT COURT 1

XX. STAGING IN THE THEATRES: SIXTEENTH CENTURY 47

XXI. STAGING IN THE THEATRES: SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 103

BOOK V. PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS

XXII. THE PRINTING OF PLAYS 157

XXIII. PLAYWRIGHTS 201

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Coliseus sive Theatrum. From edition of Terence
published by Lazarus Soardus (Venice, 1497
and 1499) _Frontispiece_

Diagrams of Stages pp. 84, 85

NOTE ON SYMBOLS

I have found it convenient, especially in Appendix A, to use the symbol
< following a date, to indicate an uncertain date not earlier than that
named, and the symbol > followed by a date, to indicate an uncertain
date not later than that named. Thus 1903 <> 23 would indicate the
composition date of any part of this book. I have sometimes placed the
date of a play in italics, where it was desirable to indicate the date
of production rather than publication.

XIX

STAGING AT COURT

[_Bibliographical Note._--Of the dissertations named in the
_note_ to ch. xviii, T. S. Graves, _The Court and the London
Theatres_ (1913), is perhaps the most valuable for the subject
of the present chapter, which was mainly written before it
reached me. A general account of the Italian drama of the
Renaissance is in W. Creizenach, _Geschichte des neueren
Dramas_, vol. ii (1901). Full details for Ferrara and Mantua
are given by A. D’Ancona, _Origini del Teatro Italiano_
(1891), of which App. II is a special study of _Il Teatro
Mantovano nel secolo xvi_. F. Neri, _La Tragedia italiana del
Cinquecento_ (1904), E. Gardner, _Dukes and Poets at Ferrara_
(1904), and _The King of Court Poets_ (1906), W. Smith, _The
Commedia dell’ Arte_ (1912), are also useful. Special works
on staging are E. Flechsig, _Die Dekorationen der modernen
Bühne in Italien_ (1894), and G. Ferrari, _La Scenografia_
(1902). The Terence engravings are described by M. Herrmann,
_Forschungen zur deutschen Theatergeschichte des Mittelalters
und der Renaissance_ (1914). Of contemporary Italian treatises,
the unprinted _Spectacula_ of Pellegrino Prisciano is in
_Cod. Est. lat._ d. x. 1, 6 (cf. G. Bertoni, _La Biblioteca
Estense_, 13), and of L. de Sommi’s _Dialoghi in materia di
rappresentazione scenica_ (c. 1565) a part only is in L.
Rasi, _I Comici italiani_ (1897), i. 107. The first complete
edition of S. Serlio, _Architettura_ (1551), contains Bk. ii,
on _Perspettiva_; the English translation was published by
R. Peake (1611); extracts are in App. G; a biography is L.
Charvet, _Sébastien Serlio_ (1869). Later are L. Sirigatti, _La
pratica di prospettiva_ (1596), A. Ingegneri, _Della poesia
rappresentativa e del modo di rappresentare le favole sceniche_
(1598), and N. Sabbatini, _Pratica di fabricar scene e macchine
ne’ Teatri_ (1638).

For France, E. Rigal, _Le Théâtre de la Renaissance_ and _Le
Théâtre au xvii^e siècle avant Corneille_, both in L. Petit
de Julleville, _Hist. de la Langue et de la Litt. Françaises_
(1897), iii. 261, iv. 186, and the same writer’s _Le Théâtre
Français avant la Période Classique_ (1901), may be supplemented
by a series of studies in _Revue d’Histoire Littéraire de la
France_--P. Toldo, _La Comédie Française de la Renaissance_
(1897–1900, iv. 336; v. 220, 554; vi. 571; vii. 263), G. Lanson,
_Études sur les Origines de la Tragédie Classique en France_
(1903, x. 177, 413) and _L’Idée de la Tragédie en France avant
Jodelle_ (1904, xi. 541), E. Rigal, _La Mise en Scène dans les
Tragédies du xvi^e siècle_ (1905, xii. 1, 203), J. Haraszti,
_La Comédie Française de la Renaissance et la Scène_ (1909,
xvi. 285); also G. Lanson, _Note sur un Passage de Vitruve_,
in _Revue de la Renaissance_ (1904), 72. Less important is E.
Lintilhac, _Hist. Générale du Théâtre en France_ (1904–9, in
progress). G. Bapst, _Essai sur l’Histoire du Théâtre_ (1893),
and D. C. Stuart, _Stage Decoration and the Unity of Place in
France in the Seventeenth Century_ (1913, _M. P._ x. 393), deal
with staging, for which the chief material is E. Dacier, _La
Mise en Scène à Paris au xvii^e siècle: Mémoire de L. Mahelot
et M. Laurent_ in _Mémoires de la Soc. de l’Hist. de Paris et
de l’Ile-de-France_, xxviii (1901), 105. An edition by H. C.
Lancaster (1920) adds Mahelot’s designs.]

We come now to the problems, reserved from treatment in the foregoing
chapter, of scenic background. What sort of setting did the types
of theatre described afford for the plots, often complicated, and
the range of incident, so extraordinarily wide, which we find in
Elizabethan drama? No subject in literary history has been more often
or more minutely discussed, during the quarter of a century since the
Swan drawing was discovered, and much valuable spadework has been done,
not merely in the collecting and marshalling of external evidence,
but also in the interpretation of this in the light of an analysis of
the action of plays and of the stage-directions by which these are
accompanied.[1] Some points have emerged clearly enough; and if on
others there is still room for controversy, this may be partly due to
the fact that external and internal evidence, when put together, have
proved inadequate, and partly also to certain defects of method into
which some of the researchers have fallen. To start from the assumption
of a ‘typical Shakespearian stage’ is not perhaps the best way of
approaching an investigation which covers the practices of thirty or
forty playing companies, in a score of theatres, over a period of not
much less than a century. It is true that, in view of the constant
shifting of companies and their plays from one theatre to another, some
‘standardization of effects’, in Mr. Archer’s phrase, may at any one
date be taken for granted.[2] But analogous effects can be produced
by very different arrangements, and even apart from the obvious
probability that the structural divergences between public and private
theatres led to corresponding divergences in the systems of setting
adopted, it is hardly safe to neglect the possibility of a considerable
evolution in the capacities of stage-management between 1558 and 1642,
or even between 1576 and 1616. At any rate a historical treatment
will be well advised to follow the historical method. The scope of
the inquiry, moreover, must be wide enough to cover performances at
Court, as well as those on the regular stage, since the plays used for
both purposes were undoubtedly the same. Nor can Elizabethan Court
performances, in their turn, be properly considered, except in the
perspective afforded by a short preliminary survey of the earlier
developments of the art of scenic representation at other Renaissance
Courts.

The story begins with the study of Vitruvius in the latter part of
the fifteenth century by the architect Alberti and others, which led
scholars to realize that the tragedies of the pseudo-Seneca and the
comedies of Terence and the recently discovered Plautus had been
not merely recited, but acted much in the fashion already familiar
in contemporary _ludi_ of the miracle-play type.[3] The next step
was, naturally, to act them, in the original or in translations.
Alberti planned a _theatrum_ in the Vatican for Nicholas V, but the
three immediate successors of Nicholas were not humanists, and it
is not until the papacy of Innocent VIII that we hear of classical
performances at Rome by the pupils of Pomponius Laetus. One of these
was Tommaso Inghirami, who became a cardinal, without escaping the
nickname of Phaedra from the part he had played in _Hippolytus_. This,
as well as at least one comedy, had already been given before the
publication (_c._ 1484–92) of an edition of Vitruvius by Sulpicius
Verulanus, with an epistle addressed by the editor to Cardinal
Raffaelle Riario, as a notable patron of the revived art. Sulpicius is
allusive rather than descriptive, but we hear of a fair adorned stage,
5 ft. high, for the tragedy in the forum, of a second performance in
the Castle of St. Angelo, and a third in Riario’s house, where the
audience sat under _umbracula_, and of the ‘picturatae scenae facies’,
which the cardinal provided for a comedy by the Pomponiani.[4]
Performances continued after the death of Pomponius in 1597, but we
get no more scenic details, and when the _Menaechmi_ was given at the
wedding of Alfonso d’Este and Lucrezia Borgia in 1502 it is noted that
‘non gli era scena alcuna, perchè la camera non era capace’.[5] It
is not until 1513 that we get anything like a description of a Roman
neo-classical stage, at the conferment of Roman citizenship on Giuliano
and Lorenzo de’ Medici, the Florentine kinsmen of Leo X.[6] This had a
decorated back wall divided by pilasters into five spaces, in each of
which was a door covered by a curtain of golden stuff. There were also
two side-doors, for entrance and exit, marked ‘via ad forum’.

An even more important centre of humanistic drama than Rome was
Ferrara, where the poets and artists, who gathered round Duke Ercole
I of Este, established a tradition which spread to the allied courts
of the Gonzagas at Mantua and the Delle Rovere at Urbino. The first
neo-classical revival on record at Ferrara was of the _Menaechmi_
in 1486, from which we learn that Epidamnus was represented by five
marvellous ‘case’ each with its door and window, and that a practicable
boat moved across the _cortile_ where the performance was given.[7]

In 1487 it was the turn of the _Amphitrio_ ‘in dicto cortile a tempo
di notte, con uno paradiso cum stelle et altre rode’.[8] Both the
_Amphitrio_ and the _Menaechmi_ were revived in 1491; the former had
its ‘paradiso’, while for the latter ‘nella sala era al prospecto
de quattro castelli, dove avevano a uscire quilli dovevano fare la
representatione’.[9] Many other productions followed, of some of
which no details are preserved. For the _Eunuchus_, _Trinummus_,
and _Penulus_ in 1499 there was a stage, 4 ft. high, with decorated
columns, hangings of red, white, and green cloth, and ‘cinque casamenti
merlati’ painted by Fino and Bernardino Marsigli.[10] In 1502, when
Lucrezia Borgia came, the stage for the _Epidicus_, _Bacchides_, _Miles
Gloriosus_, _Casina_, and _Asinaria_ was of the height of a man, and
resembled a city wall, ‘sopra gli sono le case de le comedie, che sono
sei, non avantagiate del consueto’.[11] The most elaborate description
on record is, however, one of a theatre set up at Mantua during the
carnival of 1501, for some play of which the name has not reached us.
Unfortunately it is not very clearly worded, but the stage appears to
have been rather wider than its depth, arcaded round, and hung at the
back with gold and greenery. Its base had the priceless decoration of
Mantegna’s _Triumphs_, and above was a heaven with a representation of
the zodiac. Only one ‘casa’ is noted, a ‘grocta’ within four columns at
a corner of the stage.[12]

The scanty data available seem to point to the existence of two
rather different types of staging, making their appearance at Ferrara
and at Rome respectively. The scene of the Ferrarese comedies, with
its ‘case’ as the principal feature, is hardly distinguishable from
that of the mediaeval _sacre rappresentazioni_, with its ‘luoghi
deputati’ for the leading personages, which in their turn correspond
to the ‘loci’, ‘domus’, or ‘sedes’ of the western miracle-plays.[13]
The methods of the _rappresentazioni_ had long been adopted for
pieces in the mediaeval manner, but upon secular themes, such as
Poliziano’s _Favola d’Orfeo_, which continued, side by side with
the classical comedies, to form part of the entertainment of Duke
Ercole’s Court.[14] The persistence of the mediaeval tradition is very
clearly seen in the interspersing of the acts of the comedies, just
as the _rappresentazioni_ had been interspersed, with ‘moresche’ and
other ‘intermedii’ of spectacle and dance, to which the ‘dumb-shows’
of the English drama owe their ultimate origin.[15] At Rome, on the
other hand, it looks as if, at any rate by 1513, the ‘case’ had been
conventionalized, perhaps under the influence of some archaeological
theory as to classical methods, into nothing more than curtained
compartments forming part of the architectural embellishments of the
_scena_ wall. It is a tempting conjecture that some reflex, both of the
Ferrarese and of the Roman experiments, may be traced in the woodcut
illustrations of a number of printed editions of Terence, which are all
derived from archetypes published in the last decade of the fifteenth
century. The synchronism between the revival of classical acting and
the emergence of scenic features in such illustrations is certainly
marked. The Terentian miniatures of the earlier part of the century
show no Vitruvian knowledge. If they figure a performance, it is a
recitation by the wraith Calliopius and his gesticulating mimes.[16]
Nor is there any obvious scenic influence in the printed Ulm _Eunuchus_
of 1486, with its distinct background for each separate woodcut.[17]
The new spirit comes in with the Lyons _Terence_ of 1493, wherein may
be seen the hand of the humanist Jodocus Badius Ascensius, who had
certainly visited Ferrara, and may well also have been in touch with
the Pomponiani.[18] The Lyons woodcuts, of which there are several to
each play, undoubtedly represent stage performances, real or imaginary.
The stage itself is an unrailed quadrangular platform, of which the
supports are sometimes visible. The back wall is decorated with
statuettes and swags of Renaissance ornament, and in front of it is a
range of three, four, or five small compartments, separated by columns
and veiled by fringed curtains. They have rather the effect of a row of
bathing boxes. Over each is inscribed the name of a character, whose
‘house’ it is supposed to be. Thus for the _Andria_ the inscriptions
are ‘Carini’, ‘Chreme[tis]’, ‘Chrisidis’, ‘Do[mus] Symonis’. On the
scaffold, before the houses, action is proceeding between characters
each labelled with his name. Sometimes a curtain is drawn back and a
character is emerging, or the interior of a house is revealed, with
some one sitting or in bed, and a window behind. It is noteworthy
that, while the decoration of the back wall and the arrangement of the
houses remain uniform through all the woodcuts belonging to any one
play, they vary from play to play. Sometimes the line of houses follows
that of the wall; sometimes it advances and retires, and may leave
a part of the wall uncovered, suggesting an entrance from without.
In addition to the special woodcuts for each play, there is a large
introductory design of a ‘Theatrum’. It is a round building, with
an exterior staircase, to which spectators are proceeding, and are
accosted on their way by women issuing from the ‘Fornices’, over which
the theatre is built. Through the removal of part of the walls, the
interior is also made visible. It has two galleries and standing-room
below. A box next the stage in the upper gallery is marked ‘Aediles’.
The stage is cut off by curtains, which are divided by two narrow
columns. In front of the curtains sits a flute-player. Above is
inscribed ‘Proscenium’. Some of the Lyons cuts are adopted, with others
from the Ulm _Eunuchus_, in the Strasburg _Terence_ of 1496.[19] This,
however, has a different ‘Theatrum’, which shows the exterior only, and
also a new comprehensive design for each play, in which no scaffold
or back wall appears, and the houses are drawn on either side of an
open place, with the characters standing before them. They are more
realistic than the Lyons ‘bathing boxes’ and have doors and windows
and roofs, but they are drawn, like the Ulm houses, on a smaller scale
than the characters. If they have a scenic origin, it may be rather
in the ‘case’ of Ferrara than in the conventional ‘domus’ of Rome.
Finally, the Venice _Terence_ of 1497, while again reproducing with
modifications the smaller Lyons cuts, replaces the ‘Theatrum’ by a new
‘Coliseus sive Theatrum’, in which the point of view is taken from the
proscenium.[20] No raised stage is visible, but an actor or prologue is
speaking from a semicircular orchestra on the floor-level. To right and
left of him are two houses, of the ‘bathing-box’ type, but roofed, from
which characters emerge. He faces an auditorium with two rows of seats
and a gallery above.

We are moving in shadowy regions of conjecture, and if all the material
were forthcoming, the interrelations of Rome and Ferrara and the
Terentian editors might prove to have been somewhat different from
those here sketched. After all, we have not found anything which
quite explains the ‘picturatae scenae facies’ for which Cardinal
Raffaelle Riario won such praise, and perhaps Ferrara is not really
entitled to credit for the innovation, which is generally supposed
to have accompanied the production of the first of Ariosto’s great
Italian comedies on classical lines, the _Cassaria_ of 1508. This
is the utilization for stage scenery of the beloved Italian art of
architectural perspective. It has been suggested, on no very secure
grounds, that the first to experiment in this direction may have been
the architect Bramante Lazzari.[21] But the scene of the _Cassaria_
is the earliest which is described by contemporary observers as a
_prospettiva_, and it evidently left a vivid impression upon the
imagination of the spectators.[22] The artist was Pellegrino da
Udine, and the city represented was Mytilene, where the action of the
_Cassaria_ was laid. The same, or another, example of perspective may
have served as a background in the following year for Ariosto’s second
comedy, _I Suppositi_, of which the scene was Ferrara itself.[23]
But other artists, in other cities, followed in the footsteps of
Pellegrino. The designer for the first performance of Bernardo
da Bibbiena’s _Calandra_ at Urbino in 1513 was probably Girolamo
Genga;[24] and for the second, at Rome in 1514, Baldassarre Peruzzi, to
whom Vasari perhaps gives exaggerated credit for scenes which ‘apersono
la via a coloro che ne hanno poi fatte a’ tempi nostri’.[25] Five
years later, _I Suppositi_ was also revived at Rome, in the Sala d’
Innocenzio of the Vatican, and on this occasion no less an artist was
employed than Raphael himself.[26] As well as the scene, there was an
elaborately painted front curtain, which fell at the beginning of the
performance. For this device, something analogous to which had almost
certainly already been used at Ferrara, there was a precedent in the
classical _aulaeum_. Its object was apparently to give the audience
a sudden vision of the scene, and it was not raised again during the
action of the play, and had therefore no strictly scenic function.[27]

The sixteenth-century _prospettiva_, of which there were many later
examples, is the type of scenery so fully described and illustrated
by the architect Sebastiano Serlio in the Second Book of his
_Architettura_ (1551). Serlio had himself been the designer of a
theatre at Vicenza, and had also been familiar at Rome with Baldassarre
Peruzzi, whose notes had passed into his possession. He was therefore
well in the movement.[28] At the time of the publication of the
_Architettura_ he was resident in France, where he was employed,
like other Italians, by Francis I upon the palace of Fontainebleau.
Extracts from Serlio’s treatise will be found in an appendix and I need
therefore only briefly summarize here the system of staging which it
sets out.[29] This is a combination of the more or less solid ‘case’
with flat cloths painted in perspective. The proscenium is long and
comparatively shallow, with an entrance at each end, and flat. But from
the line of the _scena_ wall the level of the stage slopes slightly
upwards and backwards, and on this slope stand to right and left the
‘case’ of boards or laths covered with canvas, while in the centre is
a large aperture, disclosing a space across which the flat cloths are
drawn, a large one at the back and smaller ones on frames projecting
by increasing degrees from behind the ‘case’. Out of these elements
is constructed, by the art of perspective, a consistent scene with
architectural perspectives facing the audience, and broken in the
centre by a symmetrical vista. For the sake of variety, the action can
use practicable doors and windows in the façades, and to some extent
also within the central aperture, on the lower part of the slope. It
was possible to arrange for interior action by discovering a space
within the ‘case’ behind the façades, but this does not seem to have
been regarded as a very effective device.[30] Nor is there anything
to suggest that Serlio contemplated any substantial amount of action
within his central recess, for which, indeed, the slope required by
his principles of perspective made it hardly suitable. As a matter of
fact the action of the Italian _commedia sostenuta_, following here
the tradition of its Latin models, is essentially exterior action
before contiguous houses, and some amusing conventions, as Creizenach
notes, follow from this fact; such as that it is reasonable to come
out-of-doors in order to communicate secrets, that the street is a good
place in which to bury treasure, and that you do not know who lives in
the next house until you are told.[31] In discussing the decoration
of the stage, Serlio is careful to distinguish between the kinds of
scenery appropriate for tragedy, comedy, and the satyric play or
pastoral, respectively, herein clearly indicating his debt and that of
his school to the doctrine of Vitruvius.

It must not be supposed that Serlio said the last word on Italian
Renaissance staging. He has mainly temporary theatres in his mind, and
when theatres became permanent it was possible to replace laths and
painted cloths by a more solid architectural _scena_ in relief. Of
this type was the famous _Teatro Olympico_ of Vicenza begun by Andrea
Palladio about 1565 and finished by Vincenzo Scamozzi about 1584.[32]
It closely followed the indications of Vitruvius, with its _porta
regia_ in the middle of the _scena_, its _portae minores_ to right
and left, and its proscenium doors in _versurae_ under balconies for
spectators. And it did not leave room for much variety in decoration,
as between play and play.[33] It appears, indeed, to have been used
only for tragedy. A more important tendency was really just in the
opposite direction, towards change rather than uniformity of scenic
effect. Even the perspectives, however beautiful, of the comedies
did not prove quite as amusing, as the opening heavens and hells and
other ingeniously varied backgrounds of the mediaeval plays had been,
and by the end of the sixteenth century devices were being tried for
movable scenes, which ultimately led to the complete elimination of the
comparatively solid and not very manageable ‘case’.[34]

It is difficult to say how far the Italian perspective scene made its
way westwards. Mediaeval drama--on the one hand the miracle-play, on
the other the morality and the farce--still retained an unbounded
vitality in sixteenth-century France. The miracle-play had its own
elaborate and traditional system of staging. The morality and the
farce required very little staging at all, and could be content at
need with nothing more than a bare platform, backed by a semicircle
or hollow square of suspended curtains, through the interstices of
which the actors might come and go.[35] But from the beginning of
the century there is observable in educated circles an infiltration
of the humanist interest in the classical drama; and this, in course
of time, was reinforced through two distinct channels. One of these
was the educational influence, coming indirectly through Germany and
the Netherlands, of the ‘Christian Terence’, which led about 1540 to
the academic Latin tragedies of Buchanan and Muretus at Bordeaux.[36]
The other was the direct contact with humanist civilization, which
followed upon the Italian adventures of Charles VIII and Louis XII,
and dominated the reigns of François I and his house, notably after
the marriage of Catherine de’ Medici to the future Henri II in 1533.
In 1541 came Sebastiano Serlio with his comprehensive knowledge of
stage-craft; and the translation of his _Architettura_, shortly after
its publication in 1545, by Jean Martin, a friend of Ronsard, may be
taken as evidence of its vogue. In 1548 the French Court may be said to
have been in immediate touch with the _nidus_ of Italian scenic art
at Ferrara, for when Henri and Catherine visited Lyons it was Cardinal
Hippolyte d’Este who provided entertainment for them with a magnificent
performance of Bibbiena’s famous _Calandra_. This was ‘nella gran sala
di San Gianni’ and was certainly staged in the full Italian manner,
with perspective by Andrea Nannoccio and a range of terra-cotta statues
by one Zanobi.[37] Henceforward it is possible to trace the existence
of a Court drama in France. The Italian influence persisted. It is not,
indeed, until 1571 that we find regular companies of Italian actors
settling in Paris, and these, when they came, probably played, mainly
if not entirely, _commedie dell’ arte_.[38] But Court performances in
1555 and 1556 of the _Lucidi_ of Firenzuola and the _Flora_ of Luigi
Alamanni show that the _commedia sostenuta_ was already established
in favour at a much earlier date.[39] More important, however, is the
outcrop of vernacular tragedy and comedy, on classical and Italian
models, which was one of the literary activities of the Pléiade.
The pioneer in both _genres_ was Étienne Jodelle, whose tragedy of
_Cléopâtre Captive_ was produced before Henri II by the author and his
friends at the Hôtel de Reims early in 1553, and subsequently repeated
at the Collège de Boncour, where it was accompanied by his comedy of
_La Rencontre_, probably identical with the extant _Eugène_, which is
believed to date from 1552. Jodelle had several successors: in tragedy,
Mellin de Saint-Gelais, Jacques and Jean de la Taille, Jacques Grévin,
Robert Garnier, Antoine de Montchrestien; and in comedy, Rémy Belleau,
Jean de Baïf, Jean de la Taille, Jacques Grévin, and Pierre Larivey.
So far as tragedy was concerned, the Court representations soon came
to an end. Catherine de’ Medici, always superstitious, believed that
the _Sophonisbe_ of Mellin de Saint-Gelais in 1556 had brought ill
luck, and would have no more.[40] The academies may have continued to
find hospitality for a few, but the best critical opinion appears to
be that most of the tragedies of Garnier and his fellows were for the
printing-press only, and that their scenic indications, divorced from
the actualities of representation, can hardly be regarded as evidence
on any system of staging.[41] Probably this is also true of many of the
literary comedies, although Court performances of comedies, apart from
those of the professional players, continue to be traceable throughout
the century. Unfortunately archaeological research has not succeeded in
exhuming from the archives of the French royal households anything that
throws much light on the details of staging, and very possibly little
material of this kind exists. _Cléopâtre_ is said to have been produced
‘in Henrici II aula ... magnifico veteris scenae apparatu’.[42] The
prologue of _Eugène_, again, apologizes for the meagreness of an
academic setting:

Quand au théâtre, encore qu’il ne soit
En demi-rond, comme on le compassoit,
Et qu’on ne l’ait ordonné de la sorte
Que l’on faisoit, il faut qu’on le supporte:
Veu que l’exquis de ce vieil ornement
Ores se voue aux Princes seulement.

Hangings round the stage probably sufficed for the colleges, and
possibly even on some occasions for royal _châteaux_.[43] But Jodelle
evidently envisaged something more splendid as possible at Court,
and a notice, on the occasion of some comedies given before Charles
IX at Bayonne in 1565, of ‘la bravade et magnificence de la dite
scène ou théâtre, et des feux ou verres de couleur, desquelles elle
etait allumée et enrichie’ at once recalls a device dear to Serlio,
and suggests a probability that the whole method of staging, which
Serlio expounds, may at least have been tried.[44] Of an actual
theatre ‘en demi-rond’ at any French palace we have no clear proof.
Philibert de l’Orme built a _salle de spectacle_ for Catherine in the
Tuileries, on a site afterwards occupied by the grand staircase, but
its shape and dimensions are not on record.[45] There was another in
the pleasure-house, which he planned for Henri II in the grounds of
Saint-Germain, and which was completed by Guillaume Marchand under
Henri IV. This seems, from the extant plan, to have been designed as
a parallelogram.[46] The hall of the Hôtel de Bourbon, hard by the
Louvre, in which plays were sometimes given, is shown by the engravings
of the _Balet Comique_, which was danced there in 1581, to have been,
in the main, of similar shape. But it had an apse ‘en demi-rond’ at
one end.[47] It may be that the Terence illustrations come again to
our help, and that the new engravings which appear, side by side with
others of the older tradition, in the _Terence_ published by Jean de
Roigny in 1552 give some notion of the kind of stage which Jodelle and
his friends used.[48] The view is from the auditorium. The stage is
a platform, about 3½ ft. high, with three shallow steps at the back,
on which actors are sitting, while a prologue declaims. There are no
hangings or scenes. Pillars divide the back of the stage from a gallery
which runs behind and in which stand spectators. Obviously this is not
on Italian lines, but it might preserve the memory of some type of
academic stage.

If we know little of the scenic methods of the French Court, we know
a good deal of those employed in the only public theatre of which,
during the sixteenth century and the first quarter of the seventeenth,
Paris could boast. This was the Hôtel de Bourgogne, a rectangular hall
built by the Confrérie de la Passion in 1548, used by that body for the
representation of miracle-plays and farces up to 1598, let between 1598
and 1608 to a succession of visiting companies, native and foreign, and
definitively occupied from the latter year by the Comédiens du Roi, to
whom Alexandre Hardy was dramatist in chief.[49] The _Mémoire pour la
décoration des pièces qui se représentent par les comediens du roy,
entretenus de sa Magesté_ is one of the most valuable documents of
theatrical history which the hazard of time has preserved in any land.
It, or rather the earlier of the two sections into which it is divided,
is the work of Laurent Mahelot, probably a machinist at the Hôtel de
Bourgogne, and contains notes, in some cases apparently emanating from
the authors, of the scenery required for seventy-one plays belonging
to the repertory of the theatre, to which are appended, in forty-seven
cases, drawings showing the way in which the requirements were to be
met.[50] It is true that the _Mémoire_ is of no earlier date than about
1633, but the close resemblance of the system which it illustrates to
that used in the miracle-plays of the Confrèrie de la Passion justifies
the inference that there had been no marked breach of continuity since
1598. In essence it is the mediaeval system of juxtaposed ‘maisons’,
corresponding to the ‘case’ of the Italian and the ‘houses’ of the
English tradition, a series of independent structures, visually related
to each other upon the stage, but dramatically distinct and serving,
each in its turn, as the background to action upon the whole of the
free space--_platea_ in mediaeval terminology, _proscenium_ in that of
the Renaissance--which stretched before and between them. The stage
of the Hôtel de Bourgogne had room for five such ‘maisons’, one in
the middle of the back wall, two in the angles between the back and
side-walls, and two standing forward against the side-walls; but in
practice two or three of these compartments were often devoted to a
‘maison’ of large size. A ‘maison’ might be a unit of architecture,
such as a palace, a senate house, a castle, a prison, a temple, a
tavern; or of landscape, such as a garden, a wood, a rock, a cave, a
sea.[51] And very often it represented an interior, such as a chamber
with a bed in it.[52] A good illustration of the arrangement may be
found in the _scenario_ for the familiar story of Pyramus and Thisbe,
as dramatized about 1617 by Théophile de Viaud.[53]

‘Il faut, au milieu du théâtre, un mur de marbre et pierre
fermé; des ballustres; il faut aussi de chasque costé deux ou
trois marches pour monster. A un des costez du théâtre, un
murier, un tombeau entouré de piramides. Des fleurs, une éponge,
du sang, un poignard, un voile, un antre d’où sort un lion,
du costé de la fontaine, et un autre antre à l’autre bout du
théâtre où il rentre.’

The _Pandoste_ of Alexandre Hardy required different settings for the
two parts, which were given on different days.[54] On the first day,

‘Au milieu du théâtre, il faut un beau palais; à un des costez,
une grande prison où l’on paroist tout entier. A l’autre costé,
un temple; au dessous, une pointe de vaisseau, une mer basse,
des rozeaux et marches de degrez.’

The needs of the second day were more simply met by ‘deux palais et une
maison de paysan et un bois’.

Many examples make it clear that the methods of the Hôtel de Bourgogne
did not entirely exclude the use of perspective, which was applied
on the back wall, ‘au milieu du théâtre’; and as the Italian stage,
on its side, was slow to abandon altogether the use of ‘case’ in
relief, it is possible that under favourable circumstances Mahelot
and his colleagues may have succeeded in producing the illusion of
a consistently built up background much upon the lines contemplated
by Serlio.[55] There were some plays whose plot called for nothing
more than a single continuous scene in a street, perhaps a known and
nameable street, or a forest.[56] Nor was the illusion necessarily
broken by such incidents as the withdrawal of a curtain from before an
interior at the point when it came into action, or the introduction of
the movable ship which the Middle Ages had already known.[57] It was
broken, however, when the ‘belle chambre’ was so large and practicable
as to be out of scale with the other ‘maisons’.[58] And it was broken
when, as in _Pandoste_ and many other plays, the apparently contiguous
‘maisons’ had to be supposed, for dramatic purposes, to be situated in
widely separated localities. It is, indeed, as we shall find to our
cost, not the continuous scene, but the need for change of scene, which
constitutes the problem of staging. It is a problem which the Italians
had no occasion to face; they had inherited, almost unconsciously, the
classical tradition of continuous action in an unchanged locality,
or in a locality no more changed than is entailed by the successive
bringing into use of various apertures in a single façade. But the
Middle Ages had had no such tradition, and the problem at once declared
itself, as soon as the matter of the Middle Ages and the manner of
the Renaissance began to come together in the ‘Christian Terence’.
The protest of Cornelius Crocus in the preface to his _Joseph_ (1535)
against ‘multiple’ staging, as alike intrinsically absurd and alien
to the practice of the ancients, anticipates by many years that law
of the unity of place, the formulation of which is generally assigned
to Lodovico Castelvetro, and which was handed down by the Italians
to the Pléiade and to the ‘classical’ criticism of the seventeenth
century.[59] We are not here concerned with the unity of place as a
law of dramatic structure, but we are very much concerned with the
fact that the romantic drama of western Europe did not observe unity
of place in actual practice, and that consequently the stage-managers
of Shakespeare in England, as well as those of Hardy in France, had to
face the problem of a system of staging, which should be able rapidly
and intelligibly to represent shifting localities. The French solution,
as we have seen, was the so-called ‘multiple’ system, inherited from
the Middle Ages, of juxtaposed and logically incongruous backgrounds.

Geography would be misleading if it suggested that, in the westward
drift of the Renaissance, England was primarily dependent upon the
mediation of France. During the early Tudor reigns direct relations
with Italy were firmly established, and the classical scholars of
Oxford and Cambridge drew their inspiration at first hand from the
authentic well-heads of Rome and Florence. In matters dramatic, in
particular, the insular had little or nothing to learn from the
continental kingdom. There were French players, indeed, at the Court
of Henry VII in 1494 and 1495, who obviously at that date can only
have had farces and morals to contribute.[60] And thereafter the
lines of stimulus may just as well have run the other way. If the
academic tragedy and comedy of the Pléiade had its reaction upon the
closet dramas of Lady Pembroke, Kyd, Daniel, Lord Brooke, yet London
possessed its public theatres long before the Parisian makeshift of
the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and English, no less than Italian, companies
haunted the Court of Henri IV, while it is not until Caroline days that
the French visit of 1495 can be shown to have had its successor. The
earliest record of a classical performance in England was at Greenwich
on 7 March 1519, when ‘there was a goodly commedy of Plautus plaied’,
followed by a mask, in the great chamber, which the King had caused
‘to be staged and great lightes to be set on pillers that were gilt,
with basons gilt, and the rofe was covered with blewe satyn set full
of presses of fyne gold and flowers’.[61] The staging here spoken of,
in association with lights, was probably for spectators rather than
for actors, for in May 1527, when a dialogue, barriers, and mask were
to be given in a banqueting-house at Greenwich, we are told that ‘thys
chambre was raised with stages v. degrees on every syde, and rayled
and counterailed, borne by pillars of azure, full of starres and
flower delice of gold; every pillar had at the toppe a basin silver,
wherein stode great braunches of white waxe’.[62] In this same year
1527, Wolsey had a performance of the _Menaechmi_ at his palace of York
Place, and it was followed in 1528 by one of the _Phormio_, of which
a notice is preserved in a letter of Gasparo Spinelli, the secretary
to the Italian embassy in London.[63] Unfortunately, Spinelli’s
description proves rather elusive. I am not quite clear whether he is
describing the exterior or the interior of a building, and whether his
_zoglia_ is, as one would like to think, the framework of a proscenium
arch, or merely that of a doorway.[64] One point, however, is certain.
Somewhere or other, the decorations displayed in golden letters the
title of the play which was about to be given. Perhaps this explains
why, more than a quarter of a century later, when the Westminster boys
played the _Miles Gloriosus_ before Elizabeth in January 1565, one
of the items of expenditure was for ‘paper, inke and colores for the
wryting of greate letters’.[65]

Investigation of Court records reveals nothing more precise than
this as to the staging of plays, whether classical or mediaeval in
type, under Henry VIII. It is noticeable, however, that a play often
formed but one episode in a composite entertainment, other parts of
which required the elaborate pageantry which was Henry’s contribution
to the development of the mask; and it may be conjectured that in
these cases the structure of the pageant served also as a sufficient
background for the play. Thus in 1527 a Latin tragedy celebrating the
deliverance of the Pope and of France by Wolsey was given in the ‘great
chamber of disguysings’, at the end of which stood a fountain with a
mulberry and a hawthorn tree, about which sat eight fair ladies in
strange attire upon ‘benches of rosemary fretted in braydes layd on
gold, all the sydes sette wyth roses in braunches as they wer growyng
about this fountayne’.[66] The device was picturesque enough, but can
only have had an allegorical relation to the action of the play. The
copious Revels Accounts of Edward and of Mary are silent about play
settings. It is only with those of Elizabeth that the indications of
‘houses’ and curtains already detailed in an earlier chapter make their
appearance.[67] The ‘houses’ of lath and canvas have their analogy
alike in the ‘case’ of Ferrara, which even Serlio had not abandoned,
and in the ‘maisons’ which the Hôtel de Bourgogne inherited from the
Confrérie de la Passion. We are left without guide as to whether the
use of them at the English Court was a direct tradition from English
miracle-plays, or owed its immediate origin to an Italian practice,
which was itself in any case only an outgrowth of mediaeval methods
familiar in Italy as well as in England. Nor can we tell, so far as the
Revels Accounts go, whether the ‘houses’ were juxtaposed on the stage
after the ‘multiple’ fashion of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, or were fused
with the help of perspective into a continuous façade or vista, as
Serlio bade. Certainly the Revels officers were not wholly ignorant of
the use of perspective, but this is also true of the machinists of the
Hôtel de Bourgogne.[68] Serlio does not appear to have used curtains,
as the Revels officers did, for the discovery of interior scenes, but
if, on the other hand, any of the great curtains of the Revels were
front curtains, these were employed at Ferrara and Rome, and we have no
knowledge that they were employed at Paris. At this point the archives
leave us fairly in an _impasse_.

It will be well to start upon a new tack and to attempt to ascertain,
by an analysis of such early plays as survive, what kind of setting
these can be supposed, on internal evidence, to have needed. And
the first and most salient fact which emerges is that a very large
number of them needed practically no setting at all. This is broadly
true, with exceptions which shall be detailed, of the great group
of interludes which extends over about fifty years of the sixteenth
century, from the end of Henry VII’s reign or the beginning of Henry
VIII’s, to a point in Elizabeth’s almost coincident with the opening
of the theatres. Of these, if mere fragments are neglected, there
are not less than forty-five. Twenty are Henrican;[69] perhaps seven
Edwardian or Marian;[70] eighteen Elizabethan.[71] Characteristically,
they are morals, presenting abstract personages varied in an increasing
degree with farcical types; but several are semi-morals, with a
sprinkling of concrete personages, which point backwards to the
miracle-plays, or forward to the romantic or historical drama. One or
two are almost purely miracle-play or farce; and towards the end one
or two show some traces of classical influence.[72] Subject, then, to
the exceptions, the interludes--and this, as already indicated, is a
fundamental point for staging--call for no changes of locality, with
which, indeed, the purely abstract themes of moralities could easily
dispense. The action proceeds continuously in a locality, which is
either wholly undefined, or at the most vaguely defined as in London
(_Hickscorner_), or in England (_King Johan_). This is referred to,
both in stage-directions and in dialogue, as ‘the place’, and with
such persistency as inevitably to suggest a term of art, of which the
obvious derivation is from the _platea_ of the miracle-plays.[73] It
may be either an exterior or an interior place, but often it is not
clearly envisaged as either. In _Pardoner and Friar_ and possibly in
_Johan the Evangelist_ it is a church; in _Johan Johan_ it is Johan’s
house. Whether interior or exterior, a door is often referred to as the
means of entrance and exit for the characters.[74] In _Johan Johan_ a
door is supposed to lead to the priest’s chamber, and there is a long
colloquy at the ‘chamber dore’. In exterior plays some kind of a house
may be suggested in close proximity to the ‘place’. In _Youth_ and in
_Four Elements_ the characters come and go to a tavern. The ‘place’ of
_Apius and Virginia_ is before the gate of Apius. There is no obvious
necessity why these houses should have been represented by anything
but a door. The properties used in the action are few and simple;
a throne or other seat, a table or banquet (_Johan Johan_, _Godly
Queen Hester_, _King Darius_), a hearth (_Nature_, _Johan Johan_), a
pulpit (_Johan the Evangelist_), a pail (_Johan Johan_), a dice-board
(_Nice Wanton_). My inference is that the setting of the interludes
was nothing but the hall in which performances were given, with for
properties the plenishing of that hall or such movables as could be
readily carried in. Direct hints are not lacking to confirm this view.
A stage-direction in _Four Elements_ tells us that at a certain point
‘the daunsers without the hall syng’. In _Impatient Poverty_ (242)
Abundance comes in with the greeting, ‘Joye and solace be in this
hall!’ _All for Money_ (1019) uses ‘this hall’, where we should expect
‘this place’. And I think that, apart from interludes woven into the
pageantry of Henry VIII’s disguising chambers, the hall contemplated
was at first just the ordinary everyday hall, after dinner or supper,
with the sovereigns or lords still on the dais, the tables and benches
below pushed aside, and a free space left for the performers on the
floor, with the screen and its convenient doors as a background and
the hearth ready to hand if it was wanted to figure in the action. If
I am right, the staged dais, with the sovereign on a high state in the
middle of the hall, was a later development, or a method reserved for
very formal entertainments.[75] The actors of the more homely interlude
would have had to rub shoulders all the time with the inferior members
of their audience. And so they did. In _Youth_ (39) the principal
character enters, for all the world like the St. George of a village
mummers’ play, with an

A backe, felowes, and gyve me roume
Or I shall make you to auoyde sone.[76]

In _Like Will to Like_ the Vice brings in a knave of clubs, which he
‘offreth vnto one of the men or boyes standing by’. In _King Darius_
(109) Iniquity, when he wants a seat, calls out

Syrs, who is there that hath a stoole?
I will buy it for thys Gentleman;
If you will take money, come as fast as you can.

A similar and earlier example than any of these now presents itself in
_Fulgens and Lucres_, where there is an inductive dialogue between
spectators, one of whom says to another

I thought verely by your apparel,
That ye had bene a player.

Of a raised stage the only indication is in _All for Money_, a late
example of the type, where one stage-direction notes (203), ‘There must
be a chayre for him to sit in, and vnder it or neere the same there
must be some hollowe place for one to come vp in’, while another (279)
requires ‘some fine conueyance’ to enable characters to vomit each
other up.

I come now to nine interludes which, for various reasons, demand
special remark. In _Jacob and Esau_ (> 1558) there is coming and going
between the place and the tent of Isaac, before which stands a bench,
the tent of Jacob, and probably also the tent of Esau. In _Wit and
Wisdom_ (> 1579) action takes place at the entrances of the house of
Wantonness, of the den of Irksomeness, of a prison, and of Mother Bee’s
house, and the prison, as commonly in plays of later types, must have
been so arranged as to allow a prisoner to take part in the dialogue
from within. Some realism, also, in the treatment of the den may be
signified by an allusion to ‘these craggie clifts’. In _Misogonus_
(_c._ 1560–77), the place of which is before the house of Philogonus,
there is one scene in Melissa’s ‘bowre’ (ii. 4, 12), which must somehow
have been represented. In _Thersites_ (1537), of which one of the
characters is a snail that ‘draweth her hornes in’, Mulciber, according
to the stage-directions, ‘must have a shop made in the place’, which he
leaves and returns to, and in which he is perhaps seen making a sallet.
Similarly, the Mater of Thersites, when she drops out of the dialogue,
‘goeth in the place which is prepared for her’, and hither later
‘Thersites must ren awaye, and hyde hym behynde hys mothers backe’.
These four examples only differ from the normal interlude type by some
multiplication of the houses suggested in the background, and probably
by some closer approximation than a mere door to the visual realization
of these. There is no change of locality, and only an adumbration of
interior action within the houses. Four other examples do entail
some change of locality. Much stress must not be laid on the sudden
conversions in the fourth act of _The Conflict of Conscience_ (> 1581)
and the last scene of _Three Ladies of London_ of the open ‘place’
into Court, for these are very belated specimens of the moral. And
the opening dialogue of the _Three Ladies_, on the way to London, may
glide readily enough into the main action before two houses in London
itself. But in _The Disobedient Child_ (_c._ 1560) some episodes are
before the house of the father, and others before that of the son in
another locality forty miles away. In _Mary Magdalene_ (< 1566), again,
the action begins in Magdalo, but there is a break (842) when Mary
and the Vice start on their travels, and it is resumed at Jerusalem,
where it proceeds first in some public place, and afterwards by a
sudden transition (1557) at a repast within the house of Simon. In both
cases it may be conjectured that the two localities were indicated on
opposite sides of the hall or stage, and that the personages travelled
from one to the other over the intervening space, which was regarded
as representing a considerable distance. You may call this ‘multiple
staging’, if you will. The same imaginative foreshortening of space
had been employed both in the miracle-plays and in the ‘Christian
Terence’.[77] Simon’s house at Jerusalem was, no doubt, some kind of
open _loggia_ with a table in it, directly approachable from the open
place where the earlier part of the Jerusalem action was located.

_Godly Queen Hester_ (? 1525–9) has a different interest, in that, of
all the forty-four interludes, it affords the only possible evidence
for the use of a curtain. In most respects it is quite a normal
interlude. The action is continuous, in a ‘place’, which represents
a council-chamber, with a chair for Ahasuerus. But there is no
mention of a door, and while the means of exit and entrance for the
ordinary personages are unspecified, the stage-directions note, on
two occasions (139, 635) when the King goes out, that he ‘entreth the
trauerse’. Now ‘traverses’ have played a considerable part in attempts
to reconstruct the Elizabethan theatre, and some imaginative writers
have depicted them as criss-crossing about the stage in all sorts of
possible and impossible directions.[78] The term is not a very happy
one to employ in the discussion of late sixteenth-century or early
seventeenth-century conditions. After _Godly Queen Hester_ it does
not appear again in any play for nearly a hundred years, and then, so
far as I know, is only used by Jonson in _Volpone_, where it appears
to indicate a low movable screen, probably of a non-structural kind,
and by John Webster, both in _The White Devil_ and in _The Duchess of
Malfi_, where it is an exact equivalent to the ‘curtains’ or ‘arras’,
often referred to as screening off a recess at the back of the
stage.[79] Half a century later still, it is used in the Restoration
play of _The Duke of Guise_ to indicate, not this normal back curtain,
but a screen placed across the recess itself, or the inner stage which
had developed out of it, behind ‘the scene’.[80] Webster’s use seems
to be an individual one. Properly a ‘traverse’ means, I think, not a
curtain suspended from the roof, but a screen shutting off from view
a compartment within a larger room, but leaving it open above. Such
a screen might, of course, very well be formed by a curtain running
on a rod or cord.[81] And a ‘traverse’ also certainly came to mean
the compartment itself which was so shut off.[82] The construction is
familiar in the old-fashioned pews of our churches, and as it happens,
it is from the records of the royal chapel that its Elizabethan use can
best be illustrated. Thus when Elizabeth took her Easter communion at
St. James’s in 1593, she came down, doubtless from her ‘closet’ above,
after the Gospel had been read, ‘into her Majestes Travess’, whence
she emerged to make her offering, and then ‘retorned to her princely
travess sumptuously sett forthe’, until it was time to emerge again and
receive the communion. So too, when the Spanish treaty was sworn in
1604, ‘in the chappell weare two traverses sett up of equall state in
all thinges as neare as might be’. One was the King’s traverse ‘where
he usually sitteth’, the other for the Spanish ambassador, and from
them they proceeded to ‘the halfe pace’ for the actual swearing of
the oath.[83] The traverse figures in several other chapel ceremonies
of the time, and it is by this analogy, rather than as a technical
term of stage-craft, that we must interpret the references to it in
_Godly Queen Hester_. It is not inconceivable that the play, which was
very likely performed by the Chapel, was actually performed in the
chapel.[84] Nor is it inconceivable, also, that the sense of the term
‘traverse’ may have been wide enough to cover the screen at the bottom
of a Tudor hall.

I come now to the group of four mid-century farces, _Gammer Gurton’s
Needle_, _Jack Juggler_, _Ralph Roister Doister_, and _Tom Tyler_,
which literary historians have distinguished from the interludes as
early ‘regular comedies’. No doubt they show traces of Renaissance
influence upon their dramatic handling. But, so far as scenic setting
is concerned, they do not diverge markedly from the interlude type.
Nor is this surprising, since Renaissance comedy, like the classical
comedy upon which it was based, was essentially an affair of continuous
action, in an open place, before a background of houses. _Gammer
Gurton’s Needle_ requires two houses, those of Gammer Gurton and of
Dame Chat; _Jack Juggler_ one, that of Boungrace; _Ralph Roister
Doister_ one, that of Christian Custance. Oddly enough, both _Gammer
Gurton’s Needle_ and _Jack Juggler_ contain indications of the presence
of a post, so placed that it could be used in the action.[85] _Tom
Tyler_, which may have reached us in a sophisticated text, has a
slightly more complicated staging. There are some quite early features.
The locality is ‘this place’ (835), and the audience are asked (18), as
in the much earlier _Youth_, to ‘make them room’. On the other hand, as
in _Mary Magdalene_ and in _The Conflict of Conscience_, there is at
one point (512) a transition from exterior to interior action. Hitherto
it has been in front of Tom’s house; now it is within, and his wife is
in bed. An open _loggia_ here hardly meets the case. The bed demands
some discovery, perhaps by the withdrawal of a curtain.

I am of course aware that the forty-four interludes and the four farces
hitherto dealt with cannot be regarded as forming a homogeneous body
of Court drama. Not one of them, in fact, can be absolutely proved to
have been given at Court. Several of them bear signs of having been
given elsewhere, including at least three of the small number which
present exceptional features.[86] Others lie under suspicion of having
been written primarily for the printing-press, in the hope that any
one who cared to act them would buy copies, and may therefore never
have been given at all; and it is obvious that in such circumstances a
writer might very likely limit himself to demands upon stage-management
far short of what the Court would be prepared to meet.[87] This is all
true enough, but at the same time I see no reason to doubt that the
surviving plays broadly represent the kind of piece that was produced,
at Court as well as elsewhere, until well into Elizabeth’s reign.
Amongst their authors are men, Skelton, Medwall, Rastell, Redford,
Bale, Heywood, Udall, Gascoigne, who were about the Court, and some
of whom we know to have written plays, if not these plays, for the
Court; and the survival of the moral as a Court entertainment is borne
witness to by the Revels Accounts of 1578–9, in which the ‘morrall of
the _Marriage of Mind and Measure_’ still holds its own beside the
classical and romantic histories which had already become fashionable.
As we proceed, however, we come more clearly within the Court sphere.
The lawyers stand very close, in their interests and their amusements,
to the Court, and with the next group of plays, a characteristically
Renaissance one, of four Italianate comedies and four Senecan
tragedies, the lawyers had a good deal to do. Gascoigne’s Gray’s
Inn _Supposes_ is based directly upon one of Ariosto’s epoch-making
comedies, _I Suppositi_, and adopts its staging. Jeffere’s _Bugbears_
and the anonymous _Two Italian Gentlemen_ are similarly indebted
to their models in Grazzini’s _La Spiritata_ and Pasqualigo’s _Il
Fedele_. Each preserves complete unity of place, and the continuous
action in the street before the houses, two or three in number, of the
principal personages, is only varied by occasional colloquies at a door
or window, and in the case of the _Two Italian Gentlemen_ by an episode
of concealment in a tomb which stands in a ‘temple’ or shrine beneath
a burning lamp. Whetstone’s _Promos and Cassandra_, the neo-classical
inspiration of which is advertised in the prefatory epistle, follows
the same formula with a certain freedom of handling. In the first part,
opportunity for a certain amount of interior action is afforded by
two of the three houses; one is a prison, the other a barber’s shop,
presumably an open stall with a door and a flap-down shutter. The third
is the courtesan’s house, on which Serlio insists. This reappears in
the second part and has a window large enough for four women to sit
in.[88] The other houses in this part are a temple with a tomb in it,
and a pageant stage used at a royal entry. The conveniences of exterior
action lead to a convention which often recurs in later plays, by which
royal justice is dispensed in the street. And the strict unity of place
is broken by a scene (iv. 2) which takes place, not like the rest of
the action in the town of Julio, but in a wood through which the actors
are approaching it. Here also we have, I think, the beginnings of a
convention by which action on the extreme edge of a stage, or possibly
on the floor of the hall or on steps leading to the stage, was treated
as a little remote from the place represented by the setting in the
background. The four tragedies were all produced at the Court itself
by actors from the Inns of Court. It is a little curious that the
earliest of the four, _Gorboduc_ (1562), is also the most regardless
of the unity of place. While Acts I and III-V are at the Court of
Gorboduc, Act II is divided between the independent Courts of Ferrex
and Porrex. We can hardly suppose that there was any substantial change
of decoration, and probably the same generalized palace background
served for all three. Here also the convention, classical enough,
rules, by which the affairs of state are conducted in the open. By 1562
the raised stage had clearly established itself. There are no regular
stage-directions in _Gorboduc_, but the stage is often mentioned in the
descriptions of the dumb-shows between the acts, and in the fourth of
these ‘there came from vnder the stage, as though out of hell, three
furies’. Similarly in _Jocasta_ (1566) the stage opens in the dumb-shows
to disclose, at one time a grave, at another the gulf of Curtius.
The action of the play itself is before the palace of Jocasta, but
there are also entrances and exits, which are carefully specified in
stage-directions as being through ‘the gates called Electrae’ and ‘the
gates called Homoloydes’. Perhaps we are to infer that the gates which,
if the stage-manager had Vitruvius in mind, would have stood on the
right and left of the proscenium, were labelled ‘in great letters’ with
their names; and if so, a similar device may have served in _Gorboduc_
to indicate at which of the three Courts action was for the time being
proceeding. _Gismond of Salerne_ has not only a hell, for Megaera, but
also a heaven, for the descent and ascent of Cupid. Like _Jocasta_, it
preserves unity of place, but it has two houses in the background, the
palace of Tancred and an independent ‘chamber’ for Gismond, which is
open enough and deep enough to allow part of the action, with Gismond
lying poisoned and Tancred mourning over her, to take place within it.
_The Misfortunes of Arthur_ is, of course, twenty years later than
the other members of the group. But it is true to type. The action
is in front of three _domus_, the ‘houses’ of Arthur and of Mordred,
which ought not perhaps historically to have been in the same city,
and a cloister. A few years later still, in 1591, Wilmot, one of the
authors of _Gismond of Salerne_, rewrote it as _Tancred and Gismund_.
He did not materially interfere with the old staging, but he added an
epilogue, of which the final couplet runs:

Thus end our sorrowes with the setting sun:
Now draw the curtens for our Scaene is done.

If these lines had occurred in the original version of the play, they
would naturally have been taken as referring to curtains used to cover
and discover Gismond’s death-chamber. But in this point Wilmot has
modified the original action, and has made Gismund take her poison and
die, not in her chamber, but on the open stage. Are we then faced,
as part of the paraphernalia of a Court stage, at any rate by 1591,
with a front curtain--a curtain drawn aside, and not sinking like the
curtains of Ferrara and Rome, but like those curtains used to mark the
beginning and end of a play, rather than to facilitate any changing
of scenes?[89] It is difficult to say. Wilmot, not re-writing for the
stage, may have rewritten loosely. Or the epilogue may after all have
belonged to the first version of the play, and have dropped out of the
manuscript in which that version is preserved. The Revels Accounts
testify that ‘great curtains’ were used in Court plays, but certainly
do not prove that they were used as front curtains. The nearest
approach to a corroboration of Wilmot is to be found in an epigram
which exists in various forms, and is ascribed in some manuscripts to
Sir Walter Raleigh.[90]

What is our life? a play of passion.
Our mirth? the musick of diuision.
Our mothers wombs the tyring houses bee
Where we are drest for liues short comedy.
The earth the stage, heauen the spectator is,
Who still doth note who ere do act amisse.
Our graues, that hyde vs from the all-seeing sun,
Are but drawne curtaynes when the play is done.

If these four comedies and four tragedies were taken alone, it
would, I think, be natural to conclude that, with the Italianized
types of drama, the English Court had also adopted the Italian type
of setting.[91] Certainly the tragedies would fit well enough into
Serlio’s stately façade of palaces, and the comedies into his more
homely group of bourgeois houses, with its open shop, its ‘temple’, and
its discreet abode of a _ruffiana_.[92]

As courtly, beyond doubt, we must treat the main outlook of the choir
companies during their long hegemony of the Elizabethan drama, which
ended with the putting down of Paul’s in 1590. Unfortunately it is not
until the last decade of this period, with the ‘court comedies’ of
Lyly, that we have any substantial body of their work, differentiated
from the interludes and the Italianate comedies, to go upon. The _Damon
and Pythias_ of Richard Edwardes has a simple setting before the gates
of a court. Lyly’s own methods require rather careful analysis.[93] The
locality of _Campaspe_ is throughout at Athens, in ‘the market-place’
(III. ii. 56).[94] On this there are three _domus_: Alexander’s palace,
probably represented by a portico in which he receives visitors, and
from which inmates ‘draw in’ (IV. iii. 32) to get off the stage; a
tub ‘turned towardes the sun’ (I. iii. 12) for Diogenes over which he
can ‘pry’ (V. iii. 21); a shop for Apelles, which has a window (III.
i. 18), outside which a page is posted, and open enough for Apelles
to carry on dialogue with Campaspe (III. iii.; IV. iv), while he
paints her within. These three _domus_ are quite certainly all visible
together, as continuous action can pass from one to another. At one
point (I. iii. 110) the philosophers walk direct from the palace to the
tub; at another (III. iv. 44, 57) Alexander, going to the shop, passes
the tub on the way; at a third (V. iv. 82) Apelles, standing at the
tub, is bidden ‘looke about you, your shop is on fire!’ As Alexander
(V. iv. 71) tells Diogenes that he ‘wil haue thy cabin remoued nerer
to my court’, I infer that the palace and the tub were at opposite
ends of the stage, and the shop in the middle, where the interior
action could best be seen. In _Sapho and Phao_ the unity of place is
not so marked. All the action is more or less at Syracuse, but, with
the exception of one scene (II. iii), the whole of the first two acts
are near Phao’s ferry outside the city. I do not think that the actual
ferry is visible, for passengers go ‘away’ (I. i. 72; ii. 69) to cross,
and no use is made of a ferryman’s house, but somewhere quite near
Sibylla sits ‘in the mouth of her caue’ (II. i. 13), and talks with
Phao.[95] The rest of the action is in the city itself, either before
the palace of Sapho, or within her chamber, or at the forge of Vulcan,
where he is perhaps seen ‘making of the arrowes’ (IV. iv. 33) during a
song. Certainly Sapho’s chamber is practicable. The stage-directions
do not always indicate its opening and shutting. At one point (III.
iii. 1) we simply get ‘Sapho in her bed’ in a list of interlocutors;
at another (IV. i. 20) ‘Exit Sapho’, which can only mean that the door
closes upon her. It was a door, not a curtain, for she tells a handmaid
(V. ii. 101) to ‘shut’ it. Curtains are ‘drawne’ (III. iii. 36; IV.
iii. 95), but these are bed-curtains, and the drawing of them does not
put Sapho’s chamber in or out of action. As in _Campaspe_, there is
interplay between house and house. A long continuous stretch of action,
not even broken by the act-intervals, begins with III. iii and extends
to the end of V. ii, and in the course of this Venus sends Cupid to
Sapho, and herself waits at Vulcan’s forge (V. i. 50). Presently (V.
ii. 45) she gets tired of waiting, and without leaving the stage,
advances to the chamber and says, ‘How now, in Saphoes lap?’ There is
not the same interplay between the city houses and Sibylla’s cave, to
which the last scene of the play returns. I think we must suppose that
two neighbouring spots within the same general locality were shown
in different parts of the stage, and this certainly entails a bolder
use of dramatic foreshortening of distance than the mere crossing the
market-place in _Campaspe_. This foreshortening recurs in _Endymion_.
Most of the action is in an open place which must be supposed to be
near the palace of Cynthia, or at the lunary bank (II. iii. 9), of
Endymion’s slumber, which is also near the palace.[96] It stands in a
grove (IV. iii. 160), and is called a ‘caban’ (IV. iii. 111). Somewhere
also in the open space is, in Act V, the aspen-tree, into which Dipsas
has turned Bagoa and from which she is delivered (V. iii. 283). But
III. ii and IV. i are at the door of ‘the Castle in the Deserte’ (III.
i. 41; ii. 1) and III. iv is also in the desert (cf. V. iii. 35),
before a fountain. This fountain was, however, ‘hard by’ the lunary
bank (IV. ii. 67), and probably the desert was no farther off than
the end of the stage.[97] In _Midas_ the convention of foreshortening
becomes inadequate, and we are faced with a definite change of
locality. The greater part of the play is at the Court of Midas,
presumably in Lydia rather than in Phrygia, although an Elizabethan
audience is not likely to have been punctilious about Anatolian
geography. Some scenes require as background a palace, to which it is
possible to go ‘in’ (I. i. 117; II. ii. 83; III. iii. 104). A temple
of Bacchus may also have been represented, but is not essential. Other
scenes are in a neighbouring spot, where the speaking reeds grow. There
is a hunting scene (IV. i) on ‘the hill Tmolus’ (cf. V. iii. 44). So
far Lyly’s canons of foreshortening are not exceeded. But the last
scene (V. iii) is out of the picture altogether. The opening words are
‘This is Delphos’, and we are overseas, before the temple of Apollo. In
_Galathea_ and in _Love’s Metamorphosis_, on the other hand, unity is
fully achieved. The whole of _Galathea_ may well proceed in a single
spot, on the edge of a wood, before a tree sacred to Neptune, and in
Lincolnshire (I. iv. 12). The sea is hard by, but need not be seen.
The action of _Love’s Metamorphosis_ is rather more diffuse, but an
all-over pastoral setting, such as we see in Serlio’s _scena satirica_,
with scattered _domus_ in different glades, would serve it. Or, as
the management of the Hôtel de Bourgogne would have put it, the stage
is _tout en pastoralle_. There are a tree of Ceres and a temple of
Cupid. These are used successively in the same scene (II. i). Somewhat
apart, on the sea-shore, but close to the wood, dwells Erisichthon.
There is a rock for the Siren, and Erisichthon’s house may also have
been shown.[98] Finally, _Mother Bombie_ is an extreme example of the
traditional Italian comic manner. The action comes and goes, rapidly
for Lyly, in an open place, surrounded by no less than seven houses,
the doors of which are freely used.

Two other Chapel plays furnish sufficient evidence that the type of
staging just described was not Lyly’s and Lyly’s alone.[99] Peele’s
_Arraignment of Paris_ is _tout en pastoralle_. A poplar-tree dominates
the stage throughout, and the only house is a bower of Diana, large
enough to hold the council of gods (381, 915). A trap is required
for the rising and sinking of a golden tree (489) and the ascent of
Pluto (902). Marlowe’s _Dido_ has proved rather a puzzle to editors
who have not fully appreciated the principles on which the Chapel
plays were produced. I think that one side of the stage was arranged
_en pastoralle_, and represented the wood between the sea-shore and
Carthage, where the shipwrecked Trojans land and where later Aeneas
and Dido hunt. Here was the cave where they take shelter from the
storm.[100] Here too must have been the curtained-off _domus_ of
Jupiter.[101] This is only used in a kind of prelude. Of course it
ought to have been in heaven, but the Gods are omnipresent, and it
is quite clear that when the curtain is drawn on Jupiter, Venus, who
has been discoursing with him, is left in the wood, where she then
meets Aeneas (134, 139, 173). The other side of the stage represents
Carthage. Possibly a wall with a gate in it was built across the stage,
dividing off the two regions. In the opening line of Act II, Aeneas
says,

Where am I now? these should be Carthage walles,

and we must think of him as advancing through the wood to the
gate.[102] He is amazed at a carved or printed representation of Troy,
which Virgil placed in a temple of Juno, but which Marlowe probably
thought of as at the gate. He meets other Trojans who have already
reached the city, and they call his attention to Dido’s servitors, who
‘passe through the hall’ bearing a banquet. Evidently he is now within
the city and has approached a _domus_ representing the palace. The
so-called ‘hall’ is probably an open _loggia_. Here Dido entertains
him, and in a later scene (773) points out to him the pictures of her
suitors. There is perhaps an altar in front of the palace, where Iarbas
does his sacrifice (1095), and somewhere close by a pyre is made for
Dido (1692). Either within or without the walls may be the grove in
which Ascanius is hidden while Cupid takes his place.[103] If, as is
more probable, it is without, action passes through the gate when Venus
beguiles him away. It certainly does at the beginning (912, 960) and
end (1085) of the hunt, and again when Aeneas first attempts flight and
Anna brings him back from the sea-shore (1151, 1207).

The plays of the Lylyan school, if one may so call it, seem to me to
illustrate very precisely, on the side of staging, that blend of the
classical and the romantic tempers which is characteristic of the later
Renaissance. The mediaeval instinct for a story, which the Elizabethans
fully shared, is with difficulty accommodated to the form of an action
coherent in place and time, which the Italians had established on the
basis of Latin comedy. The Shakespearian romantic drama is on the
point of being born. Lyly and his fellow University wits deal with
the problem to the best of their ability. They widen the conception
of locality, to a city and its environs instead of a street; and even
then the narrative sometimes proves unmanageable, and the distance
from one end of the stage to the other must represent a foreshortening
of leagues, or even of the crossing of an ocean. In the hands of less
skilful workmen the tendency was naturally accentuated, and plays had
been written, long before Lyly was sent down from Magdalen, in which
the episodes of breathless adventure altogether overstepped the most
elastic confines of locality. A glance at the titles of the plays
presented at Court during the second decade of Elizabeth’s reign will
show the extent to which themes drawn from narrative literature were
already beginning to oust those of the old interlude type.[104] The
new development is apparent in the contributions both of men and of
boys; with this distinction, that the boys find their sources mainly
in the storehouse of classical history and legend, while the men turn
either to contemporary events at home and abroad, or more often to the
belated and somewhat jaded versions, still dear to the Elizabethan
laity, of mediaeval romance. The break-down of the Italian staging must
therefore be regarded from the beginning, as in part at least a result
of the reaction of popular taste upon that of the Court. The noblemen’s
players came to London when the winter set in, and brought with them
the pieces which had delighted _bourgeois_ and village audiences up
and down the land throughout the summer; and on the whole it proved
easier for the Revels officers to adapt the stage to the plays than the
plays to the stage. Nor need it be doubted that, even in so cultivated
a Court as that of Elizabeth, the popular taste was not without its
echoes.

Of all this wealth of forgotten play-making, only five examples
survive; but they are sufficient to indicate the scenic trend.[105]
Their affiliation with the earlier interludes is direct. The ‘vice’ and
other moral abstractions still mingle with the concrete personages,
and the proscenium is still the ‘place’.[106] The simplest setting is
that of _Cambyses_. All is at or within sight of the Persian Court.
If any _domus_ was represented, it was the palace, to which there are
departures (567, 929). Cambyses consults his council (1–125) and there
is a banquet (965–1042) with a ‘boorde’, at the end of which order
is given to ‘take all these things away’.[107] In other episodes the
Court is ‘yonder’ (732, 938); it is only necessary to suppose that they
were played well away from the _domus_. One is in a ‘feeld so green’
(843–937), and a stage-direction tells us ‘Heere trace up and downe
playing’. In another (754–842) clowns are on their way to market.[108]
The only other noteworthy point is that, not for the first nor for
the last time, a post upon the stage is utilized in the action.[109]
_Patient Grissell_, on the other hand, requires two localities. The
more important is Salucia (Saluzzo), where are Gautier’s mansion,
Janickell’s cottage, and the house of Mother Apleyarde, a midwife
(1306). The other is Bullin Lagras (Bologna), where there are two short
episodes (1235–92, 1877–1900) at the house of the Countess of Pango.
There can be little doubt that all the _domus_ were staged at once.
There is direct transfer of action from Gautier’s to the cottage and
back again (612–34; cf. 1719, 2042, 2090). Yet there is some little
distance between, for when a messenger is sent, the foreshortening of
space is indicated by the stage-direction (1835), ‘Go once or twise
about the Staige’.[110] Similarly, unless an ‘Exiunt’ has dropped
out, there is direct transfer (1900) from Bullin Lagras to Salucia.
In _Orestes_ the problem of discrete localities is quite differently
handled. The play falls into five quasi-acts of unequal length, which
are situated successively at Mycenae, Crete, Mycenae, Athens, Mycenae.
For all, as in _Gorboduc_, the same sketchy palace background might
serve, with one interesting and prophetic exception. The middle
episodes (538–925), at Mycenae, afford the first example of those siege
scenes which the Shakespearian stage came to love. A messenger brings
warning to Aegisthus and Clytemnestra of the purpose of Orestes ‘to
inuade this Mycoene Citie stronge’. Aegisthus goes into the ‘realme’,
to take up men, and Clytemnestra will defend the city. There is a
quarrel between a soldier and a woman and the Vice sings a martial
song. Then ‘Horestes entrith with his bande and marcheth about the
stage’. He instructs a Herald, who advances with his trumpeter. ‘Let
y^e trumpet go towarde the Citie and blowe.’ Clytemnestra answers. ‘Let
y^e trumpet leaue soundyng and let Harrauld speake and Clytemnestra
speake ouer y^e wal.’ Summons and defiance follow, and Orestes calls
on his men for an assault. ‘Go and make your liuely battel and let it
be longe, eare you can win y^e Citie, and when you haue won it, let
Horestes bringe out his mother by the armes, and let y^e droum sease
playing and the trumpet also, when she is taken.’ But now Aegisthus
is at hand. ‘Let Egistus enter and set hys men in a raye, and let the
drom play tyll Horestes speaketh.’ There is more fighting, which ends
with the capture and hanging of Aegisthus. ‘Fling him of y^e lader,
and then let on bringe in his mother Clytemnestra; but let her loke
wher Egistus hangeth’. Finally Orestes announces that ‘Enter now we
wyll the citie gate’. In the two other plays the changes of locality
come thick and fast. The action of _Clyomon and Clamydes_ begins in
Denmark, and passes successively to Swabia, to the Forest of Marvels
on the borders of Macedonia, to the Isle of Strange Marshes twenty
days’ sail from Macedonia, to the Forest again, to the Isle again,
to Norway, to the Forest, to the Isle, to the Forest, to a road near
Denmark, to the Isle, to Denmark. Only two _domus_ are needed, a
palace (733) in the Isle, and Bryan Sans Foy’s Castle in the Forest.
This is a prison, with a practicable door and a window, from which
Clamydes speaks (872). At one point Providence descends and ascends
(1550–64). In one of the Forest scenes a hearse is brought in and it
is still there in the next (1450, 1534), although a short Isle scene
has intervened. This looks as though the two ends of the stage may
have been assigned throughout to the two principal localities, the
Forest and the Isle. Some care is taken to let the speakers give the
audience a clue when a new locality is made use of for the first time.
Afterwards the recurrence of characters whom they had already seen
would help them. The Norway episode (1121) is the only one which need
have much puzzled them. But _Clyomon and Clamydes_ may have made use of
a peculiar device, which becomes apparent in the stage-directions of
_Common Conditions_. The play opens in Arabia, where first a spot near
the Court and then a wood are indicated; but the latter part alternates
between Phrygia, near the sea-shore, and the Isle of Marofus. No
_domus_ is necessary, and it must remain uncertain whether the wood
was represented by visualized trees. It is introduced (295) with the
stage-direction, ‘Here enter Sedmond with Clarisia and Condicions
out of the wood’. Similarly Phrygia is introduced (478) with ‘Here
entreth Galiarbus out of Phrygia’, and a few lines later (510) we get
‘Here enter Lamphedon out of Phrygia’. Now it is to be noted that the
episodes which follow these directions are not away from, but in the
wood and Phrygia respectively; and the inference has been drawn that
there were labelled doors, entrance through one of which warned the
spectators that action was about to take place in the locality whose
title the label bore.[111] This theory obtains some plausibility from
the use of the gates Homoloydes and Electrae in _Jocasta_; and perhaps
also from the inscribed house of the _ruffiana_ in Serlio’s _scena
comica_, from the early Terence engravings, and from certain examples
of lettered _mansions_ in French miracle-plays.[112] But of course
these analogies do not go the whole way in support of a practice of
using differently lettered entrances to help out an imagined conversion
of the same ‘place’ into different localities. More direct confirmation
may perhaps be derived from Sidney’s criticism of the contemporary
drama in his _Defence of Poesie_ (_c._ 1583). There are two passages to
be cited.[113] The first forms part of an argument that poets are not
liars. Their feigning is a convention, and is accepted as such by their
hearers. ‘What Childe is there’, says Sidney, ‘that, comming to a Play,
and seeing _Thebes_ written in great letters vpon an olde doore, doth
beleeue that it is _Thebes_?’ Later on he deals more formally with the
stage, as a classicist, writing after the unity of place had hardened
into a doctrine. Even _Gorboduc_ is no perfect tragedy.

‘For it is faulty both in place and time, the two necessary
companions of all corporall actions. For where the stage
should alwaies represent but one place, and the vttermost time
presupposed in it should be, both by _Aristotles_ precept and
common reason, but one day, there is both many dayes, and many
places, inartificially imagined. But if it be so in _Gorboduck_,
how much more in al the rest? where you shal haue _Asia_ of
the one side, and _Affrick_ of the other, and so many other
vnder-kingdoms, that the Player, when he commeth in, must
ever begin with telling where he is, or els the tale wil not
be conceiued. Now ye shal haue three ladies walke to gather
flowers, and then we must beleeue the stage to be a Garden. By
and by, we heare newes of shipwracke in the same place, and
then wee are to blame if we accept it not for a Rock. Vpon the
backe of that, comes out a hidious Monster, with fire and smoke,
and then the miserable beholders are bounde to take it for a
Caue. While in the meantime two Armies flye in, represented with
foure swords and bucklers, and then what harde heart will not
receiue it for a pitched fielde?’

It is evident that the plays which Sidney has mostly in mind, the
‘al the rest’ of his antithesis with _Gorboduc_, are precisely those
romantic histories which the noblemen’s players in particular were
bringing to Court in his day, and of which _Clyomon and Clamydes_ and
_Common Conditions_ may reasonably be taken as the characteristic
débris. He hints at what we might have guessed that, where changes
of scene were numerous, the actual visualization of the different
scenes left much to the imagination. He lays his finger upon the
foreshortening, which permits the two ends of the stage to stand
for localities separated by a considerable distance, and upon the
obligation which the players were under to let the opening phrases of
their dialogue make it clear where they were supposed to be situated.
And it certainly seems from the shorter passage, as if he was also
familiar with an alternative or supplementary device of indicating
locality by great letters on a door. The whole business remains rather
obscure. What happened if the distinct localities were more numerous
than the doors? Were the labels shifted, or were the players then
driven, as Sidney seems to suggest, to rely entirely upon the method
of spoken hints? The labelling of special doors with great letters
must be distinguished from the analogous use of great letters, as
at the _Phormio_ of 1528, to publish the title of a play.[114] That
this practice also survived in Court drama may be inferred from Kyd’s
_Spanish Tragedy_, in which Hieronimo gives a Court play, and bids
his assistant (IV. iii. 17) ‘hang up the Title: Our scene is Rhodes’.
Even if the ‘scene’ formed part of the title in such cases, it would
only name a generalized locality or localities for the play, and would
not serve as a clue to the localization of individual episodes.[115]
A retrospect over this discussion of Tudor staging, which is mainly
Court staging, up to a point well subsequent to the establishment of
the first regular theatres, seems to offer the following results. The
earliest interludes, other than revivals of Plautus and Terence or
elements in spectacular disguisings, limited themselves to the setting
of the hall in which they were performed, with its doors, hearth, and
furniture. In such conditions either exterior or interior action could
be indifferently represented. This arrangement, however, soon ceased
to satisfy, in the Court at any rate, the sixteenth-century love of
decoration; and one or more houses were introduced into the background,
probably on a Renaissance rather than a mediaeval suggestion, through
which, as well as the undifferentiated doors, the personages could
come and go. The addition of an elevated stage enabled traps to be
used (_All for Money_, _Gorboduc_, _Jocasta_, _Gismond of Salerne_,
_Arraignment of Paris_); but here, as in the corresponding device of
a descent from above (_Gismond of Salerne_, _Clyomon and Clamydes_),
it is the mediaeval grading for heaven and hell which lies behind the
Renaissance usage. With houses in the background, the normal action
becomes uniformly exterior. If a visit is paid to a house, conversation
takes place at its door rather than within. The exceptions are rare and
tentative, amounting to little more than the provision of a shallow
recess within a house, from which personages, usually one or two only,
can speak. This may be a window (_Two Italian Gentlemen_, _Promos
and Cassandra_), a prison (_Wit and Wisdom_, _Promos and Cassandra_,
_Clyomon and Clamydes_), a bower (_Misogonus_, _Endymion_, _Dido_,
_Arraignment of Paris_), a tub (_Campaspe_), a shrine or tomb (_Two
Italian Gentlemen_, _Promos and Cassandra_), a shop (_Thersites_,
_Promos and Cassandra_, _Campaspe_, _Sapho and Phao_), a bedchamber
(_Gismund of Salerne_, _Tom Tyler_, _Sapho and Phao_). Somewhat
more difficulty is afforded by episodes in which there is a banquet
(_Mary Magdalene_, _Dido_, _Cambyses_), or a law court (_Conflict
of Conscience_), or a king confers with his councillors (_Midas_,
_Cambyses_). These, according to modern notions, require the setting of
a hall; but my impression is that the Italianized imagination of the
Elizabethans was content to accept them as taking place more or less
out-of-doors, on the steps or in the cortile of a palace, with perhaps
some arcaded _loggia_, such as Serlio suggests, in the background,
which would be employed when the action was supposed to be withdrawn
from the public market-place or street. And this convention I believe
to have lasted well into the Shakespearian period.[116]

The simplicity of this scheme of staging is broken into, when a
mediaeval survival or the popular instinct for storytelling faces
the producer with a plot incapable of continuous presentation in
a single locality. A mere foreshortening of the distance between
houses conceived as surrounding one and the same open _platea_, or as
dispersed in the same wood, is hardly felt as a breach of unity. But
the principle is endangered, when action within a city is diversified
by one or more ‘approach’ episodes, in which the edge of the stage
or the steps leading up to it must stand for a road or a wood in the
environs (_Promos and Cassandra_, _Sapho and Phao_, _Dido_). It is
on the point of abandonment, when the foreshortening is carried so
far that one end of the stage represents one locality and the other
end another at a distance (_Disobedient Child_, _Mary Magdalene_,
_Endymion_, _Midas_, _Patient Grissell_). And it has been abandoned
altogether, when the same background or a part of it is taken to
represent different localities in different episodes, and ingenuity
has to be taxed to find means of informing the audience where any
particular bit of action is proceeding (_Gorboduc_, _Orestes_, _Clyomon
and Clamydes_, _Common Conditions_).[117]

After considering the classicist group of comedies and tragedies, I
suggested that these, taken by themselves, would point to a method of
staging at the Elizabethan Court not unlike that recommended by Serlio.
The more comprehensive survey now completed points to some revision
of that judgement. Two localities at opposite ends of the stage could
not, obviously, be worked into a continuous architectural façade. They
call for something more on the lines of the multiple setting of the
Hôtel de Bourgogne, although the width of the Elizabethan palace halls
may perhaps have accommodated a longer stage than that of the Hôtel,
and permitted of a less crude juxtaposition of the houses belonging to
distinct localities than Mahelot offers us. Any use of perspective, for
which there is some Elizabethan evidence, was presumably within the
limits of one locality.[118]

The indications of the Revels Accounts, scanty as they are, are not
inconsistent with those yielded by the plays.[119] If the _Orestes_
of 1567–8, as may reasonably be supposed, was Pikeryng’s, his ‘howse’
must have been the common structure used successively for Mycenae,
Crete, and Athens. The ‘Scotland and a gret Castell on thothere side’
give us the familiar arrangement for two localities. I think that the
‘city’ of the later accounts may stand for a group of houses on one
street or market-place, and a ‘mountain’ or ‘wood’ for a setting _tout
en pastoralle_. There were tents for _A Game of the Cards_ in 1582–3,
as in _Jacob and Esau_, a prison for _The Four Sons of Fabius_ in
1579–80, as in several extant plays. I cannot parallel from any early
survival the senate house for the _Quintus Fabius_ of 1573–4, but this
became a common type of scene at a later date. These are recessed
houses, and curtains, quite distinct from the front curtain, if any,
were provided by the Revels officers to open and close them, as the
needs of the action required. Smaller structures, to which the accounts
refer, are also needed by the plays; a well by _Endymion_, a gibbet by
_Orestes_, a tree by _The Arraignment of Paris_, and inferentially by
all pastoral, and many other plays. The brief record of 1567–8 does not
specify the battlement or gated wall, solid enough for Clytemnestra
to speak ‘ouer y^e wal’, which was a feature in the siege episode of
_Orestes_. Presumably it was part of the ‘howse’, which is mentioned,
and indeed it would by itself furnish sufficient background for the
scenes alike at Mycenae, Crete, and Athens. If it stood alone, it
probably extended along the back of the stage, where it would interfere
least with the arrays of Orestes and of Aegisthus. But in the accounts
of 1579–85, the plays, of which there are many, with battlements also,
as a rule, have cities, and here we must suppose some situation for
the battlement which will not interfere with the city. If it stood for
the gate and wall of some other city, it may have been reared at an
opposite end of the stage. In _Dido_, where the gate of Troy seems to
have been shown, although there is no action ‘ouer’ it, I can visualize
it best as extending across the middle of the stage from back to
front. With an unchanging setting it need not always have occupied
the same place. The large number of plays between 1579 and 1585 which
required battlements, no less than fourteen out of twenty-eight in all,
is rather striking. No doubt the assault motive was beloved in the
popular type of drama, of which _Orestes_ was an early representative.
A castle in a wood, where a knight is imprisoned, is assaulted in
_Clyomon and Clamydes_, and the Shakespearian stage never wearied of
the device. I have sometimes thought that with the Revels officers
‘battlement’ was a technical term for any platform provided for action
at a higher level than the floor of the stage. Certainly a battlement
was provided in 1585 for an entertainment which was not a play at all,
but a performance of feats of activities.[120] But as a matter of fact
raised action, so common in the Shakespearian period, is extremely
rare in these early plays. With the exceptions of Clytemnestra peering
over her wall, and the descents from heaven in _Gismond of Salerne_
and _Clyomon and Clamydes_, which may of course have been through
the roof rather than from a platform, the seventy or so plays just
discussed contain nothing of the kind. There are, however, two plays
still to be mentioned, in which use is made of a platform, and one of
these gives some colour to my suggestion. In 1582 Derby’s men played
_Love and Fortune_ at Court, and a city and a battlement, together with
some other structure of canvas, the name of which is left blank, were
provided. This may reasonably be identified with the _Rare Triumphs
of Love and Fortune_, which claims on its title-page of 1589 to have
been played before the Queen. It is a piece of the romantic type. The
action is divided between a court and a cave in a wood, which account
for the city and the unnamed structure of the Revels record. They were
evidently shown together, at opposite ends of the stage, for action
passes directly from one to the other. There is no assault scene. But
there is an induction, in which the gods are in assembly, and Tisiphone
arises from hell. At the end of it Jupiter says to Venus and Fortune:

Take up your places here, to work your will,

and Vulcan comments:

They are set sunning like a crow in a gutter.

They remain as spectators of the play until they ‘shew themselves’ and
intervene in the _dénouement_. Evidently they are in a raised place
or balcony. And this balcony must be the battlement. An exact analogy
is furnished by the one of Lyly’s plays to which I have not as yet
referred. This is _The Woman in the Moon_, Lyly’s only verse play, and
possibly of later date than his group of productions with the Paul’s
boys. The first act has the character of an induction. Nature and the
seven Planets are on the stage and ‘They draw the curtins from before
Natures shop’. During the other four there is a human action in a
pastoral setting with a cave, beneath which is a trap, a grove on the
bank of Enipeus, and a spot near the sea-shore. And throughout one or
other of the Planets is watching the play from a ‘seate’ (II. 176; III.
i. 1) above, between which and the stage they ‘ascend’ and ‘descend’
(I. 138, 230; II. 174, 236; III. ii. 35; IV. 3).

STAGING IN THE THEATRES: SIXTEENTH CENTURY

[For _Bibliographical Note_, _vide_ ch. xviii.]

In dealing with the groups of plays brought under review in the
last chapter, the main problem considered has been that of their
adaptability to the conditions of a Court stage. In the present chapter
the point of view must be shifted to that of the common theatres.
Obviously no hard and fast line is to be drawn. There had been regular
public performances in London since the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign
or earlier, and there is no reason to suppose that the adult companies
at least did not draw upon the same repertory both for popular and for
private representation. But there is not much profit in attempting
to investigate the methods of staging in the inns, of which we know
nothing more than that quasi-permanent structures of carpenter’s work
came in time to supplement the doors, windows, and galleries which
surrounded the yards; and so far as the published plays go, it is
fairly apparent that, up to the date of the suppression of Paul’s, the
Court, or at any rate the private, interest was the dominating one. A
turning-point may be discerned in 1576, at the establishment, on the
one hand of the Theatre and the Curtain, and on the other of Farrant’s
house in the Blackfriars. It is not likely that the Blackfriars
did more than reproduce the conditions of a courtly hall. But the
investment of capital in the Theatre and the Curtain was an incident
in the history of the companies, the economic importance of which has
already been emphasized in an earlier discussion.[121] It was followed
by the formation of strong theatrical organizations in the Queen’s men,
the Admiral’s, Strange’s, the Chamberlain’s. For a time the economic
changes are masked by the continued vogue of the boy companies; but
when these dropped out at the beginning of the ’nineties, it is clear
that the English stage had become a public stage, and that the eyes of
its controllers were fixed primarily upon the pence gathered by the
box-holders, and only secondarily upon the rewards of the Treasurer of
the Chamber.

The first play published ‘as it was publikely acted’ is the
_Troublesome Raigne of John_ of 1591, and henceforward I think it
is true to say that the staging suggested by the public texts and
their directions in the main represents the arrangements of the
public theatres. There is no sudden breach of continuity with the
earlier period, but that continuity is far greater with the small
group of popular plays typified by _Clyomon and Clamydes_ and _Common
Conditions_, than with anything which Lyly and his friends produced
at Paul’s or the Blackfriars. Again it is necessary to beware of
any exaggeration of antithesis. There is one Chapel play, _The Wars
of Cyrus_, the date of which is obscure, and the setting of which
certainly falls on the theatre rather than the Court side of any
border-line. On the other hand, the Queen’s men and their successors
continued to serve the Court, and one of the published Queen’s plays,
_The Old Wive’s Tale_, was evidently staged in a way exactly analogous
to that adopted by Lyly, or by Peele himself in _The Arraignment of
Paris_. It is _tout en pastoralle_, and about the stage are dispersed a
hut with a door, at the threshold of which presenters sit to watch the
main action (71, 128, 1163), a little hill or mound with a practicable
turf (512, 734, 1034), a cross (173, 521), a ‘well of life’ (743,
773), an inn before which a table is set (904, 916), and a ‘cell’ or
‘studie’ for the conjurer, before which ‘he draweth a curten’ (411,
773, 1060).[122] Of one other play by Peele it is difficult to take
any account in estimating evidence as to staging. This is _David and
Bethsabe_, of which the extant text apparently represents an attempt to
bring within the compass of a single performance a piece or fragments
of a piece originally written in three ‘discourses’. I mention it here,
because somewhat undue use has been made of its opening direction in
speculations as to the configuration of the back wall of the public
stage.[123] It uses the favourite assault motive, and has many changes
of locality. The title-page suggests that in its present form it was
meant for public performance. But almost anything may lie behind that
present form, possibly a Chapel play, possibly a University play, or
even a neo-miracle in the tradition of Bale; and the staging of any
particular scene may contain original elements, imperfectly adapted to
later conditions.

Counting in _The Wars of Cyrus_ then, and counting out _The Old Wive’s
Tale_ and _David and Bethsabe_, there are about seventy-four plays
which may reasonably be taken to have been presented upon common
stages, between the establishment of the Queen’s men in 1583 and the
building of the Globe for the Chamberlain’s men in 1599 and of the
Fortune for the Admiral’s men in 1600. With a few exceptions they were
also published during the same period, and the scenic arrangements
implied by their texts and stage-directions may therefore be looked
upon as those of the sixteenth-century theatres. These form the
next group for our consideration. Of the seventy-four plays, the
original production of nine may with certainty or fair probability be
assigned to the Queen’s men, of two to Sussex’s, five to Pembroke’s,
fourteen to Strange’s or the Admiral’s or the two in combination,
thirteen to the Admiral’s after the combination broke up, seventeen
to the Chamberlain’s, three to Derby’s, one to Oxford’s, and one to
the Chapel; nine must remained unassigned.[124] It is far less easy
to make a guess at the individual theatre whose staging each play
represents. The migrations of the companies before 1594 in the main
elude us. Thereafter the Admiral’s were settled at the Rose until 1600.
The Chamberlain’s may have passed from the Theatre to the Curtain
about 1597. The habitations of the other later companies are very
conjectural. Moreover, plays were carried from theatre to theatre,
and even transferred from company to company. _Titus Andronicus_,
successively presented by Pembroke’s, Strange’s, Sussex’s, and the
Chamberlain’s, is an extreme case in point. The ideal method would have
been to study the staging of each theatre separately, before coming to
any conclusion as to the similarity or diversity of their arrangements.
This is impracticable, and I propose therefore to proceed on the
assumption that the stages of the Theatre, the Curtain, and the Rose
were in their main features similar. For this there is an _a priori_
argument in the convenience of what Mr. Archer calls a ‘standardisation
of effects’, especially at a time when the bonds between companies and
theatres were so loose.[125] Moreover, the Theatre and the Curtain
were built at much the same date, and although there was room for
development in the art of theatrical architecture before the addition
of the Rose, I am unable, after a careful examination of the relevant
plays, to lay my finger upon any definite new feature which Henslowe
can be supposed to have introduced. It is exceedingly provoking that
the sixteenth-century repertory of the Swan has yielded nothing which
can serve as a _point de liaison_ between De Witt’s drawing and the
mass of extant texts.

It will be well to begin with some analysis of the various types of
scene which the sixteenth-century managers were called upon to produce;
and these may with advantage be arranged according to the degree of
use which they make of a structural background.[126] There are, of
course, a certain number of scenes which make no use of a background
at all, and may in a sense be called unlocated scenes--mere bits of
conversation which might be carried on between the speakers wherever
they happened to meet, and which give no indication of where that
meeting is supposed to be. Perhaps these scenes are not so numerous as
is sometimes suggested.[127] At any rate it must be borne in mind that
they were located to the audience, who saw them against a background,
although, if they were kept well to the front or side of the stage,
their relation to that background would be minimized.

A great many scenes are in what may be called open country--in a
road, a meadow, a grove, a forest, a desert, a mountain, a sea-shore.
The personages are travelling, or hunting, or in outlawry, or merely
taking the air. The background does not generally include a house in
the stricter sense; but there may be a cottage,[128] a hermit’s or
friar’s cell,[129] a rustic bower,[130] a cave,[131] a beacon.[132]
Even where there is no evidence, in dialogue or stage-directions,
for a dwelling, a table or board may be suddenly forthcoming for a
banquet.[133] There may be a fountain or well,[134] and a few scenes
seem to imply the presence of a river.[135] But often there is no
suggestion of any surroundings but rocks or trees, and the references
to the landscape, which are frequently put in the mouths of speakers,
have been interpreted as intended to stimulate the imagination of
spectators before whose eyes no representation, or a very imperfect
representation, of wilderness or woodland had been placed.[136] But
it is not likely that this literary artifice was alone relied upon,
and in some cases practicable trees or rocks are certainly required
by the action and must have been represented.[137] There are plays
which are set continuously in the open country throughout, or during a
succession of scenes, and are thus analogous to Court plays _tout en
pastoralle_. But there are others in which the open-country scenes are
only interspersed among scenes of a different type.[138]

Nothing was more beloved by a popular audience, especially in an
historical play or one of the _Tamburlaine_ order, than an episode
of war. A war scene was often only a variety of the open-country scene.
Armies come and go on the road, and a battle naturally takes place in
more or less open ground. It may be in a wood, or a tree or river may
be introduced.[139] Obviously large forces could not be shown on the
stage.

We shall much disgrace,
With four or five most vile and ragged foils,
Right ill disposed in brawl ridiculous,
The name of Agincourt.[140]

The actual fighting tended to be sketchy and symbolical. There were
alarums and excursions, much beating of drums and blowing of trumpets.
But the stage was often only on the outskirts of the main battle.[141]
It served for a duel of protagonists, or for a flight and pursuit of
stragglers; and when all was over a triumphant train marched across it.
There may be a succession of ‘excursions’ of this kind, in which the
stage may be supposed, if you like, to stand for different parts of a
battle-field.[142] Battle scenes have little need for background; the
inn at St. Albans in _Henry VI_ is an exception due to the fulfilment
of an oracular prophecy.[143] A more natural indication of _milieu_ is
a tent, and battle scenes merge into camp scenes, in which the tents
are sometimes elaborate pavilions, with doors and even locks to the
doors. Seats and tables may be available, and the action is clearly
sometimes within an opened tent.[144] Two opposing camps can be
concurrently represented, and action may alternate between them.[145]
Another kind of background is furnished, as in _Orestes_, by the walls
of a besieged city. On these walls the defenders can appear and parley
with the besieging host. They can descend and open the gates.[146] They
can shoot, and be shot at from below.[147] The walls can be taken by
assault and the defenders can leap from them.[148] Such scenes had an
unfailing appeal, and are sometimes repeated, before different cities,
in the same play.[149]

Several scenes, analogous in some ways to those in the open country,
are set in a garden, an orchard, a park. These also sometimes utilize
tents.[150] Alternative shelter may be afforded by an arbour or bower,
which facilitates eavesdropping.[151] The presence of trees, banks, or
herbs is often required or suggested.[152] As a rule, the neighbourhood
of a dwelling is implied, and from this personages may issue, or may
hold discourse with those outside. Juliet’s balcony, overlooking
Capulet’s orchard, is a typical instance.[153] A banquet may be brought
out and served in the open.[154]

The next great group of scenes consists of those which pass in some
public spot in a city--in a street, a market-place, or a churchyard.
Especially if the play is located in or near London, this may be
a definite and familiar spot--Cheapside, Lombard Street, Paul’s
Churchyard, Westminster.[155] Often the action is self-sufficient and
the background merely suggestive or decorative. A procession passes;
a watch is set; friends meet and converse; a stranger asks his way.
But sometimes a structure comes into use. There is a scaffold for an
execution.[156] Lists are set, and there must be at least a raised
place for the judge, and probably a barrier.[157] One street scene
in _Soliman and Perseda_ is outside a tiltyard; another close to an
accessible tower.[158] Bills may be set up.[159] In _Lord Cromwell_
this is apparently done on a bridge, and twice in this play it is
difficult to resist the conclusion, already pointed to in certain
open-country scenes, that some kind of representation of a river-side
was feasible.[160] In Rome there are scenes in which the dialogue is
partly amongst senators in the capitol and partly amongst citizens
within ear-shot outside.[161] A street may provide a corner, again,
whence passers-by can be overheard or waylaid.[162] And in it, just
as well as in a garden, a lover may hold an assignation, or bring a
serenade before the window of his mistress.[163] A churchyard, or in
a Roman play a market-place, may hold a tomb.[164] Finally one or more
shops may be visible, and action may take place within them as well as
before them.[165] Such a shop would, of course, be nothing more than a
shallow stall, with an open front for the display of wares, which may
be closed by a shutter or flap from above.[166] It may also, like the
inn in _Henry VI_, have a sign.[167]

Where there is a window, there can of course be a door, and street
scenes very readily become threshold scenes. I do not think that it
has been fully realized how large a proportion of the action of
Elizabethan plays passes at the doors of houses; and as a result
the problem of staging, difficult enough anyhow, has been rendered
unnecessarily difficult. Here we have probably to thank the editors
of plays, who have freely interspersed their texts with notes of
locality, which are not in the original stage-directions, and, with
eighteenth-century models before them, have tended to assume that
action at a house is action in some room within that house. The
playwrights, on the other hand, followed the neo-classic Italian
tradition, and for them action at a house was most naturally action
before the door of that house. If a man visited his friend he was
almost certain to meet him on the doorstep; and here domestic
discussions, even on matters of delicacy, commonly took place. Here
too, of course, meals might be served.[168] A clue to this convention
is afforded by the numerous passages in which a servant or other
personage is brought on to the stage by a ‘Who’s within?’ or a call
to ‘Come forth!’ or in which an episode is wound up by some such
invitation as ‘Let us in!’ No doubt such phrases remain appropriate
when it is merely a question of transference between an outer room
and an inner; and no doubt also the point of view of the personages
is sometimes deflected by that of the actors, to whom ‘in’ means ‘in
the tiring-room’ and ‘out’ means ‘on the stage’.[169] But, broadly
speaking, the frequency of their use points to a corresponding
frequency of threshold scenes; and, where there is a doubt, they
should, I think, be interpreted in the light of that economy of
interior action which was very evident in the mid-sixteenth-century
plays, and in my opinion continued to prevail after the opening
of the theatres. The use of a house door was so frequent that the
stage-directions do not, as a rule, trouble to specify it.[170] Two
complications are, however, to be observed. Sometimes, in a scene
which employs the ‘Let us in!’ formula, or on other ground looks like
a threshold scene, we are suddenly pulled up either by a suggestion
of the host that we are ‘in’ his house or under his roof, or by an
indication that persons outside are to be brought ‘in’.[171] The first
answer is, I think, that the threshold is not always a mere doorstep
opening from the street; it may be something of the nature of a porch
or even a lobby, and that you may fairly be said to be under a man’s
roof when you are in his porch.[172] The second is that in some
threshold scenes the stage was certainly regarded as representing a
courtyard, shut off from the street or road by an outer gate, through
which strangers could quite properly be supposed to come ‘in’.[173]
Such courtyard scenes are not out of place, even before an ordinary
private house; still less, of course, when the house is a castle, and
in a castle courtyard scene we get very near the scenes with ‘walls’
already described.[174] Some prison scenes, in the Tower or elsewhere,
are apparently of this type, although others seem to require interior
action in a close chamber or even a dungeon.[175] Threshold scenes may
also be before the outer gate of a palace or castle, where another
analogy to assault scenes presents itself;[176] or before a church or
temple, a friar’s cell, an inn, a stable, or the like.[177] Nor are
shop scenes, since a shop may be a mere adjunct to a house, really
different in kind.

The threshold theory must not be pushed to a disregard of the clear
evidence for a certain amount of interior action. We have already come
across examples of shallow recesses, such as a tent, a cave, a bower, a
tomb, a shop, a window, within which, or from within which, personages
can speak. There are also scenes which must be supposed to take
place within a room. In dealing with these, I propose to distinguish
between spacious hall scenes and limited chamber scenes. Hall scenes
are especially appropriate to palaces. Full value should no doubt be
given to the extension in a palace of a porch to a portico, and to the
convention, which kings as well as private men follow in Elizabethan
plays, especially those located in Italian or Oriental surroundings, of
transacting much important business more or less out-of-doors.[178] The
characteristic Roman ‘senate house’, already described, is a case in
point.[179] But some scenes must be in a closed presence-chamber.[180]
Others are in a formal council room or parliament house. The conception
of a hall, often with a numerous company, cannot therefore be
altogether excluded. Nor are halls confined to palaces. They must be
assumed for law courts.[181] There are scenes in such buildings as the
London Exchange, Leadenhall, the Regent House at Oxford.[182] There
are scenes in churches or heathen temples and in monasteries.[183]
There are certainly also hall scenes in castles or private houses,
and it is sometimes a matter of taste whether you assume a hall scene
or a threshold scene.[184] Certain features of hall scenes may be
enumerated. Personages can go into, or come forth from, an inner room.
They can be brought in from without.[185] Seats are available, and
a chair or ‘state’ for a sovereign.[186] A law court has its ‘bar’.
Banquets can be served.[187] Masks may come dancing in.[188] Even a
play ‘within a play’ can be presented; that of Bottom and his fellows
in ‘the great chamber’ of Theseus’ palace is an example.[189]

My final group is formed by the chamber scenes, in which the action
is clearly regarded as within the limits of an ordinary room. They
are far from numerous, in proportion to the total number of scenes in
the seventy-three plays, and in view of their importance in relation
to staging all for which there is clear evidence must be put upon
record. Most of them fall under two or three sub-types, which tend to
repeat themselves. The commonest are perhaps bedchamber scenes.[190]
These, like prison scenes, which are also frequent, give opportunity
for tragic episodes of death and sickness.[191] There are scenes
in living-rooms, often called ‘studies’.[192] A lady’s bower,[193]
a counting-house,[194] an inn parlour,[195] a buttery,[196] a
gallery,[197] may also be represented.

This then is the practical problem, which the manager of an
Elizabethan theatre had to solve--the provision of settings, not
necessarily so elaborate or decorative as those of the Court, but
at least intelligible, for open country scenes, battle and siege
scenes, garden scenes, street and threshold scenes, hall scenes,
chamber scenes. Like the Master of the Revels, he made far less use
of interior action than the modern or even the Restoration producer
of plays; but he could not altogether avoid it, either on the larger
scale of a hall scene, in which a considerable number of persons had
occasionally to be staged for a parliament or a council or the like,
or on the smaller scale when only a few persons had to be shown in
a chamber, or in the still shallower enclosure which might stand as
part of a mainly out-of-doors setting for a cell, a bower, a cave, a
tent, a senate house, a window, a tomb, a shop, a porch, a shrine, a
niche.[198] Even more than the Master of the Revels, he had to face
the complication due to the taste of an English audience for romantic
or historical drama, and the changes of locality which a narrative
theme inevitably involved. Not for him, except here and there in a
comedy, that blessed unity of place upon which the whole dramatic art
of the Italian neo-classic school had been built up. Our corresponding
antiquarian problem is to reconstruct, so far as the evidence permits,
the structural resources which were at the Elizabethan manager’s
disposal for the accomplishment of his task. As material we have the
numerous indications in dialogue and stage-directions with which the
footnotes to this chapter are groaning; we have such contemporary
allusions as those of Dekker’s _Gull’s Hornbook_; we have the débris of
Philip Henslowe’s business memoranda; we have the tradition inherited
from the earlier Elizabethan period, for all the types of scene usual
in the theatres had already made their appearance before the theatres
came into existence; to a much less degree, owing to the interposition
of the roofed and rectangular Caroline theatre, we have also the
tradition bequeathed to the Restoration; and as almost sole graphic
presentment we have that drawing of the Swan theatre by Johannes de
Witt, which has already claimed a good deal of our consideration, and
to which we shall have to return from time to time, as a _point de
repère_, in the course of the forthcoming discussion. It is peculiarly
unfortunate that of all the seventy-three plays, now under review,
not one can be shown to have been performed at the Swan, and that the
only relics of the productions at that house, the plot of _England’s
Joy_ of 1602 and Middleton’s _Chaste Maid in Cheapside_ of 1611, stand
at such a distance of time from DeWitt’s drawing as not to exclude
the hypothesis of an intermediate reconstruction of its stage. One
other source of information, which throws a sidelight or two upon the
questions at issue, I will here deal with at more length, because it
has been a good deal overlooked. The so-called ‘English Wagner Book’
of 1594, which contains the adventures of Wagner after the death of
his master Faustus, although based upon a German original, is largely
an independent work by an author who shows more than one sign of
familiarity with the English theatre.[199] The most important of these
is in chapter viii, which is headed ‘The Tragedy of Doctor Faustus
seene in the Ayre, and acted in the presence of a thousand people of
Wittenberg. An. 1540’. It describes, not an actual performance, but an
aerial vision produced by Wagner’s magic arts for the bewilderment of
an imperial pursuivant. The architecture has therefore, no doubt, its
elements of fantasy. Nevertheless, it is our nearest approach to a pen
picture of an Elizabethan stage, whereby to eke out that of De Witt’s
pencil.

‘They might distinctly perceiue a goodlye Stage to be reard
(shining to sight like the bright burnish golde) uppon many a
faire Pillar of clearest Cristall, whose feete rested uppon the
Arch of the broad Raynebow, therein was the high Throne wherein
the King should sit, and that prowdly placed with two and twenty
degrees to the top, and round about curious wrought chaires for
diverse other Potentates, there might you see the ground-worke
at the one end of the Stage whereout the personated divels
should enter in their fiery ornaments, made like the broad wide
mouth of an huge Dragon ... the teeth of this Hels-mouth far
out stretching.... At the other end in opposition was seene the
place where in the bloudlesse skirmishes are so often perfourmed
on the Stage, the Wals ... of ... Iron attempered with the most
firme steele ... environed with high and stately Turrets of the
like metall and beautye, and hereat many in-gates and out-gates:
out of each side lay the bended Ordinaunces, showing at their
wide hollowes the crueltye of death: out of sundry loopes many
large Banners and Streamers were pendant, brieflye nothing was
there wanting that might make it a faire Castle. There might
you see to be short the Gibbet, the Posts, the Ladders, the
tiring-house, there everything which in the like houses either
use or necessity makes common. Now above all was there the gay
Clowdes _Vsque quaque_ adorned with the heavenly firmament, and
often spotted with golden teares which men callen Stars. There
was lively portrayed the whole Imperiall Army of the faire
heavenly inhabitaunts.... This excellent faire Theator erected,
immediatly after the third sound of the Trumpets, there entreth
in the Prologue attired in a blacke vesture, and making his
three obeysances, began to shew the argument of that Scenicall
Tragedy, but because it was so far off they could not understand
the wordes, and having thrice bowed himselfe to the high Throne,
presently vanished.’

The action of the play is then described. Devils issue from hell mouth
and besiege the castle. Faustus appears on the battlements and defies
them. Angels descend from heaven to the tower and are dismissed by
Faustus. The devils assault the castle, capture Faustus and raze the
tower. The great devil and all the imperial rulers of hell occupy the
throne and chairs and dispute with Faustus. Finally,

‘Faustus ... leapt down headlong of the stage, the whole company
immediatly vanishing, but the stage with a most monstrous
thundering crack followed Faustus hastely, the people verily
thinking that they would have fallen uppon them ran all away.’

The three salient features of the Swan stage, as depicted by De Witt,
are, firstly the two pairs of folding doors in the back wall; secondly,
the ‘heavens’ supported on posts, which give the effect of a division
of the space into a covered rear and an uncovered front; and thirdly,
the gallery or row of boxes, which occupies the upper part of the back
wall. Each of these lends itself to a good deal of comment. The two
doors find abundant confirmation from numerous stage-directions, which
lead up to the favourite dramatic device of bringing in personages from
different points to meet in the centre of the stage. The formula which
agrees most closely with the drawing is that which directs entrance
‘at one door’ and ‘at the other door’, and is of very common use.[200]
But there are a great many variants, which are used, as for example
in the plot of _2 Seven Deadly Sins_, with such indifference as to
suggest that no variation of structure is necessarily involved.[201]
Thus an equally common antithesis is that between ‘one door’ and, not
‘the other door’, but ‘an other door’.[202] Other analogous expressions
are ‘one way’ and ‘at an other door’, ‘one way’ and ‘another way’,
‘at two sundry doors’, ‘at diverse doors’, ‘two ways’, ‘met by’;[203]
or again, ‘at several doors’, ‘several ways’, ‘severally’.[204] There
is a divergence, however, from De Witt’s indications, when we come
upon terminology which suggests that more than two doors may have
been available for entrances, a possibility with which the references
to ‘one door’ and ‘an other’ are themselves not inconsistent. Thus
in one of the _2 Seven Deadly Sins_ variants, after other personages
have entered ‘seuerall waies’, we find ‘Gorboduk entreing in the midst
between’. There are other examples of triple entrance in _Fair Em_,
in _Patient Grissell_, and in _The Trial of Chivalry_, although it
is not until the seventeenth century that three doors are in so many
words enumerated.[205] We get entrance ‘at every door’, however, in
_The Downfall of Robin Hood_, and this, with other more disputable
phrases, might perhaps be pressed into an argument that even three
points of entrance did not exhaust the limits of practicability.[206]
It should be added that, while doors are most commonly indicated as the
avenue of entrance, this is not always the case. Sometimes personages
are said to enter from one or other ‘end’, or ‘side’, or ‘part’ of
the stage.[207] I take it that the three terms have the same meaning,
and that the ‘end’ of a stage wider than its depth is what we should
call its ‘side’. A few minor points about doors may be noted, and
the discussion of a difficulty may be deferred.[208] Some entrances
were of considerable size; an animal could be ridden on and off.[209]
There were practicable and fairly solid doors; in _A Knack to Know an
Honest Man_, a door is taken off its hinges.[210] And as the doors give
admittance indifferently to hall scenes and to out-of-door scenes,
it is obvious that the term, as used in the stage-directions, often
indicates a part of the theatrical structure rather than a feature
properly belonging to a garden or woodland background.[211]

Some observations upon the heavens have already been made in an earlier
chapter.[212] I feel little doubt that, while the supporting posts
had primarily a structural object, and probably formed some obstacle
to the free vision of the spectators, they were occasionally worked
by the ingenuity of the dramatists and actors into the ‘business’ of
the plays. The hints for such business are not very numerous, but they
are sufficient to confirm the view that the Swan was not the only
sixteenth-century theatre in which the posts existed. Thus in a street
scene of _Englishmen for my Money_ and in an open country scene of _Two
Angry Women of Abingdon_ we get episodes in which personages groping
in the darkness stumble up against posts, and the second of these is
particularly illuminating, because the victim utters a malediction
upon the carpenter who set the post up, which a carpenter may have
done upon the stage, but certainly did not do in a coney burrow.[213]
In _Englishmen for my Money_ the posts are taken for maypoles, and
there are two of them. There are two of them also in _Three Lords
and Three Ladies of London_, a post and ‘the contrarie post’, and
to one of them a character is bound, just as Kempe tells us that
pickpockets taken in a theatre were bound.[214] The binding to a post
occurs also in _Soliman and Perseda_.[215] In _James IV_ and in _Lord
Cromwell_ bills are set up on the stage, and for this purpose the posts
would conveniently serve.[216] All these are out-of-door scenes, but
there was a post in the middle of a warehouse in _Every Man In his
Humour_, and Miles sits down by a post during one of the scenes in the
conjurer’s cell in _Bacon and Bungay_.[217] I am not oblivious of the
fact that there were doubtless other structural posts on the stage
besides those of the heavens, but I do not see how they can have been
so conspicuous or so well adapted to serve in the action.[218] Posts
may have supported the gallery, but I find it difficult to visualize
the back of the stage without supposing these to have been veiled by
the hangings. But two of them may have become visible when the hangings
were drawn, or some porch-like projection from the back wall may have
had its posts, and one of these may be in question, at any rate in the
indoor scenes.

The roof of the heavens was presumably used to facilitate certain
spectacular effects, the tradition of which the public theatres
inherited from the miracle-plays and the Court stage.[219] Startling
atmospheric phenomena were not infrequently represented.[220] These
came most naturally in out-of-door scenes, but I have noted one example
in a scene which on general grounds one would classify as a hall
scene.[221] The illusion may not have gone much beyond a painted cloth
drawn under the roof of the heavens.[222] More elaborate machinery may
have been entailed by aerial ascents and descents, which were also
not uncommon. Many Elizabethan actors were half acrobats, and could
no doubt fly upon a wire; but there is also clear evidence for the
use of a chair let down from above.[223] And was the arrangement of
cords and pulleys required for this purpose also that by which the
chair of state, which figures in so many hall scenes and even a few
out-of-door scenes, was put into position?[224] Henslowe had a throne
made in the heavens of the Rose in 1595.[225] Jonson sneered at the
jubilation of boyhood over the descent of the creaking chair.[226] The
device would lighten the labours of the tire-man, for a state would be
an awkward thing to carry on and off. It would avoid the presence of
a large incongruous property on the stage during action to which it
was inappropriate. And it would often serve as a convenient signal
for the beginning or ending of a hall scene. But to this aspect of the
matter I must return.[227] Whatever the machinery, it must have been
worked in some way from the upper part of the tire-house; possibly from
the somewhat obscure third floor, which De Witt’s drawing leaves to
conjecture; possibly from the superstructure known as the hut, if that
really stood further forward than De Witt’s drawing suggests. Perhaps
the late reference to Jove leaning on his elbows in the garret, or
employed to make squibs and crackers to grace the play, rather points
to the former hypothesis.[228] In favour of the latter, for what it
is worth, is the description, also late, of a theatre set up by the
English actors under John Spencer at Regensburg in 1613. This had a
lower stage for music, over that a main stage thirty feet high with a
roof supported by six great pillars, and under the roof a quadrangular
aperture, through which beautiful effects were contrived.[229]

There has been a general abandonment of the hypothesis, which found
favour when De Witt’s drawing was first discovered, of a division of
the stage into an inner and an outer part by a ‘traverse’ curtain
running between the two posts, perhaps supplemented by two other
curtains running from the posts back to the tire-house.[230] Certainly
I do not wish to revive it. Any such arrangement would be inconsistent
with the use of the tire-house doors and gallery in out-of-door scenes;
for, on the hypothesis, these were played with the traverse closed. And
it would entail a serious interference with the vision of such scenes
by spectators sitting far round in the galleries or ‘above the stage’.
It does not, of course, follow that no use at all was made of curtains
upon the stage. It is true that no hangings of any kind are shown by
De Witt. Either there were none visible when he drew the Swan in 1596,
or, if they were visible, he failed to draw them; it is impossible to
say which. We know that even the Swan was not altogether undraped in
1602, for during the riot which followed the ‘cousening prancke’ of
_England’s Joy_ in that year the audience are said to have ‘revenged
themselves upon the hangings, curtains, chairs, stooles, walles,
and whatsoever came in their way’.[231] It is not, indeed, stated
that these hangings and curtains were upon the stage, and possibly,
although not very probably, they may have been in the auditorium.
Apart, however, from the Swan, there is abundant evidence for the use
of some kind of stage hangings in the public theatres of the sixteenth
century generally. To the references in dialogue and stage-directions
quoted in the footnotes to this chapter may be added the testimony
of Florio in 1598, of Ben Jonson in 1601, of Heywood in 1608, and of
Flecknoe after the Restoration.[232] We can go further, and point to
several passages which attest a well-defined practice, clearly going
back to the sixteenth century, of using black hangings for the special
purpose of providing an appropriate setting for a tragedy.[233] Where
then were these hangings? For a front curtain, on the public stage,
as distinct from the Court stage, there is no evidence whatever, and
the precautions taken to remove dead bodies in the course of action
enable us quite safely to leave it out of account.[234] There may have
been hangings of a decorative kind in various places, of course; round
the base of the stage, for example, or dependent, as Malone thought,
from the heavens. But the only place where we can be sure that there
were hangings was what Heywood calls the ‘fore-front’ of the stage,
by which it seems clear from Florio that he means the fore-front of
the tiring-house, which was at the same time the back wall of the
stage. It is, I believe, exclusively to hangings in this region that
our stage-directions refer. Their terminology is not quite uniform.
‘Traverse’ I do not find in a sixteenth-century public play.[235] By
far the most common term is ‘curtain’, but I do not think that there
is any technical difference between ‘curtain’ and the not infrequent
‘arras’ or the unique ‘veil’ of _The Death of Robin Hood_.[236] ‘Arras’
is the ordinary Elizabethan name for a hanging of tapestry used as
a wall decoration, and often projected from a frame so as to leave
a narrow space, valuable to eavesdroppers and other persons in need
of seclusion, between itself and the wall. The stage arras serves
precisely this purpose as a background to interior scenes. Here stand
the murderers in _King John_; here Falstaff goes to sleep in _1 Henry
IV_; and here too he proposes to ‘ensconce’ himself, in order to
avoid being confronted with both his ladyloves together in _The Merry
Wives_.[237]

The stage-directions, however, make it quite clear that the curtains
were not merely an immovable decoration of the back wall. They could
be ‘opened’ and ‘shut’ or ‘closed’; and either operation could
indifferently be expressed by the term ‘drawn’. This drawing was
presumably effected by sliding the curtain laterally along a straight
rod to which it was affixed by rings sewn on to its upper edge;
there is no sign of any rise or fall of the curtain. The operator
may be an actor upon the stage; in _Bacon and Bungay_ Friar Bacon
draws the curtains ‘with a white sticke’. He may be the speaker of
a prologue.[238] Whether the ‘servitours’ of a theatre ever came
upon the stage, undisguised, to draw the curtains, I am uncertain;
but obviously it would be quite easy to work the transformation from
behind, by a cord and pulley, without any visible intervention.[239]
The object of the drawing is to introduce interior action, either in
a mere recess, or in a larger space, such as a chamber; and this, not
only where curtains are dramatically appropriate, as within a house,
or at the door of a tent, but also where they are less so, as before a
cave or a forest bower. One may further accept the term ‘discovered’
as indicating the unveiling of an interior by the play of a curtain,
even when the curtain is not specifically mentioned;[240] and may
recognize that the stage-directions sometimes use ‘Enter’ and ‘Exit’
in a loose sense of persons, who do not actually move in or out, but
are ‘discovered’, or covered, by a curtain.[241]

Of what nature, then, was the space so disclosed? There was ordinarily,
as already stated, a narrow space behind an arras; and if the gallery
above the stage jutted forward, or had, as the Swan drawing perhaps
indicates, a projecting weather-board, this might be widened into a
six- or seven-foot corridor, still in front of the back wall.[242]
Such a corridor would, however, hardly give the effect of a chamber,
although it might that of a portico. Nor would it be adequate in
size to hold all the scenes which it is natural to class as chamber
scenes; such, for example, as that in _Tamburlaine_, where no less than
ten persons are discovered grouped around Zenocrate’s bed.[243] The
stage-directions themselves do not help us much; that in _Alphonsus_
alone names ‘the place behind the stage’, and as this is only required
to contain the head of Mahomet, a corridor, in this particular scene,
would have sufficed.[244] There is, however, no reason why the opening
curtains should not have revealed a quite considerable aperture in the
back wall, and an alcove or recess of quite considerable size lying
behind this aperture. With a 43-foot stage, as at the Fortune, and
doors placed rather nearer the ends of it than De Witt shows them,
it would be possible to get a 15-foot aperture, and still leave room
for the drawn curtains to hang between the aperture and the doors.
Allow 3 feet for the strip of stage between arras and wall, and a
back-run of 10 feet behind the wall, and you get an adequate chamber
of 15 feet × 13 feet. My actual measurements are, of course, merely
illustrative. There would be advantages, as regards vision, in not
making the alcove too deep. The height, if the gallery over the stage
ran in a line with the middle gallery for spectators, would be about 8
feet or 9 feet; rather low, I admit.[245] A critic may point out that
behind the back wall of the outer stage lay the tire-house, and that
the 14-foot deep framework of a theatre no greater in dimensions than
the Fortune does not leave room for an inner stage in addition to the
tire-house. I think the answer is that the ‘place behind the stage’ was
in fact nothing but an _enclave_ within the tire-house, that its walls
consisted of nothing but screens covered with some more arras, that
these were only put up when they were needed for some particular scene,
and that when they were up, although they extended to nearly the full
depth of the tire-house, they did not occupy its full width, but left
room on either side for the actors to crowd into, and for the stairs
leading to the upper floors. When no interior scene had to be set,
there was nothing between the tire-house and the outer stage but the
curtains; and this renders quite intelligible the references quoted in
an earlier chapter to actors peeping through a curtain at the audience,
and to the audience ‘banding tile and pear’ against the curtains, to
allure the actors forth.[246] I do not think it is necessary to assume
that there was a third pair of folding doors permanently fixed in the
aperture.[247] They would be big and clumsy, although no doubt they
would help to keep out noise. In any case, there is not much evidence
on the point. If Tarlton’s head was seen ‘the Tire-House doore and
tapistrie betweene’, he may very well have gone to the end of the
narrow passage behind the arras, and looked out where that was broken
by one of the side-doors. No doubt, however, the aperture is the third
place of entrance ‘in the midst’, which the stage-directions or action
of some plays require, and which, as such, came to be regarded as a
third door.[248]

[Illustration: A. SQUARE THEATRE (Proportions of Fortune)]

I conceive, therefore, of the alcove as a space which the tire-man,
behind the curtains and in close proximity to the screens and
properties stored in the tire-house, can arrange as he likes, without
any interruption to continuous action proceeding on the outer stage. He
can put up a house-front with a door, and if needed, a porch. He can
put up a shop, or for that matter, a couple of adjacent shops. He can
put up the arched gates of a city or castle. These are comparatively
shallow structures. But he can also take advantage of the whole depth
of the space, and arrange a chamber, a cave, or a bower, furnishing
it as he pleases, and adding doors at the back or side, or a back
window, which would enable him to give more light, even if only
borrowed light from the tire-house, to an interior scene.[249] One
point, however, is rather puzzling. There are some scenes which imply
entrance to a chamber, not from behind, but from the open stage in
front, and by a visible door which can be knocked at or locked. Thus
in _Romeo and Juliet_, of which all the staging is rather difficult
on any hypothesis, the Friar observes Juliet coming towards his cell,
and after they have discoursed Juliet bids him shut the door. Here,
no doubt, the Friar may have looked out and seen Juliet through a back
window, and she may have entered by a back door. But in an earlier
scene, where we get the stage-direction ‘Enter Nurse and knockes’, and
the knocking is repeated until the Nurse is admitted to the cell, we
are, I think, bound to suppose that the entry is in front, in the sight
of the audience, and antecedent to the knocking.[250] Perhaps an even
clearer case is in _Captain Thomas Stukeley_, where Stukeley’s chamber
in the Temple is certainly approached from the open stage by a door
at which Stukeley’s father knocks, and which is unlocked and locked
again.[251] Yet how can a door be inserted in that side of a chamber
which is open to the stage and the audience. Possibly it was a very
conventional door set across the narrow space between the arras and
the back wall of the main stage, at the corner of the aperture and at
right angles to its plane. The accompanying diagrams will perhaps make
my notion of the inner stage clearer.

[Illustration: B. OCTAGONAL THEATRE (e.g. Globe; size of Fortune)]

It has been suggested, by me as well as by others, that the inner stage
may have been raised by a step or two above the outer stage.[252] On
reflection, I now think this unlikely. There would be none too much
height to spare, at any rate if the height of the alcove was determined
by that of the spectators’ galleries. The only stage-direction which
suggests any such arrangement is in the _Death of Robin Hood_, where
the King sits in a chair behind the curtains, and the Queen ascends to
him and descends again.[253] But even if the tire-man put up an exalted
seat in this case, there need have been no permanent elevation. The
missing woodcut of the Anglo-German stage at Frankfort in 1597 is said
to have shown a raised inner stage; but until it is recovered, it is
difficult to estimate its value as testimony upon the structure of the
London theatres.[254]

It must not, of course, be taken for granted that every curtain,
referred to in text or stage-directions as ‘drawn’, was necessarily a
back curtain disclosing an alcove. In some, although not all, of the
bedchamber scenes the indications do not of themselves exclude the
hypothesis of a bed standing on the open stage and the revealing of the
occupant by the mere drawing of bed-curtains.[255] I do not think there
is any certain example of such an arrangement in a sixteenth-century
play.[256] But tents also could be closed by curtains, and the plot
of _2 Seven Deadly Sins_ requires Henry VI to lie asleep in ‘A tent
being plast one the stage’, while dumb-shows enter ‘at one dore’ and
‘at an other dore’.[257] However it may have been with other theatres,
we cannot, on the evidence before us, assert that the Swan had an
alcove at all; and if it had not, it was probably driven to provide for
chamber scenes by means of some curtained structure on the stage itself.

On the other hand, it must not be supposed that every case, in which
a back curtain was drawn, will have found record in the printed book
of the play concerned; and when the existence of an alcove has once
been established, it becomes legitimate to infer its use for various
chamber and analogous scenes, to the presentation of which it would
have been well adapted. But this inference, again, must not be twisted
into a theory that the stage in front of the back wall served only for
out-of-door scenes, and that all interior action was housed, wholly
or in part, in the alcove. This is, I think, demonstrably untrue, as
regards the large group of indoor scenes which I have called hall
scenes. In the first place, the alcove would not have been spacious
enough to be of any value for a great many of the hall scenes. You
could not stage spectacular action, such as that of a coronation, a
sitting of parliament, or a trial at the bar, in a box of 15 by 13 feet
and only 9 feet high. A group of even so many as ten persons clustered
round a bed is quite another thing. I admit the device of the so-called
‘split’ scene, by which action beginning in the alcove is gradually
extended so as to take the whole of the stage into its ambit.[258] This
might perhaps serve for a court of justice, with the judges in the
alcove, the ‘bar’ drawn across the aperture, and the prisoners brought
in before it. A scene in which the arras is drawn in _Sir Thomas More_
points to such a setting.[259] But a scene in which a royal ‘state’ is
the dominating feature would be singularly ineffective if the state
were wedged in under the low roof of the alcove; and if I am right
in thinking that the ‘state’ normally creaked down into its position
from the heavens, it would clearly land, not within the alcove, but
upon the open stage in front of it. Indeed, if it could be placed into
position behind a curtain, there would be no reason for bringing it
from the heavens at all. Then, again, hall scenes are regularly served
by two or more doors, which one certainly would not suppose from the
stage-directions to be any other than the doors similarly used to
approach out-of-door scenes; and they frequently end with injunctions
to ‘come in’, which would be superfluous if the personages on the
stage could be withdrawn from sight by the closing of the curtain.
Occasionally, moreover, the gallery over the stage comes into play in
a hall scene, in a way which would not be possible if the personages
were disposed in the alcove, over which, of course, this gallery
projected.[260] Some of these considerations tell more directly against
the exclusive use of the alcove for hall scenes, than against its use
in combination with the outer stage; and this combined use, where
suitable, I am quite prepared to allow. But ordinarily, I think, the
hall scenes were wholly on the outer stage; and this must necessarily
have been the case where two rooms were employed, of which one opens
out behind the other.[261]

It may be said that the main object of the curtain is to allow of
the furniture and decorations of a ‘set’ scene, which is usually an
interior scene, being put in place behind it, without any interruption
to the continuous progress of an act; and that hall scenes cannot
be set properly, unless they also are behind the curtain line. I do
not think that there is much in this argument. A hall scene does
not require so much setting as a chamber scene. It is sufficiently
furnished, at any rate over the greater part of its area, with the
state and such lesser seats as can very readily be carried on during
the opening speeches or during the procession by which the action is
often introduced. A bar can be set up, or a banquet spread, or a sick
man brought in on his chair, as part of the action itself.[262] Even
an out-of-door scene, such as an execution or a duel in the lists,
sometimes demands a similar adjustment;[263] it need no more give pause
than the analogous devices entailed by the removal of dead bodies from
where they have fallen.

I must not be taken to give any countenance to the doctrine that
properties, incongruous to the particular scene that was being played,
were allowed to stand on the public Elizabethan stage, and that the
audience, actually or through a convention, was not disturbed by
them.[264] This doctrine appears to me to rest upon misunderstandings
of the evidence produced in its support, and in particular upon a
failure to distinguish between the transitional methods of setting
employed by Lyly and his clan, and those of the permanent theatres
with which we are now concerned. The former certainly permitted of
incongruities in the sense that, as the neo-classic stage strove to
adapt itself to a romantic subject-matter, separate localities, with
inconsistent properties, came to be set at one and the same time in
different regions of the stage. But the system proved inadequate to
the needs of romanticism, as popular audiences understood it; and,
apart from some apparent rejuvenescence in the ‘private’ houses,
with which I must deal later, it gave way, about the time of the
building of the permanent theatres, to the alternative system, by
which different localities were represented, not synchronously but
successively, and each in its turn had full occupation of the whole
field of the stage. This full occupation was not, I venture to think,
qualified by the presence in any scene of a property inappropriate
to that scene, but retained there because it had been used for some
previous, or was to be used for some coming, scene. I do not mean to
say that some colourless or insignificant property, such as a bench,
may not have served, without being moved, first in an indoors and then
in an out-of-doors scene. But that the management of the Theatre or
the Rose was so bankrupt in ingenuity that the audience had to watch
a coronation through a fringe of trees or to pretend unconsciousness
while the strayed lovers in a forest dodged each other round the
corners of a derelict ‘state’, I, for one, see no adequate reason to
believe. It is chiefly the state and the trees which have caused the
trouble. But, after all, a state which has creaked down can creak up
again, just as a banquet or a gallows which has been carried on can be
carried off. Trees are perhaps a little more difficult. A procession of
porters, each with a tree in his arms, would be a legitimate subject
for the raillery of _The Admirable Bashville_. A special back curtain
painted _en pastoralle_ would hardly be adequate, even if there were
any evidence for changes of curtain; trees were certainly sometimes
practicable and therefore quasi-solid.[265] The alcove, filled with
shrubs, would by itself give the illusion of a greenhouse rather
than a forest; moreover, the alcove was available in forest scenes
to serve as a rustic bower or cottage.[266] Probably the number of
trees dispersed over the body of the stage was not great; they were a
symbolical rather than a realistic setting. On the whole, I am inclined
to think that, at need, trees ascended and descended through traps;
and that this is not a mere conjecture is suggested by a few cases in
which the ascent and descent, being part of a conjuring action, are
recorded in the stage-directions.[267] One of these shows that the
traps would carry not merely a tree but an arbour. The traps had, of
course, other functions. Through them apparitions arose and sank;[268]
Jonah was spewed up from the whale’s belly;[269] and the old device of
hell-mouth still kept alive a mediaeval tradition.[270] Only primitive
hydraulics would have been required to make a fountain flow or a fog
arise;[271] although it may perhaps be supposed that the episodes,
in which personages pass to and from boats or fling themselves into
a river, were performed upon the extreme edge of the stage rather
than over a trap.[272] I do not find any clear case, in the public
sixteenth-century theatres, of the convention apparently traceable in
Lyly and Whetstone, by which the extreme edge of the stage is used
for ‘approach’ scenes, as when a traveller arrives from afar, or when
some episode has to be represented in the environs of a city which
furnishes the principal setting.[273] And I think it would certainly
be wrong to regard the main stage, apart from the alcove, as divided
into an inner area covered by the heavens and an outer area, not so
covered and appropriate to open-country scenes. Indeed, the notion that
any substantial section of the stage appeared to the audience not to
lie under the heavens is in my view an illusion due to the unskilful
draughtsmanship of De Witt or his copyist. Skyey phenomena belong most
naturally to open-country scenes, nor are these wholly debarred from
the use of the state; and the machinery employed in both cases seems to
imply the existence of a superincumbent heavens.[274]

I come finally to the interesting question of the gallery above the
stage. This, in the Swan drawing, may project very slightly over the
scenic wall, and is divided by short vertical columns into six small
compartments, in each of which one or two occupants are sitting. They
might, of course, be personages in the play; but, if so, they seem
curiously dissociated from the action. They might be musicians, but
they appear to include women, and there is no clear sign of musical
instruments. On the whole, they have the air of spectators.[275]
However this may be, let us recall what has already been established
in an earlier chapter, that there is conclusive evidence for some use
of the space above the stage for spectators, at least until the end
of the sixteenth century, and for some use of it as a music-room, at
least during the seventeenth century.[276] With these uses we have
to reconcile the equally clear indications that this region, or some
part of it, was available when needed, throughout the whole of the
period under our consideration, as a field for dramatic action. For
the moment we are only concerned with the sixteenth century. A glance
back over my footnotes will show many examples in which action is said
to be ‘above’ or ‘aloft’, or is accompanied by the ascent or descent
of personages from or to the level of the main stage. This interplay
of different levels is indeed the outstanding characteristic of the
Elizabethan public theatre, as compared with the other systems of
stage-presentment to which it stands in relation. There are mediaeval
analogies, no doubt, and one would not wish to assert categorically
that no use was ever made of a balcony or a house-roof in a Greek
or Roman or Italian setting. But, broadly speaking, the classical
and neo-classical stage-tradition, apart from theophanies, is one of
action on a single level. Even in the Elizabethan Court drama, the
platform comes in late and rarely, although the constant references to
‘battlements’ in the Revels Accounts enable us to infer that, by the
time when the public theatres came to be built, the case of _Orestes_
was not an isolated one. Battlements, whatever the extension which
the Revels officers came to give to the term, were primarily for
the beloved siege scenes, and to the way in which siege scenes were
treated in the theatres I must revert. But from two plays, _The Rare
Triumphs of Love and Fortune_ and _The Woman in the Moon_, both of
which probably represent a late development of the Court drama, we may
gather at least one other definite function of the platform, as a point
of vantage from which presenters, in both cases of a divine type, may
sit ‘sunning like a crow in a gutter’, and watch the evolution of their
puppets on the stage below.[277] This disposition of presenters ‘aloft’
finds more than one parallel in the public theatres. The divine element
is retained in _The Battle of Alcazar_, where Henslowe’s plot gives us,
as part of the direction for a dumb-show, ‘Enter aboue Nemesis’.[278]
There are traces of it also in _James IV_ and in _A Looking Glass for
London and England_. In _James IV_ the presenters are Bohan, a Scot,
and Oberon, king of fairies. They come on the stage for an induction,
at the end of which Bohan says, ‘Gang with me to the Gallery, and Ile
show thee the same in action by guid fellowes of our country men’, and
they ‘_Exeunt_’. Obviously they watch the action, for they enter again
and comment upon it during act-intervals. One of their interpositions
is closed with the words ‘Gow shrowd vs in our harbor’; another with
‘Lets to our sell, and sit & see the rest’.[279] In the _Looking Glass_
we get after the first scene the direction, ‘Enters brought in by an
angell Oseas the Prophet, and set downe ouer the Stage in a Throne’.
Oseas is evidently a presenter; the actors ignore him, but he makes
moral comments after various scenes, and at the end of Act IV comes the
further direction, ‘Oseas taken away’.[280] Purely human presenters in
_The Taming of a Shrew_ are still on a raised level. Sly is removed
from the main stage during the first scene of the induction. He is
brought back at the beginning of the second scene, presumably above,
whence he criticizes the play, for towards the end the lord bids his
servants

lay him in the place where we did find him,
Just underneath the alehouse side below;

and this is done by way of an epilogue.[281]

I do not suggest that presenters were always above; it is not so when
they merely furnish the equivalent of a prologue or epilogue, but only
when it is desired to keep them visible during the action, and on
the other hand they must not obstruct it. Sometimes, even when their
continued presence might be desirable, it has to be dispensed with, or
otherwise provided for. The presenters in _Soliman and Perseda_ come
and go; those in _The Spanish Tragedy_ sit upon the stage itself. Why?
I think the answer is the same in both cases. A platform was required
for other purposes. In _Soliman and Perseda_ one scene has the outer
wall of a tiltyard reached by ladders from the stage; another has a
tower, from which victims are tumbled down out of sight.[282] In the
_Spanish Tragedy_, apart from some minor action ‘above’, there is
the elaborate presentation of Hieronimo’s ‘play within the play’ to
be provided for. This must be supposed to be part of a hall scene.
It occupies, with its preparations, most of the fourth, which is
the last, act; and for it the King and his train are clearly seated
in an upper ‘gallerie’, while the performance takes place on the
floor of the hall below, with the body of Horatio concealed behind a
curtain, for revelation at the appropriate moment.[283] We are thus
brought face to face with an extension on the public stage of the
use of ‘above’, beyond what is entailed by the needs of sieges or of
exalted presenters. Nor, of course, are the instances already cited
exhaustive. The gallery overlooking a hall in the _Spanish Tragedy_ has
its parallel in the window overlooking a hall in _Dr. Faustus_.[284]
More frequent is an external window, door, or balcony, overlooking an
external scene in street or garden.[285] In these cases the action
‘above’ is generally slight. Some one appears in answer to a summons
from without; an eavesdropper listens to a conversation below; a girl
talks to her lover, and there may be an ascent or descent with the help
of a rope-ladder or a basket. But there are a few plays in which we
are obliged to constitute the existence of a regular chamber scene,
with several personages and perhaps furniture, set ‘above’. The second
scene of the induction to the _Taming of the Shrew_, just cited, is
already a case in point. The presenters here do not merely sit, as
spectators in the lord’s room might, and listen. They move about a
chamber and occupy considerable space. Scenes which similarly require
the whole interior of an upper room to be visible, and not merely its
balcony or window bay, are to be found in _1 Sir John Oldcastle_, in
_Every Man In his Humour_, twice in _The Jew of Malta_, in _2 Henry
IV_, and in _Look About You_.[286] I do not know whether I ought to add
_Romeo and Juliet_. Certainly the love scenes, Act II, scc. i and ii,
and Act III, sc. v, require Juliet’s chamber to be aloft, and in these
there is no interior action entailing more than the sound of voices,
followed by the appearance of the speakers over Juliet’s shoulder as
she stands at the casement or on a balcony.[287] It would be natural
to assume that the chamber of Act IV, sc. iii, in which Juliet drinks
her potion, and sc. v, in which she is found lying on her bed, is the
same, and therefore also aloft. Obviously its interior, with the bed
and Juliet, must be visible to the spectators. The difficulty is that
it also appears to be visible to the wedding guests and the musicians,
as they enter the courtyard from without; and this could only be,
if it were upon the main level of the stage. If the scene stood by
itself, one would undoubtedly assign it to the curtained recess behind
the stage; and on the whole it is probable that on this occasion
architectural consistency was sacrificed to dramatic effect, and
Juliet’s chamber was placed sometimes above and sometimes below.[288]
There is one other type of scene which requires elevated action, and
that is the senate-house scene, as we find it in _The Wounds of Civil
War_ and in _Titus Andronicus_, where the Capitol clearly stands above
the Forum, but is within ear-shot and of easy approach.[289]

I think we are bound to assume that some or all of this action ‘above’
took place in the gallery ‘over the stage’, where it could be readily
approached from the tiring-house behind, and could be disposed with the
minimum of obstruction to the vision of the auditorium. A transition
from the use of this region for spectators to its use for action is
afforded by the placing there of those idealized spectators, the
presenters. So far as they are concerned, all that would be needed, in
a house arranged like the Swan, would be to assign to them one or more,
according to their number, of the rooms or compartments, into which the
gallery was normally divided. One such compartment, too, would serve
well for a window, and would be accepted without demur as forming part
of the same ‘domus’ to which a door below, or, as in _The Merchant
of Venice_, a penthouse set in the central aperture, gave access.
To get a practicable chamber, it would be necessary to take down a
partition and throw two of the compartments, probably the two central
compartments, into one; but there would still be four rooms left for
the lords. As a matter of fact, most upper chamber scenes, even of
the sixteenth century, are of later date than the Swan drawing, and
some architectural evolution, including the provision of a music-room,
may already have taken place, and have been facilitated by the waning
popularity of the lord’s rooms. It will be easier to survey the whole
evolution of the upper stage in the next chapter.[290] For the present,
let us think of the upper chamber as running back on the first floor of
the tiring-house above the alcove, and reached from within by stairs
behind the scenic wall, of which, if desired, the foot could perhaps be
made visible within the alcove.[291] Borrowed light could be given by
a window at the back, from which also the occupants of the room could
pretend to look out behind.[292] Internal doors could of course also be
made available. A scene in _The Jew of Malta_ requires a trap in the
floor of the upper chamber, over a cauldron discovered in the alcove
below.[293] The upper chamber could be fitted, like the alcove itself,
with an independent curtain for discoveries.[294]

Are we to conclude that all action ‘above’ was on or behind the back
line of the stage? The point upon which I feel most uncertainty is
the arrangement of the battlements in the stricter sense.[295] These
appear to be generally regarded as running along the whole of the back
line, with the gates of the town or castle represented in the central
aperture below. Some writers suggest that they occupied, not the actual
space of the rooms or boxes ‘over the stage’, but a narrow balcony
running in front of these.[296] I cannot satisfy myself that the Swan
drawing bears out the existence of any projecting ledge adequate for
the purpose. On the other hand, if all the compartments of the gallery
were made available and their partitions removed, all the spectators
‘over the stage’ must have been displaced; and siege scenes are early,
and numerous. I do not know that it is essential to assume that the
battlements extended beyond the width of two compartments. There is
some definite evidence for a position of the ‘walles’ on the scenic
line, apart from the patent convenience of keeping the main stage clear
for besieging armies, in Jasper Mayne’s laudation of Ben Jonson:

Thou laid’st no sieges to the music-room.[297]

I am content to believe that this is where they normally stood. At
the same time, it is possible that alternative arrangements were not
unknown. In the _Wagner Book_, which must be supposed to describe a
setting of a type not incredible on the public stage, we are told of
a high throne, presumably at the back, of hell mouth ‘at the one
end of the stage’, and of an elaborate castle ‘at the other end in
opposition’. This is ‘the place where in the bloudlesse skirmishes
are so often perfourmed upon the stage’, and although I should not
press this as meaning that the walls were always at an ‘end’ of the
stage, the passage would be absurd, if they were invariably at the
back.[298] Further, there is at least one extant play in which it is
very difficult to envisage certain scenes with the walls at the back.
This is _1 Henry VI_, the Orleans scenes of which, with the leaping
over the walls, and the rapid succession of action in the market-place
within the town and in the field without, seem to me clearly to point
to walls standing across the main stage from back to front.[299] But if
so, how were such walls put into place? The imagination boggles at the
notion of masons coming in to build a wall during the action, in the
way in which attendants might set up a bar or a lists, or carpenters
the gibbet for an execution. Bottom’s device for _Pyramus and Thisbe_
would hardly be more grotesque. Yet the Orleans siege scenes in _1
Henry VI_ are by no means coincident with acts, and could not therefore
be set in advance and dismantled at leisure when done with. Can the
walls have been drawn forwards and backwards, with the help of some
machine, through the doors or the central aperture?[300] It is not
inconceivable, and possibly we have here the explanation of the ‘j
whell and frame in the Sege of London’, which figures in the Admiral’s
inventories. Once the possibility of a scenic structure brought on to
the main stage is mooted, one begins to look for other kinds of episode
in which it would be useful. This, after all, may have been the way in
which a gibbet was introduced, and the Admiral’s had also ‘j frame for
the heading in Black Jone’, although nothing is said of a wheel.[301]
The senate houses could, I think, have been located in the gallery,
but the beacon in _King Leir_ would not look plausible there, and the
Admiral’s had a beacon, apparently as a detached property.[302] I am
also inclined to think that a wall may occasionally have been drawn
across the stage to make a close of part of it for a garden scene. In
Act II of _Romeo and Juliet_ Romeo pretty clearly comes in with his
friends in some public place of the city, and then leaps a wall into
an orchard, where he is lost to their sight, and finds himself under
Juliet’s window. He must have a wall to leap. I mentioned _Pyramus and
Thisbe_ just above with intent, for what is _Pyramus and Thisbe_ but a
burlesque of the _Romeo and Juliet_ motive, which would have been all
the more amusing, if a somewhat conspicuous and unusual wall had been
introduced into its model? Another case in point may be the ‘close
walk’ before Labervele’s house in _A Humorous Day’s Mirth_.[303] I have
allowed myself to stray into the field of conjecture.

One other possible feature of action ‘above’ must not be left out of
account. The use of the gallery may have been supplemented on occasion
by that of some window or balcony in the space above it, which De
Witt’s drawing conceals from our view. Here may have been the ‘top’ on
which La Pucelle appears in the Rouen episode of _1 Henry VI_, and the
towers or turrets, which are sometimes utilized or referred to in this
and other plays.[304] It would be difficult to describe the central
boxes of the Swan gallery as a tower.

Before any attempt is made to sum up the result of this long
chapter, one other feature of sixteenth-century staging, which is
often overlooked, requires discussion. In the majority of cases the
background of an out-of-door scene need contain at most a single
_domus_; and this, it is now clear, can be represented either by a
light structure, such as a tent or arbour, placed temporarily upon
the floor of the stage, or more usually by the _scena_ or back wall,
with its doors, its central aperture, and its upper gallery. There
are, however, certain scenes in which one _domus_ will not suffice,
and two or possibly even three, must be represented. Thus, as in
_Richard III_, there may be two hostile camps, with alternating action
at tents in each of them.[305] There may also be interplay, without
change of scene, between different houses in one town or village.
In _Arden of Feversham_, Arden’s house and the painter’s are set
together;[306] in _The Taming of A Shrew_, the lord’s house and the
alehouse for the induction, and Polidor’s and Alphonso’s during the
main play;[307] in _The Blind Beggar of Alexandria_, the houses of
Elimine and Samethis;[308] in _1 Sir John Oldcastle_, Cobham’s gate
and an inn;[309] in _Stukeley_, Newton’s house and a chamber in the
Temple;[310] in _A Knack to Know an Honest Man_, Lelio’s and Bristeo’s
for one scene, Lelio’s and a Senator’s for another, possibly Lelio’s
and Servio’s, though of this I am less sure, for a third.[311] These
are the most indisputable cases; given the principle, we are at liberty
to conjecture its application in other plays. Generally the houses
may be supposed to be contiguous; it is not so in _Stukeley_, where
Old Stukeley clearly walks some little distance to the Temple, and
here therefore we get an example of that foreshortening of distance
between two parts of a city, with which we became familiar in the
arrangement of Court plays.[312] It is not the only example. In
_George a Greene_ Jenkin and the Shoemaker walk from one end to the
other of Wakefield.[313] In _Arden of Feversham_, although this is
an open-country and not an urban scene, Arden and Francklin travel
some little way to Raynham Down.[314] In _Dr. Faustus_, so far as
we can judge from the unsatisfactory text preserved, any limitation
to a particular neighbourhood is abandoned, and Faustus passes
without change of scene from the Emperor’s Court to his own home in
Wittenberg.[315] Somewhat analogous is the curious device in _Romeo and
Juliet_, where the maskers, after preparing in the open, ‘march about
the stage’, while the scene changes to the hall of Capulet, which they
then enter.[316]

I think, then, it must be taken that the background of a public stage
could stand at need, not merely for a single _domus_, but for a ‘city’.
Presumably in such cases the central aperture and the gallery above it
were reserved for any house in which interior action was to proceed,
and for the others mere doors in the scenic wall were regarded as
adequate. I do not find any sixteenth-century play which demands either
interior action or action ‘above’ in more than one house.[317] But a
question arises as to how, for a scene in which the scenic doors had to
represent house doors, provision was made for external entrances and
exits, which certainly cannot be excluded from such scenes. Possibly
the answer is, although I feel very doubtful about it, that there
were never more than two houses, and that therefore one door always
remained available to lead on and off the main stage.[318] Possibly
also entrances and exits by other avenues than the two scenic doors,
which we infer from the Swan drawing, and the central aperture which we
feel bound to add, are not inconceivable. We have already had some hint
that three may not have been the maximum number of entrances. If the
Elizabethan theatre limited itself to three, it would have been worse
off than any of the early neo-classic theatres based upon Vitruvius, in
which the _porta regia_ and _portae minores_ of the scenic wall were
regularly supplemented by the _viae ad forum_ in the _versurae_ to
right and left of the _proscenium_.[319] No doubt such wings could not
be constructed at the Swan, where a space was left on the level of the
‘yard’ between the spectators’ galleries and the right and left edges
of a narrow stage. But they would be feasible in theatres with wider
stages, and the arrangement, if it existed, would make the problem of
seats on the stage easier.[320] It is no more than a conjecture. It has
also been suggested that the heavy columns drawn by De Witt may have
prevented him from showing two entrances round the extreme ends of the
scenic wall, such as are perhaps indicated in some of the Terentian
woodcuts of 1493.[321] Or, finally, actors might have emerged from the
tiring-house into the space on the level of the yard just referred to,
and thence reached the stage, as from without, by means of a short
flight of steps.[322]

Working then from the Swan stage, and only departing in any essential
from De Witt’s drawing by what appears to be, at any rate for theatres
other than the Swan, the inevitable addition of a back curtain, we
find no insuperable difficulty in accounting for the setting of all
the types of scenes recognizable in sixteenth-century plays. The
great majority of them, both out-of-door scenes and hall scenes, were
acted on the open stage, under the heavens, with no more properties
and practicable _terrains_ than could reasonably be carried on by the
actors, lowered from the heavens, raised by traps, or thrust on by
frames and wheels. For more permanent background they had the scenic
doors, the gallery above, the scenic curtain, and whatever the tire-man
might choose to insert in the aperture, backed by an alcove within the
tire-house, which the drawing of the curtain discovered. For entrances
they had at least the scenic doors and aperture. The comparatively few
chamber scenes were set either in the alcove or in a chamber ‘above’,
formed by throwing together two compartments of the gallery. A window
in a still higher story could, if necessary, be brought into play. So,
with all due respect to the obscurities of the evidence, I reconstruct
the facts. It will, I hope, be apparent without any elaborate
demonstration that this system of public staging, as practised by
Burbadge at the Theatre, by Lanman at the Curtain, by Henslowe at the
Rose, and perhaps with some modifications by Langley at the Swan, is
very fairly in line with the earlier sixteenth-century tradition, as
we have studied it in texts in which the Court methods are paramount.
This is only natural, in view of the fact that the same plays continued
to be presented to the public and to the sovereign. There is the same
economy of recessed action, the same conspicuous tendency to dialogue
on a threshold, the same unwillingness to break the flow of an act by
any deliberate pause for resetting. The public theatre gets in some
ways a greater variety of dramatic situation, partly owing to its free
use of the open stage, instead of merely a portico, for hall scenes,
partly owing to its characteristic development of action ‘above’.
This, in spite of the battlements of the Revels accounts, may perhaps
be a contribution of the inn-yard. The main change is, of course, the
substitution for the multiple staging of the Court, with its adjacent
regions for different episodes, of a principle of successive staging,
by which the whole space became in turn available for each distinct
scene. This was an inevitable change, as soon as the Elizabethan love
for history and romance broke down the Renaissance doctrine of the
unity of place; and it will not be forgotten that the beginnings of
it are already clearly discernible in the later Court drama, which of
course overlaps with the popular drama, itself. Incidentally the actors
got elbow-room; some of the Lylyan scenes must have been very cramped.
But they had to put up with a common form setting, capable only of
minor modifications, and no doubt their architectural decorations and
unvarying curtain were less interesting from the point of view of
_spectacle_, than the diversity of ‘houses’ which the ingenuity and
the resources of the Court architects were in a position to produce.
In any case, however, economy would probably have forbidden them to
enter into rivalry with the Revels Office. Whether the Elizabethan type
of public stage was the invention of Burbadge, the ‘first builder of
theatres’, or had already come into use in the inn-yards, is perhaps
an idle subject for wonder. The only definite guess at its origin
is that of Professor Creizenach, who suggests that it may have been
adapted from the out-of-door stages, set up from time to time for the
dramatic contests held by the Rederijker or Chambers of Rhetoric in
Flanders.[323] Certainly there are common features in the division of
the field of action into two levels and the use of curtained apertures
both below and above. But the latest examples of the Flemish festivals
were at Ghent in 1539 and at Antwerp in 1561 respectively; and it would
be something of a chance if Burbadge or any other English builder had
any detailed knowledge of them.[324]

XXI

STAGING IN THE THEATRES: SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

[For _Bibliographical Note_, _vide_ ch. xviii.]

The turn of the century is also a turning-point in the history of the
public theatres. In 1599 the Chamberlain’s men built the Globe, and in
1600, not to be outdone, the Admiral’s men built upon the same model
the Fortune. These remained the head-quarters of the same companies,
when at the beginning of the reign of James the one became the King’s
and the other the Prince’s men. Worcester’s, afterwards the Queen’s,
men were content for a time with the older houses, first the Rose,
then the Curtain and the Boar’s Head, but by 1605 or 1606 they were
occupying the Red Bull, probably a new building, but one of which we
know very little. Meanwhile the earlier Tudor fashion of plays by boys
had been revived, both at Paul’s, and at the Blackfriars, where a
theatre had been contrived by James Burbadge about 1596 in a chamber of
the ancient priory, for the purposes of a public stage.

We cannot on _a priori_ grounds assume that the structural arrangements
of the sixteenth-century houses were merely carried into those of
the seventeenth century without modification; the experience of
twenty-five years’ working may well have disclosed features in the
original plan of James Burbadge which were not altogether convenient
or which lent themselves to further development. On the other
hand, we have not got to take into account the possibility of any
fundamental change or sharp breach of continuity. The introduction
of a new type of stage, even if it escaped explicit record, would
inevitably have left its mark both upon the dramatic construction of
plays and upon the wording of their stage-directions. No such mark
can be discerned. You cannot tell an early seventeenth-century play
from a late sixteenth-century one on this kind of evidence alone;
the handling and the conventions, the situations and the spectacular
effects, remain broadly the same, and such differences as do gradually
become apparent, concern rather the trend of dramatic interest than
the external methods of stage-presentation. Moreover, it is evident
that the sixteenth-century plays did not pass wholly into disuse. From
time to time they were revived, and lent themselves, perhaps with some
minor adaptation, to the new boards as well as to the old. In dealing
with early seventeenth-century staging, then, I will assume the general
continuance of the sixteenth-century plan, and will content myself with
giving some further examples of its main features, and with considering
any evidence which may seem to point to specific development in one
or more particular directions. And on the whole it will be convenient
to concentrate now mainly upon the theatres occupied by the King’s
men. For this there are various reasons. One is that the possession of
Shakespeare’s plays gives them a prerogative interest in modern eyes;
another that the repertories of the other companies have hardly reached
us in a form which renders any very safe induction feasible.

Even in the case of the King’s men, the material is not very ample, and
there are complications which make it necessary to proceed by cautious
steps to somewhat tentative conclusions. The Globe was probably opened
in the autumn of 1599. The first play which we can definitely locate
there is _Every Man Out of his Humour_; but I have decided with some
hesitation to treat _Henry V_ and _Much Ado about Nothing_, for the
purposes of these chapters, as Globe plays.[325] So far as we know,
the Globe was the only theatre used by the company up to the winter
of 1609, when they also came into possession of the Blackfriars. From
1609 to 1613 they used both houses, but probably the Globe was still
the more important of the two, for when it was burnt in 1613 they
found it worth while to rebuild it fairer than before. At some time,
possibly about the end of James’s reign, the Blackfriars began to come
into greater prominence, and gradually displaced the Globe as the main
head-quarters of the London drama. This, however, is a development
which lies outside the scope of these volumes; nor can I with advantage
inquire in detail whether there were any important structural features
in which the new Globe is likely to have differed from the old Globe.
At the most I can only offer a suggestion for the historian of the
Caroline stage to take up in his turn. In the main, therefore, we
have to consider the staging of the Globe from 1599 to 1609, and of
the Globe and the Blackfriars from 1609 to 1613. The plays available
fall into four groups. There are nineteen or twenty printed and
probably produced during 1599–1609, of which, however, one or two were
originally written for private theatres.[326] There are two produced
and printed during 1609–12, and one preserved in manuscript from the
same period.[327] There are ten probably produced during 1599–1603,
but not printed before 1622 or 1623.[328] There are perhaps nine or
ten produced during 1609–13, and printed at various dates from 1619 to
1634.[329] It will be seen that the first group is of much the greatest
value evidentially, as well as fortunately the longest, but that it
only throws light upon the Globe and not upon the Blackfriars; that
the value of the second and fourth groups is discounted by our not
knowing how far they reflect Globe and how far Blackfriars conditions;
and that the original features of the third and fourth groups may
have been modified in revivals, either at the Blackfriars or at the
later Globe, before they got into print. I shall use them all, but,
I hope, with discrimination.[330] I shall also use, for illustration
and confirmation, rather than as direct evidence, plays from other
seventeenth-century theatres. The Prince’s men were at the Fortune
during the whole of the period with which we are concerned, and then on
to and after the fire of 1621, and the reconstruction, possibly on new
lines, of 1623. We know that its staging arrangements resembled those
of the Globe, for it was provided in the builder’s contract that this
should be so, and also that the stage should be ‘placed and sett’ in
accordance with ‘a plott thereof drawen’. Alleyn would have saved me
a great deal of trouble if he had put away this little piece of paper
along with so many others. Unfortunately, the Prince’s men kept their
plays very close, and only five or six of our period got into print
before 1623.[331] From the Queen’s men we have rather more, perhaps
sixteen in all; but we do not always know whether these were given at
the Red Bull or the Curtain. Nor do we know whether any structural
improvements introduced at the Globe and Fortune were adopted at the
Red Bull, although this is _a priori_ not unlikely.[332] From the Swan
we have only _The Chaste Maid of Cheapside_, and from the Hope only
_Bartholomew Fair_.

At the Globe, then, the types of scene presented are much the same as
those with which we have become familiar in the sixteenth century; the
old categories of open-country scenes, battle scenes, garden scenes,
street scenes, threshold scenes, hall scenes, and chamber scenes
will still serve. Their relative importance alters, no doubt, as the
playwrights tend more and more to concern themselves with subjects of
urban life. But there are plenty of battle scenes in certain plays,
much on the traditional lines, with marchings and counter-marchings,
alarums for fighting ‘within’, and occasional ‘excursions’ on the field
of the stage itself.[333] Practicable tents still afford a convenient
camp background, and these, I think, continue to be pitched on the
open boards.[334] The opposing camps of _Richard III_ are precisely
repeated in _Henry V_.[335] There are episodes before the ‘walls’
too, with defenders speaking from above, assaults by means of scaling
ladders, and coming and going through the gates.[336] I find no example
in which a wall inserted on the line of the scenic curtain would not
meet the needs of the situation. Pastoral scenes are also common, for
the urban preoccupation has its regular reaction in the direction of
pastoral. There is plenty of evidence for practicable trees, such as
that on which Orlando in _As You Like It_ hangs his love verses, and
the most likely machinery for putting trees into position still seems
to me to be the trap.[337] A trap, too, might bring up the bower for
the play within the play of _Hamlet_, the pleached arbour of _Much
Ado about Nothing_, the pulpit in the forum of _Julius Caesar_, the
tombstone in the woods of _Timon of Athens_, the wayside cross of
_Every Man Out of his Humour_, and other _terrains_ most easily thought
of as free-standing structures.[338] It would open for Ophelia’s
grave, and for the still beloved ascents of spirits from the lower
regions.[339] It remains difficult to see how a riverbank or the
sea-shores was represented.[340] As a rule, the edge of the stage, with
steps into the auditorium taken for water stairs, seems most plausible.
But there is a complicated episode in _The Devil’s Charter_, with a
conduit and a bridge over the Tiber, which I do not feel quite able
to envisage.[341] There is another bridge over the Tiber for Horatius
Cocles in the Red Bull play of the _Rape of Lucrece_. But this is
easier; it is projected from the walls of Rome, and there must be a
trapped cavity on the scenic line, into which Horatius leaps.[342]

The Hope contract of 1613 provides for the heavens to be supported
without the help of posts rising from the stage. For this there was
a special reason at the Hope, since the stage had to be capable of
removal to make room for bear-baitings. But the advantage of dispensing
with the posts and the obstacle to the free vision of the spectators
which they presented must have been so great, that the innovation may
well have occurred to the builders of the Globe. Whether it did, I do
not think that we can say. There are one or two references to posts in
stage-directions, but they need not be the posts of the heavens.[343]
Possibly, too, there was less use of the descending chair. One might
even fancy that Jonson’s sarcasm in the prologue to _Every Man In
his Humour_ discredited it. The new type of play did not so often
call for spectacular palace scenes, and perhaps some simpler and
more portable kind of ‘state’ was allowed to serve the turn. There
is no suggestion of a descent from the heavens in the theophanies
of _As You Like It_ and _Pericles_; Juno, however, descends in _The
Tempest_.[344] This, although it has practically no change of setting,
is in some ways, under the mask influence, the most spectacular
performance attempted by the King’s men at Globe or Blackfriars during
our period.[345] But it is far outdone by the Queen’s plays of the
_Golden_, _Silver_, and _Brazen Ages_, which, if they were really
given just as Heywood printed them, must have strained the scenic
resources of the Red Bull to an extreme. Here are ascents and descents
and entries from every conceivable point of the stage;[346] divinities
in fantastic disguise;[347] mythological dumb-shows;[348] battles and
hunting episodes and revels;[349] ingenious properties, often with
a melodramatic thrill;[350] and from beginning to end a succession
of atmospheric phenomena, which suggest that the Jacobeans had made
considerable progress in the art of stage pyrotechnics.[351] The Globe,
with its traditional ‘blazing star’, is left far behind.[352]

The critical points of staging are the recesses below and above.
Some kind of recess on the level of the main stage is often required
by the King’s plays; for action in or before a prison,[353] a
cell,[354] a cave,[355] a closet,[356] a study,[357] a tomb,[358] a
chapel,[359] a shop;[360] for the revelation of dead bodies or other
concealed sights.[361] In many cases the alcove constructed in the
tiring-house behind the scenic wall would give all that is required,
and occasionally a mention of the ‘curtains’ or of ‘discovery’ in a
stage-direction points plainly to this arrangement. The ‘traverse’ of
Webster’s plays, both for the King’s and the Queen’s men, appears,
as already pointed out, to be nothing more than a terminological
variant.[362] Similarly, hall scenes have still their ‘arras’ or their
‘hangings’, behind which a spy can post himself.[363] A new feature,
however, now presents itself in the existence of certain scenes,
including some bedchamber scenes, which entail the use of properties
and would, I think, during the sixteenth century have been placed in
the alcove, but now appear to have been brought forward and to occupy,
like hall scenes, the main stage. The usage is by no means invariable.
Even in so late a play as _Cymbeline_, Imogen’s chamber, with Iachimo’s
trunk and the elaborate fire-places in it, must, in spite of the
absence of any reference to curtains, have been disposed in the alcove;
for the trunk scene is immediately followed by another before the door
of the same chamber, from which Imogen presently emerges.[364] But I do
not think that the alcove was used for Gertrude’s closet in _Hamlet_,
the whole of which play seems to me to be set very continuously on
the outer stage.[365] Hamlet does not enter the closet direct from in
front, but goes off and comes on again. A little distance is required
for the vision of the Ghost, who goes out at a visible ‘portal’. When
Hamlet has killed Polonius, he lugs the guts into the neighbour room,
according to the ordinary device for clearing a dead body from the
main stage, which is superfluous when the death has taken place in the
alcove. There is an arras, behind which Polonius esconces himself, and
on this, or perhaps on an inner arras disclosed by a slight parting
of the ordinary one, hangs the picture of Hamlet’s father. Nor do I
think, although it is difficult to be certain, that the alcove held
Desdemona’s death-chamber in _Othello_.[366] True, there are curtains
drawn here, but they may be only bed-curtains. A longish chamber, with
an outer door, seems to be indicated. A good many persons, including
Cassio ‘in a chaire’, have to be accommodated, and when Emilia enters,
it is some time before her attention is drawn to Desdemona behind
the curtains. If anything is in the alcove, it can only be just the
bed itself. The best illustrations of my point, however, are to be
found in _The Devil’s Charter_, a singular play, with full and naïve
stage-directions, which perhaps betray the hand of an inexperienced
writer. Much of the action takes place in the palace of Alexander
Borgia at Rome. The alcove seems to be reserved for Alexander’s study.
Other scenes of an intimately domestic character are staged in front,
and the necessary furniture is very frankly carried on, in one case
by a protagonist. This is a scene in a parlour by night, in which
Lucrezia Borgia murders her husband.[367] Another scene represents
Lucrezia’s toilet;[368] in a third young men come in from tennis and
are groomed by a barber.[369] My impression is that in the seventeenth
century, instead of discovering a bedchamber in the alcove, it became
the custom to secure more space and light by projecting the bed through
the central aperture on to the main stage, and removing it by the
same avenue when the scene was over. As to this a stage-direction in
_2 Henry VI_ may be significant. There was a scene in _1 Contention_
in which the murdered body of the Duke of Gloucester is discovered in
his bedchamber. This recurs in _2 Henry VI_, but instead of a full
direction for the drawing of curtains, the Folio has the simple note
‘Bed put forth’.[370] This is one of a group of formulas which have
been the subject of some discussion.[371] I do not think that either
‘Bed put forth’ or still less ‘Bed thrust out’ can be dismissed as
a mere equivalent of ‘Enter in a bed’, which may admittedly cover a
parting of the curtains, or of such a warning to the tire-man as ‘Bed
set out’ or ‘ready’ or ‘prepared’.[372] There is a difference between
‘setting out’ and ‘thrusting out’, for the one does and the other
does not carry the notion of a push. And if ‘Bed put forth’ is rather
more colourless, ‘Bed drawn out’, which also occurs, is clear enough.
Unfortunately the extant text of _2 Henry VI_ may be of any date up
to 1623, and none of the other examples of the formulas in question
are direct evidence for the Globe in 1599–1613.[373] To be sure of the
projected bed at so early a date, we have to turn to the Red Bull,
where we find it both in the _Golden_ and the _Silver Age_, as well
as the amateur _Hector of Germany_, or to the Swan, where we find it
in _The Chaste Maid of Cheapside_.[374] The _Golden Age_ particularly
repays study. The whole of the last two acts are devoted to the episode
of Jupiter and Danae. The scene is set in

the Darreine Tower
Guirt with a triple mure of shining brasse.

Most of the action requires a courtyard, and the wall and gate of this,
with a porter’s lodge and an alarm-bell, must have been given some kind
of structural representation on the stage. An inner door is supposed to
lead to Danae’s chamber above. It is in this chamber, presumably, that
attendants enter ‘drawing out Danae’s bed’, and when ‘The bed is drawn
in’, action is resumed in the courtyard below.[375]

There are chamber scenes in the King’s plays also, which are neither in
the alcove nor on the main stage, but above. This is an extension of a
practice already observable in pre-Globe days. Hero’s chamber in _Much
Ado about Nothing_ is above.[376] So is Celia’s in _Volpone_.[377] So
is Falstaff’s at the Garter Inn in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_.[378]
In all these examples, which are not exhaustive, a reasonable amount
of space is required for action.[379] This is still more the case in
_The Yorkshire Tragedy_, where the violent scene of the triple murder
at Calverley Hall is clearly located upstairs.[380] Moreover, there
are two plays which stage above what one would normally regard as hall
rather than chamber scenes. One is _Sejanus_, where a break in the
dialogue in the first act can best be explained by the interpretation
of a scene in an upper ‘gallery’.[381] The other is _Every Man Out
of his Humour_, where the personages go ‘up’ to the great chamber at
Court.[382] Elaborate use is also made of the upper level in _Antony
and Cleopatra_, where it represents the refuge of Cleopatra upon a
monument, to which Antony is heaved up for his death scene, and on
which Cleopatra is afterwards surprised by Caesar’s troops.[383] But I
do not agree with the suggestion that it was used in shipboard scenes,
for which, as we learn from the presenter’s speeches in _Pericles_, the
stage-manager gave up the idea of providing a realistic setting, and
fell back upon an appeal to the imagination of the audience.[384] Nor
do I think that it was used for the ‘platform’ at Elsinore Castle in
_Hamlet_;[385] or, as it was in the sixteenth century, for scenes in a
Capitoline senate overlooking the forum at Rome.[386] In _Bonduca_, if
that is of our period, it was adapted for a high rock, with fugitives
upon it, in a wood.[387] I do not find extensive chamber scenes
‘above’ in any King’s play later than 1609, and that may be a fact
of significance to which I shall return.[388] But shallow action, at
windows or in a gallery overlooking a hall or open space, continues to
be frequent.[389] In _The Devil is an Ass_, which is a Blackfriars
play of 1616, a little beyond the limits of our period, there is an
interesting scene played out of two contiguous upper windows, supposed
to be in different houses.[390]

There is other evidence to show that in the seventeenth century as
in the sixteenth, the stage was not limited to the presentation of a
single house only at any given moment. A multiplicity of houses would
fit the needs of several plays, but perhaps the most striking instance
for the Globe is afforded by _The Merry Devil of Edmonton_, the last
act of which requires two inns on opposite sides of the stage, the
signs of which have been secretly exchanged, as a trick in the working
out of the plot.[391] The King’s plays do not often require any marked
foreshortening of distance in journeys over the stage. Hamlet, indeed,
comes in ‘a farre off’, according to a stage-direction of the Folio,
but this need mean no more than at the other end of the graveyard,
although Hamlet is in fact returning from a voyage.[392] In _Bonduca_
the Roman army at one end of the stage are said to be half a furlong
from the rock occupied by Caractacus, which they cannot yet see; but
they go off, and their leaders subsequently emerge upon the rock from
behind.[393] The old device endured at the Red Bull, but even here the
flagrant example usually cited is of a very special type.[394] At the
end of _The Travels of the Three English Brothers_, the action of
which ranges widely over the inhabited world, there is an appeal to
imagination by Fame, the presenter, who says,

Would your apprehensions helpe poore art,
Into three parts deuiding this our stage,
They all at once shall take their leaues of you.
Thinke this England, this Spaine, this Persia.

Then follow the stage-directions, ‘Enter three seuerall waies the
three Brothers’, and ‘Fame giues to each a prospective glasse, they
seme to see one another’. Obviously such a visionary dumb-show
cannot legitimately be twisted into an argument that the concurrent
representation of incongruous localities was a matter of normal
staging. Such interplay of opposed houses, as we get in _The Merry
Devil of Edmonton_, would no doubt seem more effective if we could
adopt the ingenious conjecture which regards the scenic wall as not
running in a straight line all the way, but broken by two angles, so
that, while the central apertures below and above directly front the
spectators, the doors to right and left, each with a room or window
above it, are set on a bias, and more or less face each other from end
to end of the stage.[395] I cannot call this more than a conjecture,
for there is no direct evidence in its favour, and the Swan drawing,
for what that is worth, is flatly against it. Structurally it would,
I suppose, fit the round or apsidal ended Globe better than the
rectangular Fortune or Blackfriars. The theory seems to have been
suggested by a desire to make it possible to watch action within the
alcove from a gallery on the level above. I have not, however, come
across any play which can be safely assigned to a public theatre, in
which just this situation presents itself, although it is common enough
for persons above to watch action in a threshold or hall scene. Two
windows in the same plane would, of course, fully meet the needs of
_The Devil is an Ass_. There is, indeed, the often-quoted scene from
_David and Bethsabe_, in which the King watches the Hittite’s wife
bathing at a fountain; but the provenance of _David and Bethsabe_ is
so uncertain and its text so evidently manipulated, that it would be
very temerarious to rely upon it as affording any proof of public
usage.[396] On the other hand, if it is the case, as seems almost
certain, that the boxes over the doors were originally the lord’s
rooms, it would no doubt be desirable that the occupants of those
rooms should be able to see anything that went on within the alcove.
I do not quite know what weight to attach to Mr. Lawrence’s analogy
between the oblique doors which this theory involves and the familiar
post-Restoration proscenium doors, with stage-boxes above them, at
right angles to the plane of the footlights.[397] The roofed Caroline
theatres, with their side-walls to the stage, and the proscenium arch,
probably borrowed from the masks, have intervened, and I cannot pretend
to have traced the history of theatrical structure during the Caroline
period.

I have felt justified in dealing more briefly with the early
seventeenth-century stages than with those of the sixteenth century,
for, after all, the fundamental conditions, so far as I can judge,
remained unaltered. I seem able to lay my finger upon two directions in
which development took place, and both of these concern the troublesome
problem of interior action. First of all there is the stage gallery. Of
this I venture to reconstruct the story as follows. Its first function
was to provide seating accommodation for dignified and privileged
spectators, amongst whom could be placed, if occasion arose, presenters
or divine agents supposed to be watching or directing the action of
a play. Perhaps a differentiation took place. Parts of the gallery,
above the doors at either end of the scene, were set aside as lord’s
rooms. The central part, with the upper floor of the tiring-house
behind it, was used for the musicians, but was also available for such
scenes as could effectively be staged above, and a curtain was fitted,
corresponding to that below, behind which the recess could be set as
a small chamber. Either as a result of these changes or for other
reasons, the lord’s rooms, about the end of the sixteenth century, lost
their popularity, and it became the fashion for persons of distinction,
or would-be distinction, to sit upon the stage itself instead.[398]
This left additional space free above, and the architects of the Globe
and Fortune took the opportunity to enlarge the accommodation for
their upper scenes. Probably they left windows over the side-doors, so
that the upper parts of three distinct houses could, if necessary, be
represented; and it may be that spectators were not wholly excluded
from these.[399] But they widened the music-room, so that it could now
hold larger scenes, and in fact now became an upper stage and not a
mere recess. Adequate lighting from behind could probably be obtained
rather more easily here than on the crowded floor below. There is an
interesting allusion which I have not yet quoted, and which seems
to point to an upper stage of substantial dimensions in the public
theatres of about the year 1607. It is in Middleton’s _Family of Love_,
itself a King’s Revels play.[400] Some of the characters have been to
a performance, not ‘by the youths’, and there ‘saw Sampson bear the
town-gates on his neck from the lower to the upper stage’. You cannot
carry a pair of town-gates into a mere box, such as the Swan drawing
shows.

Meanwhile, what of the alcove? I think that it proved too dark and
too cramped for the convenient handling of chamber scenes, and that
the tendency of the early seventeenth century was to confine its use
to action which could be kept shallow, or for which obscurity was
appropriate. It could still serve for a prison, or an ‘unsunned lodge’,
or a chamber of horrors. For scenes requiring more light and movement
it was replaced, sometimes by the more spacious upper stage, sometimes
by the main stage, on to which beds and other properties were carried
or ‘thrust out’, just as they had always been on a less extensive scale
for hall scenes. The difficulties of shifting were, on the whole,
compensated for by the greater effectiveness and visibility which
action on the main scene afforded. I do not therefore think it possible
to accept even such a modified version of the old ‘alternationist’
theory as I find set out in Professor Thorndike’s recent _Shakespeare’s
Theater_. The older alternationists, starting from the principle, sound
enough in itself, of continuous action within an act, assumed that all
interior or other propertied scenes were played behind the curtains,
and were set there while unpropertied action was played outside; and
they deduced a method of dramatic construction, which required the
dramatists to alternate exterior and interior scenes so as to allow
time for the settings to be carried out.[401] The theory breaks down,
not merely because it entails a much more constant use of the curtains
than the stage-directions give us any warrant for, but also because
it fails to provide for the not infrequent event of a succession of
interior scenes; and in its original form it is abandoned by Professor
Thorndike in common with other recent scholars, who see plainly enough
that what I have called hall scenes must have been given on the outer
stage. I do not think that they have always grasped that the tendency
of the seventeenth century was towards a decreased and not an increased
reliance upon the curtained space, possibly because they have not as
a rule followed the historical method in their investigations; and
Professor Thorndike, although he traces the earlier employment of the
alcove much as I do, treats the opening and closing of the curtains as
coming in time to be used, in _Antony and Cleopatra_ for example and
in _Cymbeline_, as little more than a handy convention for indicating
the transference of the scene from one locality to another.[402] Such
a usage would not of course mean that the new scene was played wholly
or even partly within the alcove itself; the change might be merely one
of background. But, although I admit that there would be a convenience
in Professor Thorndike’s development, I do not see that there is in
fact any evidence for it. The stage-directions never mention the use
of curtains in such circumstances as he has in mind; and while I am
far from supposing that they need always have been mentioned, and have
myself assumed their use in one scene of _Cymbeline_ where they are
not mentioned, yet mentions of them are so common in connexion with
the earlier and admitted functions of the alcove, that I should have
expected Professor Thorndike’s view, if it were sound, to have proved
capable of confirmation from at least one unconjectural case.

The difficulty which has led Professor Thorndike to his conclusion
is, however, a real one. In the absence of a _scenario_ with notes
of locality, for which certainly there is no evidence, how did the
Elizabethan managers indicate to their audiences the shifts of
action from one place to another? This is both a sixteenth- and a
seventeenth-century problem. We have noted in a former chapter that
unity of place was characteristic of the earlier Elizabethan interlude;
that it failed to impose itself upon the romantic narrative plots
of the popular drama; that it was departed from through the device
of letting two ends of a continuously set stage stand for discrete
localities; that this device proved only a transition to a system in
which the whole stage stood successively for different localities;
and that there are hints of a convention by which the locality of
each scene was indicated with the help of a label, placed over the
door through which the personages in that scene made their exits and
their entrances.[403] The public stage of the sixteenth and early
seventeenth centuries experienced no re-establishment of the principle
of unity; broadly speaking, it presents an extreme type of romantic
drama, with an unfettered freedom of ranging from one to another of any
number of localities required by a narrative plot. But the practice,
or the instinct, of individual playwrights differs. Ben Jonson is
naturally the man who betrays the most conscious preoccupation with the
question. He is not, however, a rigid or consistent unitarian. In his
two earliest plays the scene shifts from the country to a neighbouring
town, and the induction to _Every Man Out of his Humour_ is in part
an apology for his own liberty, in part a criticism of the licence of
others.

_Mitis._ What’s his scene?

_Cordatus._ Mary _Insula Fortunata_, sir.

_Mitis._ O, the fortunate Iland? masse he has bound himself to a
strict law there.

_Cordatus._ Why so?

_Mitis._ He cannot lightly alter the scene without crossing the
seas.

_Cordatus._ He needs not, hauing a whole Ilande to runne through,
I thinke.

_Mitis._ No? howe comes it then, that in some one play we see so
many seas, countries, and kingdomes, past over with such admirable
dexteritie?

_Cordatus._ O, that but shewes how well the Authors can travaile in
their vocation, and out-run the apprehension of their Auditorie.

_Sejanus_ is throughout in Rome, but five or six distinct houses are
required, and it must be doubtful whether such a multiplicity of
houses could be shown without a change of scene.[404] The prologue
to _Volpone_ claims for the author that ‘The laws of time, place,
persons he obserueth’, and this has no more than four houses, all in
Venice.[405] In _Catiline_ the scenes in Rome, with some ten houses,
are broken by two in open country.[406] In _Bartholomew Fair_ a
preliminary act at a London house is followed by four set continuously
before the three booths of the fair. Absolute unity, as distinct from
the unity of a single country, or even a single town, is perhaps only
attained in _The Alchemist_. Here everything takes place, either in a
single room in Lovewit’s house in the Blackfriars, or in front of a
door leading from the street into the same room. Evidently advantage
was taken of the fact that the scene did not have to be changed, to
build a wall containing this door out on to the stage itself, for
action such as speaking through the keyhole requires both sides of the
door to be practicable.[407] There is also a window from which persons
approaching can be seen. Inner doors, presumably in the scenic wall,
lead to a laboratory and other parts of the house, but these are not
discovered, and no use is made of the upper level. Jonson here is a
clear innovator, so far as the English public theatre is concerned; no
other play of our period reproduces this type of permanent interior
setting.

Shakespeare is no classicist; yet in some of his plays, comedies and
romantic tragedies, it is, I think, possible to discern at least an
instinctive feeling in the direction of scenic unity. _The Comedy of
Errors_, with its action in the streets of Syracuse, near the mart,
or before the Phoenix, the Porpentine, or the priory, follows upon
the lines of its Latin model, although here, as in most of Jonson’s
plays, it is possible that the various houses were shown successively
rather than concurrently. _Twelfth Night_, _Much Ado about Nothing_,
and _Measure for Measure_ each require a single town, with two, three,
and five houses respectively; _Titus Andronicus_, _A Midsummer Night’s
Dream_, _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, _As You Like It_, _Troilus and
Cressida_, _Timon of Athens_, each a single town, with open country
environs. _Love’s Labour’s Lost_ has the unity of a park, with perhaps
a manor-house as background at one end and tents at the other; _The
Tempest_ complete pastoral unity after the opening scene on shipboard.
_Hamlet_ would all be Elsinore, but for one distant open-country scene;
_Romeo and Juliet_ all Venice, but for one scene in Mantua. In another
group of plays the action is divided between two towns. It alternates
from Padua to near Verona in _The Taming of the Shrew_, from Verona
to Milan in _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_, from Venice to Belmont in
_The Merchant of Venice_; in _Othello_ an act in Venice is followed
by four in Cyprus. On the other hand, in a few comedies and in the
histories and historical tragedies, where Shakespeare’s sources leave
him less discretion, he shifts his scenes with a readiness outdone by
no other playwright. The third act of _Richard II_ requires no less
than four localities, three of which have a castle, perhaps the same
castle from the stage-manager’s point of view, in the background. The
second act of _1 Henry IV_ has as many. _King John_ and _Henry V_
pass lightly between England and France, _All’s Well that Ends Well_
between France and Italy, _The Winter’s Tale_ between Sicily and
Bohemia, _Cymbeline_ between Britain, Italy, and Wales. Quite a late
play, _Antony and Cleopatra_, might almost be regarded as a challenge
to classicists. Rome, Misenum, Athens, Actium, Syria, Egypt are the
localities, with much further subdivision in the Egyptian scenes. The
second act has four changes of locality, the third no less than eight,
and it is noteworthy that these changes are often for quite short
bits of dialogue, which no modern manager would regard as justifying
a resetting of the stage. Shakespeare must surely have been in some
danger, in this case, of outrunning the apprehension of his auditory,
and I doubt if even Professor Thorndike’s play of curtains would have
saved him.

It is to be observed also that, in Shakespeare’s plays as in those of
others, no excessive pains are taken to let the changes of locality
coincide with the divisions between the acts. If the second and third
acts of _All’s Well that Ends Well_ are at Paris, the fourth at
Florence, and the fifth at Marseilles, yet the shift from Roussillon
to Paris is in the middle and not at the end of the first act. The
shift from Sicily to Bohemia is in the middle of the third act of
_The Winter’s Tale_; the Agincourt scenes begin in the middle of the
third act of _Henry V_. Indeed, although the poets regarded the acts
as units of literary structure, the act-divisions do not appear to
have been greatly stressed, at any rate on the stages of the public
houses, in the actual presentation of plays.[408] I do not think that
they were wholly disregarded, although the fact that they are so often
unnoted in the prints of plays based on stage copies might point to
that conclusion.[409] The act-interval did not necessarily denote
any substantial time-interval in the action of the play, and perhaps
the actors did not invariably leave the stage. Thus the lovers in _A
Midsummer Night’s Dream_ sleep through the interval between the third
and fourth acts.[410] But some sort of break in the continuity of the
performance is a natural inference from the fact that the act-divisions
are the favourite, although not the only, points for the intervention
of presenters, dumb-shows, and choruses.[411] The act-intervals cannot
have been long, at any rate if the performance was to be completed in
two hours. There may sometimes have been music, which would not have
prevented the audience from stretching themselves and talking.[412]
Short intervals, rather than none at all, are, I think, suggested by
the well-known passage in the induction of _The Malcontent_, as altered
for performance at the Globe, in which it is explained that passages
have been added to the play as originally written for Revels boys, ‘to
entertain a little more time, and to abridge the not-received custom of
music in our theatre’.[413] Some information is perhaps to be gleaned
from the ‘plots’ of plays prepared for the guidance of the book-keeper
or tire-man, of which examples are preserved at Dulwich.[414] These
have lines drawn across them at points which pretty clearly correspond
to the beginnings of scenes, although it can hardly be assumed that
each new scene meant a change of locality. The act-divisions can in
some, but not all, cases be inferred from the occurrence of dumb-shows
and choruses; in one, _The Dead Man’s Fortune_, they are definitely
marked by lines of crosses, and against each such line there is the
marginal note ‘musique’. Other musical directions, ‘sound’, ‘sennet’,
‘alarum’, ‘flourish’, come sometimes at the beginning, sometimes in the
middle of scenes.

We do not get any encouragement to think that a change of locality was
regularly heralded by notes of music, even if this may incidentally
have been the case when a procession or an army or a monarch was about
to enter. Possibly the lines on the plots may signify an even slighter
pause than that between the acts, such as the modern stage provides
with the added emphasis of a drop-curtain; but of this there is no
proof, and an allusion in _Catiline_ to action as rapid

As is a veil put off, a visor changed,
Or the scene shifted, in our theatres,

is distinctly against it.[415] A mere clearance of the stage does
not necessarily entail a change of scene, although there are one or
two instances in which the exit of personages at one door, followed
by their return at another, seems to constitute or accompany such
a change.[416] And even if the fact of a change could be signified
in one or other of these ways, the audience would still be in the
dark as to what the new locality was supposed to be. Can we then
assume a continuance of the old practice of indicating localities by
labels over the doors? This would entail the shifting of the labels
themselves during the progress of the play, at any rate if there were
more localities than entrances, or if, as might usually be expected,
more entrances than one were required to any locality. But there would
be no difficulty about this, and in fact we have an example of the
shifting of a label by a mechanical device in the introduction to _Wily
Beguiled_.[417] This was not a public theatre play, and the label
concerned was one giving the title of the play and not its locality,
but similar machinery could obviously have been applied. There is not,
however, much actual evidence for the use either of title-labels or
of locality-labels on the public stage. The former are perhaps the
more probable of the two, and the practice of posting play-bills at
the theatre door and in places of public resort would not render
them altogether superfluous.[418] In favour of locality-labels it is
possible to quote Dekker’s advice to those entering Paul’s, and also
the praise given to Jonson by Jasper Mayne in _Jonsonus Virbius_:

Thy stage was still a stage, two entrances
Were not two parts o’ the world, disjoined by seas.[419]

These, however, are rather vague and inconclusive allusions on which to
base a whole stage practice, and there is not much to be added to them
from the texts and stage-directions of the plays themselves. Signs are
of course used to distinguish particular taverns and shops, just as
they would be in real life.[420] Occasionally, moreover, a locality is
named in a stage-direction in a way that recalls _Common Conditions_,
but this may also be explained as no more than a descriptive touch such
as is not uncommon in stage-directions written by authors.[421] It is
rather against the theory of labels that care is often taken, when a
locality is changed, to let the personages themselves declare their
whereabouts. A careful reader of such rapidly shifting plays as _Edward
I_, _James IV_, _The Battle of Alcazar_, or _King Leir_ will generally
be able to orientate himself with the aid of the opening passages of
dialogue in each new scene, and conceivably a very attentive spectator
might do the same. Once the personages have got themselves grouped in
the mind in relation to their localities, the recurrence of this or
that group would help. It would require a rather careful examination
of texts to enable one to judge how far this method of localization by
dialogue continues throughout our period. I have been mainly struck by
it in early plays. The presenters may also give assistance, either by
declaring the general scene in a prologue, or by intervening to call
attention to particular shifts.[422] Thus in _Dr. Faustus_ the original
scene in Wittenberg is indicated by the chorus, a shift to Rome by
speeches of Wagner and Faustus, a shift to the imperial court by the
chorus, and the return to Wittenberg by a speech of Faustus.[423]
Jonson makes a deliberate experiment with this method in _Every Man Out
of his Humour_, which it is worth while following in detail. It is the
Grex of presenters, Mitis and Cordatus, who serve as guides. The first
act is in open country without background, and it is left to the rustic
Sogliardo to describe it (543) as his lordship. A visit to Puntarvolo’s
is arranged, and at the beginning of the second act Cordatus says, ‘The
Scene is the countrey still, remember’ (946). Presently the stage is
cleared, with the hint, ‘Here he comes, and with him Signior Deliro
a merchant, at whose house hee is come to soiourne. Make your owne
obseruation now; only transferre your thoughts to the Cittie with the
Scene; where, suppose they speake’ (1499). The next scene then is at
Deliro’s. Then, for the first scene of the third act, ‘We must desire
you to presuppose the Stage, the middle Isle in Paules; and that, the
West end of it’ (1918). The second scene of this act is in the open
country again, with a ‘crosse’ on which Sordido hangs himself; we are
left to infer it from the reappearance of the rustic characters. It is
closed with ‘Let your minde keepe companie with the Scene stil, which
now remoues it selfe from the Countrie to the Court’ (2555). After
a scene at Court, ‘You vnderstand where the scene is?’ (2709), and
presumably the entry of personages already familiar brings us back for
the first scene of Act IV to Deliro’s. A visit to ‘the Notaries by the
Exchange’ is planned, and for the second and third scenes the only note
is of the entry of Puntarvolo and the Scrivener; probably a scrivener’s
shop was discovered. Act V is introduced by ‘Let your imagination be
swifter than a paire of oares, and by this, suppose Puntarvolo, Briske,
Fungoso, and the Dog, arriu’d at the court gate, and going vp to the
great chamber’ (3532). The action of the next scene begins in the great
chamber and then shifts to the court gate again. Evidently the two
localities were in some way staged together, and a guide is not called
upon to enlighten us. There are yet two more scenes, according to the
Grex. One opens with ‘Conceiue him but to be enter’d the Mitre’ (3841),
and as action shifts from the Mitre to Deliro’s and back again without
further note, these two houses were probably shown together. The final
scene is introduced by ‘O, this is to be imagin’d the Counter belike’
(4285). So elaborate a directory would surely render any use of labels
superfluous for this particular play; but, so far as we know, the
experiment was not repeated.[424]

When Cordatus points to ‘that’, and calls it the west end of Paul’s,
are we to suppose that the imagination of the audience was helped out
by the display of any pictorial background? It is not impossible. The
central aperture, disclosed by the parting curtains, could easily hold,
in place of a discovered alcove or a quasi-solid monument or rock, any
kind of painted cloth which might give colour to the scene. A woodland
cloth or a battlement cloth could serve for play after play, and for a
special occasion something more distinctive could be attempted without
undue expense. Such a back-cloth, perhaps for use in _Dr. Faustus_, may
have been ‘the sittie of Rome’ which we find in Henslowe’s inventory
of 1598.[425] And something of this kind seems to be required in _2
If You Know not Me, You Know Nobody_, where the scene is before Sir
Thomas Gresham’s newly completed Burse, and the personages say ‘How
do you like this building?’ and ‘We are gazing here on M. Greshams
work’.[426] Possibly Elizabethan imaginations were more vivid than a
tradition of scene-painters allows ours to be, but that does not mean
that an Elizabethan audience did not like to have its eyes tickled
upon occasion. And if as a rule the stage-managers relied mainly upon
garments and properties to minister to this instinct, there is no
particular reason why they should not also have had recourse to so
simple a device as a back-cloth. This conjecture is hardly excluded by
the very general terms in which post-Restoration writers deny ‘scenes’
and all decorations other than ‘hangings’ to the earlier stage.[427]
By ‘scenes’ they no doubt mean the complete settings with shuttered
‘wings’ as well as back-cloths which Inigo Jones had devised for the
masks and the stage had adopted. Even these were not absolutely unknown
in pre-Restoration plays, and neither this fact nor the incidental
use of special cloths over the central aperture would make it untrue
that the normal background of an Elizabethan or Jacobean play was an
arras.[428]

The discussions of the last chapter and a half have envisaged the
plays presented, exclusively in open theatres until the King’s took
over the Blackfriars, by professional companies of men. I must deal
in conclusion, perhaps more briefly than the interest of the problem
would itself justify, with those of the revived boy companies which for
a time carried on such an active rivalry with the men, at Paul’s from
1599 to 1606 and at the Blackfriars from 1600 to 1609. It is, I think,
a principal defect of many investigations into Jacobean staging, that
the identity of the devices employed in the so-called ‘public’ and
‘private’ houses has been too hastily assumed, and a uniform hypothesis
built up upon material taken indifferently from both sources, without
regard to the logical possibility of the considerable divergences to
which varying conditions of structure and of tradition may have given
rise. This is a kind of syncretism to which an inadequate respect for
the historic method naturally tends. It is no doubt true that the
‘standardization’ of type, which I have accepted as likely to result
from the frequent migration of companies and plays from one public
house to another, may in a less degree have affected the private houses
also. James Burbadge originally built the Blackfriars for public
performances, and we know that _Satiromastix_ was produced both at
the Globe and at Paul’s in 1601, and that in 1604 the Revels boys and
the King’s men were able to effect mutual piracies of _Jeronimo_ and
_The Malcontent_. Nor is there anything in the general character of
the two groups of ‘public’ and ‘private’ plays, as they have come down
to us, which is in any obvious way inconsistent with some measure of
standardization. It is apparent, indeed, that the act-interval was of
far more importance at both Paul’s and the Blackfriars than elsewhere.
But this is largely a matter of degree. The inter-acts of music and
song and dance were more universal and longer.[429] But the relation
of the acts to each other was not essentially different. The break in
the representation may still correspond to practically no interval
at all in the time-distribution of the play; and there are examples
in which the action continues to be carried on by the personages in
dumb-show, while the music is still sounding.[430] In any case this
particular distinction, while it might well modify the methods of the
dramatist, need only affect the economy of the tire-house in so far
as it would give more time for the preparation of an altered setting
at the beginning of an act. When _The Malcontent_ was taken over at
the Globe, the text had to be lengthened that the music might be
abridged, but there is no indication of any further alteration, due to
a difficulty in adapting the original situations to the peculiarities
of the Globe stage. The types of incident, again, which are familiar in
public plays, reappear in the private ones; in different proportions,
no doubt, since the literary interest of the dramatists and their
audiences tends rather in the directions, on the one hand of definite
pastoral, and on the other of courtly crime and urban humour, than in
that of chronicle history. And there is a marked general analogy in
the stage-directions. Here also those who leave the stage go ‘in’, and
music and voices can be heard ‘within’. There are the same formulae
for the use of several doors, of which one is definitely a ‘middle’
door.[431] Spirits and so forth can ‘ascend’ from under the stage by
the convenient traps.[432] Possibly they can also ‘descend’ from the
heavens.[433] The normal backing of the stage, even in out-of-door
scenes, is an arras or hanging, through which at Paul’s spectators
can watch a play.[434] At the Blackfriars, while the arras, even more
clearly than in the public theatres, is of a decorative rather than a
realistic kind, it can also be helped out by something in the nature
of perspective.[435] There is action ‘above’, and interior action,
some of which is recessed or ‘discovered’. It must be added, however,
that these formulae, taken by themselves, do not go very far towards
determining the real character of the staging. They make their first
appearance, for the most part, with the interludes in which the
Court influence is paramount, and are handed down as a tradition to
the public and the private plays alike. They would hardly have been
sufficient, without the Swan drawing and other collateral evidence,
to disclose even such a general conception of the various uses and
interplay, at the Globe and elsewhere, of main stage, alcove, and
gallery, as we believe ourselves to have succeeded in adumbrating.
And it is quite possible that at Paul’s and the Blackfriars they may
not--at any rate it must not be taken for granted without inquiry that
they do--mean just the same things. Thus, to take the doors alone, we
infer with the help of the Swan drawing, that in the public theatres
the three main entrances were in the scenic wall and on the same or
nearly the same plane. But the Blackfriars was a rectangular room. We
do not know that any free space was left between its walls and the
sides of the stage. And it is quite conceivable that there may have
been side-doors in the planes of these walls, and at right angles to
the middle door. Whether this was so or not, and if so how far forward
the side-doors stood, there is certainly nothing in the formulae
of the stage-directions to tell us. Perhaps the most noticeable
differentiation, which emerges from a comparative survey of private and
public plays, is that in the main the writers of the former, unlike
those of the latter, appear to be guided by the principle of unity
of place; at any rate to the extent that their _domus_ are generally
located in the same town, although they may be brought for purposes
of representation into closer contiguity than the actual topography
of that town would suggest. There are exceptions, and the scenes in a
town are occasionally broken by one or two, requiring at the most an
open-country background, in the environs. The exact measure in which
the principle is followed will become sufficiently evident in the
sequel. My immediate point is that it was precisely the absence of
unity of place which drove the public stage back upon its common form
background of a curtained alcove below and a curtained gallery above,
supplemented by the side-doors and later the windows above them, and
convertible to the needs of various localities in the course of a
single play.

Let us now proceed to the analysis, first of the Paul’s plays and then
of the Chapel and Revels plays at the Blackfriars; separately, for
the same caution, which forbids a hasty syncretism of the conditions
of public and private houses, also warns us that divergences may
conceivably have existed between those of the two private houses
themselves. But here too we are faced with the fact that individual
plays were sometimes transferred from one to the other, _The Fawn_ from
Blackfriars to Paul’s, and _The Trick to Catch the Old One_ in its turn
from Paul’s to Blackfriars.[436]

Seventeen plays, including the two just named and _Satiromastix_, which
was shared with the Globe, are assigned to Paul’s by contemporary
title-pages.[437] To these may be added, with various degrees of
plausibility, _Histriomastix_, _What You Will_, and _Wily Beguiled_.
For Paul’s were also certainly planned, although we cannot be sure
whether, or if so when, they were actually produced, the curious
series of plays left in manuscript by William Percy, of which
unfortunately only two have ever been published. As the company only
endured for six or seven years after its revival, it seems probable
that a very fair proportion of its repertory has reached us. _Jack
Drum’s Entertainment_ speaks of the ‘mustie fopperies of antiquitie’
with which the company began its career, and one of these is no doubt
to be found in _Histriomastix_, evidently an old play, possibly of
academic origin, and recently brought up to date.[438] The staging
of _Histriomastix_ would have caused no difficulty to the Revels
officers, if it had been put into their hands as a Paul’s play of the
’eighties. The plot illustrates the cyclical progression of Peace,
Plenty, Pride, Envy, War, Poverty, each of whom in turn occupies a
throne, finally resigned to Peace, for whom in an alternative ending
for Court performance is substituted Astraea, who is Elizabeth.[439]
This arrangement recalls that of _The Woman in the Moon_, but the
throne seems to have its position on the main stage rather than above.
Apart from the abstractions, the whole of the action may be supposed
to take place in a single provincial town, largely in an open street,
sometimes in the hall of a lord called Mavortius, on occasion in or
before smaller _domus_ representing the studies of Chrisoganus, a
scholar, and Fourcher, a lawyer, the shop of Velure, a merchant, a
market-cross, which is discovered by a curtain, perhaps a tavern.[440]
Certainly in the ’eighties these would have been disposed together
around the stage, like the _domus_ of _Campaspe_ about the market-place
at Athens. And I believe that this is in fact how _Histriomastix_ was
staged, more particularly as at one point (v. 259) the action appears
to pass directly from the street to the hall without a clearance.
Similarly _The Maid’s Metamorphosis_ is on strictly Lylyan lines. It
is _tout en pastoralle_, in a wood, about whose paths the characters
stray, while in various regions of it are located the cave of Somnus
(II. i. 148), the cottage of Eurymine (IV. ii. 4), and a palace where
‘Phoebus appeares’ (V. ii. 25), possibly above. _Wily Beguiled_ needs
a stage of which part is a wood, and part a village hard by, with some
suggestion of the doors of the houses of Gripe, Ploddall, Churms, and
Mother Midnight. Somewhat less concentration is to be found in _The
Wisdom of Dr. Dodipoll_. Here too, a space of open country, a green
hill with a cave, the harbourage and a bank, is neighboured by the
Court of Alphonso and the houses of Cassimere and of Flores, of which
the last named is adapted for interior action.[441] All this is in
Saxony, but there is also a single short scene (I. iii) of thirty-two
lines, not necessarily requiring a background, in Brunswick. The plays
of William Percy are still, it must be admitted, rather obscure, and
one has an uneasy feeling that the manuscript may not yet have yielded
up all its indications as to date and provenance. But on the assumption
that the conditions contemplated are those of Paul’s in 1599–1606, we
learn some curious details of structure, and are face to face with a
technique which is still closely reminiscent of the ’eighties. Percy,
alone of the dramatists, prefixes to his books, for the guidance of the
producer, a note of the equipment required to set them forth. Thus for
_Cuckqueans and Cuckolds Errant_ he writes:

‘The Properties.

‘Harwich, In Midde of the Stage Colchester with Image of
Tarlton, Signe and Ghirlond under him also. The Raungers Lodge,
Maldon, A Ladder of Roapes trussed up neare Harwich. Highest and
Aloft the Title The Cuck-Queanes and Cuckolds Errants. A Long
Fourme.’

The house at Colchester is the Tarlton Inn, and here the ghost of
Tarlton prologizes, ‘standing at entrance of the doore and right under
the Beame’. That at Harwich is the house of Floredin, and the ladder
leads to the window of his wife Arvania. Thus we have the concurrent
representation of three localities, in three distinct towns of Essex.
To each is assigned one of three doors and, as in _Common Conditions_
of old, entry by a particular door signifies that a scene is to take
place at the locality to which it belongs.[442] One is at liberty to
conjecture that the doors were nominated by labels, but Percy does not
precisely say so, although he certainly provides for a title label.
Journeys from one locality to another are foreshortened into a crossing
of the stage.[443] For _The Aphrodysial_ there were at least two
houses, the palace of Oceanus ‘in the middle and alofte’, and Proteus
Hall, where interior action takes place.[444] For _The Faery Pastoral_
there is an elaborate note:

‘The Properties

‘Highest, aloft, and on the Top of the Musick Tree the Title The
Faery Pastorall, Beneath him pind on Post of the Tree The Scene
Elvida Forrest. Lowest of all over the Canopie ΝΑΠΑΙΤΒΟΔΑΙΟΝ
or Faery Chappell. A kiln of Brick. A Fowen Cott. A Hollowe
Oake with vice of wood to shutt to. A Lowe well with Roape and
Pullye. A Fourme of Turves. A greene Bank being Pillowe to the
Hed but. Lastly A Hole to creepe in and out.’

Having written so far, Percy is smitten with a doubt. The stage of
Paul’s was a small one, and spectators sat on it. If he clutters it up
like this with properties, will there be room to act at all? He has a
happy thought and continues:

‘Now if so be that the Properties of any These, that be outward,
will not serve the turne by reason of concourse of the People
on the Stage, Then you may omitt the sayd Properties which be
outward and supplye their Places with their Nuncupations onely
in Text Letters. Thus for some.’

Whether the master of Paul’s was prepared to avail himself of this
ingenious device, I do not know. There is no other reference to it,
and I do not think it would be safe to assume that it was in ordinary
use upon either the public or the private stage. There is no change
of locality in _The Faery Pastoral_, which is _tout en pastoralle_,
but besides the title label, there was a general scenic label and a
special one for the fairy chapel. This, which had seats on ‘degrees’
(v. 5), occupied the ‘Canopie, Fane or Trophey’, which I take to
have been a discovered interior under the ‘Beame’ named in the other
play, corresponding to the alcove of the public theatres. The other
properties were smaller ‘practicables’ standing free on the stage,
which is presumably what Percy means by ‘outward’. The arrangement must
have closely resembled that of _The Old Wive’s Tale_. The ‘Fowen Cott’
is later described as ‘tapistred with cats and fowëns’--a gamekeeper’s
larder. Some kind of action from above was possible; it may have been
only from a tree.[445]

The plays so far considered seem to point to the use at Paul’s of
continuous settings, even when various localities had to be shown,
rather than the successive settings, with the help of common form
_domus_, which prevailed at the contemporary Globe and Fortune. Perhaps
there is rather an archaistic note about them. Let us turn to the
plays written for Paul’s by more up-to-date dramatists, by Marston,
Dekker and Webster, Chapman, Middleton, and Beaumont. Marston’s hand,
already discernible in the revision of _Histriomastix_, appears to be
dominant in _Jack Drum’s Entertainment_, although neither play was
reclaimed for him in the collected edition of 1633. Unity of locality
is not observed in _Jack Drum_. By far the greater part of the action
takes place on Highgate Green, before the house of Sir Edward Fortune,
with practicable windows above.[446] But there are two scenes (I.
282–428; IV. 207–56) in London, before a tavern (I. 345), which may be
supposed to be also the house where Mistress Brabant lies ‘private’ in
an ‘inner chamber’ (IV. 83, 211). And there are three (II. 170–246;
III. 220–413; V) in an open spot, on the way to Highgate (II. 228)
and near a house, whence a character emerges (III. 249, 310). It is
described as ‘the crosse stile’ (IV. 338), and is evidently quite near
Fortune’s house, and still on the green (V. 96, 228). This suggests to
me a staging closely analogous to that of _Cuckqueans and Cuckolds_,
with Highgate at one end of the stage, London at the other, and the
cross stile between them. It is true that there is no very certain
evidence of direct transference of action from one spot to another,
but the use of two doors at the beginning of the first London scene is
consistent, on my theory, with the fact that one entrant comes from
Highgate, whither also he goes at the end of the scene, and the similar
use at the beginning of the second cross-stile scene is consistent
with the fact that the two entrants are wildly seeking the same lady,
and one may well have been in London and the other at Highgate. She
herself enters from the neighbouring house; that is to say, a third,
central, door. With Marston’s acknowledged plays, we reach an order of
drama in which interior action of the ‘hall’ type is conspicuous.[447]
There are four plays, each limited to a single Italian city, Venice
or Urbino. The main action of _1 Antonio and Mellida_ is in the hall
of the doge’s palace, chiefly on ‘the lower stage’, although ladies
discourse ‘above’, and a chamber can be pointed to from the hall.[448]
One short scene (V. 1–94), although near the Court, is possibly in
the lodging of a courtier, but probably in the open street. And two
(III. i; IV) are in open country, representing ‘the Venice marsh’,
requiring no background, but approachable by more than one door.[449]
The setting of _2 Antonio and Mellida_ is a little more complicated.
There is no open-country scene. The hall recurs and is still the chief
place of action. It can be entered by more than one door (V. 17,
&c.) and has a ‘vault’ (II. 44) with a ‘grate’ (II. ii. 127), whence
a speaker is heard ‘under the stage’ (V. 1). The scenes within it
include several episodes discovered by curtains. One is at the window
of Mellida’s chamber above.[450] Another, in Maria’s chamber, where
the discovery is only of a bed, might be either above or below.[451] A
third involves the appearance of a ghost ‘betwixt the music-houses’,
probably above.[452] Concurrently, a fourth facilitates a murder in a
recess below.[453] Nor is the hall any longer the only interior used.
Three scenes (II. 1–17; III. 1–212; IV. ii) are in an aisle (III.
128) of St. Mark’s, with a trapped grave.[454] As a character passes
(ii. 17) directly from the church to the palace in the course of a
speech, it is clear that the two ‘houses’, consistently with actual
Venetian topography, were staged together and contiguously. _The Fawn_
was originally produced at Blackfriars and transferred to Paul’s. I
deal with it here, because of the close analogy which it presents to
_1 Antonio and Mellida_. It begins with an open-country scene within
sight of the ‘far-appearing spires’ of Urbino. Thereafter all is within
the hall of the Urbino palace. It is called a ‘presence’ (I. ii. 68),
but one must conceive it as of the nature of an Italian colonnaded
_cortile_, for there is a tree visible, up which a lover climbs to
his lady’s chamber, and although both the tree and the chamber window
might have occupied a bit of façade in the plane of the aperture
showing the hall, they appear in fact to have been within the hall,
since the lovers are later ‘discovered’ to the company there.[455]
_What You Will_, intermediate in date between _Antonio and Mellida_
and _The Fawn_, has a less concentrated setting than either of them.
The principal house is Albano’s (I; III. ii; IV; V. 1–68), where
there is action at the porch, within the hall, and in a discovered
room behind.[456] But there are also scenes in a shop (III. ii), in
Laverdure’s lodging (II. ii), probably above, and in a schoolroom (II.
ii). The two latter are also discovered.[457] Nevertheless, I do not
think that shifting scenes of the public theatre type are indicated.
Albano’s house does not lend itself to public theatre methods. Act I
is beneath his wife Celia’s window.[458] Similarly III. ii is before
his porch. But III. iv is in his hall, whence the company go to dinner
within, and here they are disclosed in V. Hence, from V. 69 onwards,
they begin to pass to the street, where they presently meet the duke’s
troop. I do not know of any public play in which the porch, the hall,
and an inner room of a house are all represented, and my feeling is
that Albano’s occupied the back corner of a stage, with the porch and
window above to one side, at right angles to the plane of the hall.
At any rate I do not see any definite obstacle to the hypothesis that
all Marston’s plays for Paul’s had continuous settings. For _What You
Will_ the ‘little’ stage would have been rather crowded. The induction
hints that it was, and perhaps that spectators were on this occasion
excluded, while the presenters went behind the back curtains.

Most of the other Paul’s plays need not detain us as long as Marston’s.
He has been thought to have helped in _Satiromastix_, but that must
be regarded as substantially Dekker’s. Obviously it must have been
capable of representation both at Paul’s and at the Globe. It needs
the houses of Horace, Shorthose, and Vaughan, Prickshaft’s garden
with a ‘bower’ in it, and the palace. Interior action is required in
Horace’s study, which is discovered,[459] the presence-chamber at the
palace, where a ‘chaire is set under a canopie’,[460] and Shorthose’s
hall.[461] The ordinary methods at the Globe would be adequate. On the
other hand, London, in spite of Horace, is the locality throughout,
and at Paul’s the setting may have been continuous, just as well as
in _What You Will_. Dekker is also the leading spirit in _Westward
Ho!_ and _Northward Ho!_, and in these we get, for the first time at
Paul’s, plays for which a continuous setting seems quite impossible.
Not only does _Westward Ho!_ require no less than ten houses and
_Northward Ho!_ seven, but also, although the greater part of both
plays takes place in London, _Westward Ho!_ has scenes at Brentford
and _Northward Ho!_ at Ware.[462] The natural conclusion is that, for
these plays at least, the procedure of the public theatres was adopted.
It is, of course, the combination of numerous houses and changes of
locality which leads me to this conclusion. Mahelot shows us that the
‘multiple’ staging of the Hôtel de Bourgogne permitted inconsistencies
of locality, but could hardly accommodate more than five, or at most
six, _maisons_. Once given the existence of alternative methods at
Paul’s, it becomes rather difficult to say which was applied in any
particular case. Chapman’s _Bussy d’Ambois_ begins, like _The Fawn_,
with an open-country scene, and thereafter uses only three houses,
all in Paris; the presence-chamber at the palace (I. ii; II. i; III.
ii; IV. i), Bussy’s chamber (V. iii), and Tamyra’s chamber in another
house, Montsurry’s (II. ii; III. i; IV. ii; V. i, ii, iv). Both
chambers are trapped for spirits to rise, and Tamyra’s has in it a
‘gulfe’, apparently screened by a ‘canopie’, which communicates with
Bussy’s.[463] As the interplay of scenes in Act V requires transit
through the passage from one chamber to the other, it is natural to
assume an unchanged setting.[464]

The most prolific contributor to the Paul’s repertory was Middleton.
His first play, _Blurt Master Constable_, needs five houses. They are
all in Venice, and as in certain scenes more than one of them appears
to be visible, they were probably all set together.[465] Similarly,
_The Phoenix_ has six houses, all in Ferrara;[466] and _Michaelmas
Term_ has five houses, all in London.[467] On the other hand, although
_A Mad World, my Masters_ has only four houses,[468] and _A Trick to
Catch the Old One_ seven,[469] yet both these plays resemble Dekker’s,
in that the action is divided between London and one or more places in
the country; and this, so far as it goes, seems to suggest settings
on public theatre lines. I do not know whether Middleton wrote _The
Puritan_, but I think that this play clearly had a continuous setting
with only four houses, in London.[470] And although Beaumont’s
_Woman Hater_ requires seven houses, these are all within or hard
by the palace in Milan, and action seems to pass freely from one to
another.[471]

The evidence available does not dispose one to dogmatism. But this
is the general impression which I get of the history of the Paul’s
staging. When the performances were revived in 1599, the master had,
as in the days before Lyly took the boys to Blackfriars, to make the
best of a room originally designed for choir-practices. This was
circular, and only had space for a comparatively small stage. At the
back of this, entrance was given by a curtained recess, corresponding
to the alcove of the public theatres, and known at Paul’s as the
‘canopy’.[472] Above the canopy was a beam, which bore the post of the
music-tree. On this post was a small stand, perhaps for the conductor
of the music, and on each side of it was a music-house, forming a
gallery,[473] which could represent a window or balcony. There were
at least two other doors, either beneath the music-houses or at right
angles to these, off the sides of the stage. The master began with
continuous settings on the earlier sixteenth-century court model, using
the doors and galleries as far as he could to represent houses, and
supplementing these by temporary structures; and this plan fitted in
with the general literary trend of his typical dramatists, especially
Marston, to unity of locality. But in time the romantic element proved
too much for him, and when he wanted to enlist the services of writers
of the popular school, such as Dekker, he had to compromise. It may
be that some structural change was carried out during the enforced
suspension of performances in 1603. I do not think that there is any
Paul’s play of earlier date which could not have been given in the
old-fashioned manner. In any event, the increased number of houses and
the not infrequent shiftings of locality from town to country, which
are apparent in the Jacobean plays, seem to me, taken together, to be
more than can be accounted for on a theory of clumsy foreshortening,
and to imply the adoption, either generally or occasionally, of some
such principle of convertible houses, as was already in full swing upon
the public stage.[474]

I do not think that the history of the Blackfriars was materially
different from that of Paul’s. There are in all twenty-four plays
to be considered; an Elizabethan group of seven produced by the
Children of the Chapel, and a Jacobean group of seventeen produced by
the successive incarnations of the Revels company.[475] Structural
alterations during 1603 are here less probable, for the house only
dated from Burbadge’s enterprise of 1596. Burbadge is said to have
intended a ‘public’ theatre, and it may be argued on _a priori_ grounds
that he would have planned for the type of staging familiar to him
at the Theatre and subsequently elaborated at the Globe. The actual
character of the plays does not, however, bear out this view. Like
Paul’s, the Blackfriars relied at first in part upon revivals. One was
_Love’s Metamorphosis_, already produced by Lyly under Court conditions
with the earlier Paul’s boys, and _tout en pastoralle_.[476] Another,
or if not, quite an archaistic play, was _Liberality and Prodigality_,
the abstract plot of which only needs an equally abstract scene, with
a ‘bower’ for Fortune, holding a throne and scaleable by a ladder (30,
290, 903, 932, 953), another ‘bower’ for Virtue (132), an inn (47,
192, 370), and a high seat for a judge with his clerks beneath him
(1245).[477] The two new playwrights may reasonably be supposed to
have conformed to the traditional methods. Jonson’s _Cynthia’s Revels_
has a preliminary act of open country, by the Fountain of Self-Love,
in Gargaphia. The rest is all at the Gargaphian palace, either in the
presence, or in an ante-chamber thereto, perhaps before a curtain, or
for one or two scenes in the nymphs’ chamber (IV. i-v), and in or
before the chamber of Asotus (III. v).[478] _Poetaster_ is all at Rome,
within and before the palace, the houses of Albius and Lupus, and the
chamber of Ovid.[479] There is certainly no need for any shifting of
scenes so far. Nor does Chapman demand it. _Sir Giles Goosecap_, except
for one open-country scene, has only two houses, which are demonstrably
contiguous and used together.[480] _The Gentleman Usher_ has only
two houses, supposed to be at a little distance from each other, and
entailing a slight foreshortening, if they were placed at opposite ends
of the stage.[481] _All Fools_ adopts the Italian convention of action
in an open city space before three houses.[482]

To the Jacobean repertory not less than nine writers contributed.
Chapman still takes the lead with three more comedies and two tragedies
of his own. In the comedies he tends somewhat to increase the number
of his houses, although without any change of general locality.
_M. d’Olive_ has five houses.[483] _May Day_ has four.[484] _The
Widow’s Tears_ has four.[485] But in all cases there is a good deal
of interplay of action between one house and another, and all the
probabilities are in favour of continuous setting. The tragedies are
perhaps another matter. The houses are still not numerous; but the
action is in each play divided between two localities. The _Conspiracy
of Byron_ is partly at Paris and partly at Brussels; the _Tragedy of
Byron_ partly at Paris and partly at Dijon.[486] Jonson’s _Case is
Altered_ has one open-country scene (V. iv) near Milan. The other
scenes require two houses within the city. One is Farneze’s palace,
with a _cortile_ where servants come and go, and a colonnade affording
a private ‘walk’ for his daughters (II. iii; IV. i). Hard by, and
probably in Italian fashion forming part of the structure of the palace
itself, is the cobbler’s shop of Farneze’s retainer, Juniper.[487]
Near, too, is the house of Jaques, with a little walled backside, and
a tree in it.[488] A link with Paul’s is provided by three Blackfriars
plays from Marston. Of these, the _Malcontent_ is in his characteristic
Italian manner. There is a short hunting scene (III. ii) in the middle
of the play. For nearly all the rest the scene is the ‘great chamber’
in the palace at Genoa, with a door to the apartment of the duchess at
the back (II. i. 1) and the chamber of Malevole visible above.[489]
Part of the last act, however, is before the citadel of Genoa,
from which the action passes direct to the palace.[490] _The Dutch
Courtesan_ is a London comedy with four houses, of the same type as
_What You Will_, but less crowded.[491] In the tragedy of _Sophonisba_,
on the other hand, we come for the first time at Blackfriars to a
piece which seems hopelessly unamenable to continuous setting. It
recalls the structure of such early public plays as the _Battle of
Alcazar_. ‘The scene is Libya’, the prologue tells us. We get the
camps of Massinissa (II. ii), Asdrubal (II. iii), and Scipio (III.
ii; V. iv). We get a battle-field with a ‘mount’ and a ‘throne’ in it
(V. ii). We get the forest of Belos, with a cave’s mouth (IV. i). The
city scenes are divided between Carthage and Cirta. At Carthage there
is a council-chamber (II. i) and also the chamber of Sophonisba (I.
ii), where her bed is ‘discovered’.[492] At Cirta there is the similar
chamber of Syphax (III. i; IV. ii) with a trapped altar.[493] A curious
bit of continuous action, difficult to envisage, comprehends this and
the forest at the junction of Acts IV and V. From a vault within it, a
passage leads to the cave. Down this, in III. i, Sophonisba descends,
followed by Syphax. A camp scene intervenes, and at the beginning of IV
Sophonisba emerges in the forest, is overtaken by Syphax, and sent back
to Cirta. Then Syphax remembers that ‘in this desert’ lives the witch
Erichtho. She enters, and promises to charm Sophonisba to his bed.
Quite suddenly, and without any _Exit_ or other indication of a change
of locality, we are back in the chamber at Cirta. Music sounds within
‘the canopy’ and ‘above’. Erichtho, disguised as Sophonisba, enters the
canopy, as to bed. Syphax follows, and only discovers his misadventure
at the beginning of Act V.[494] Even if the play was staged as a whole
on public theatre methods, it is difficult not to suppose that the two
entrances to the cave, at Cirta and in the forest, were shown together.
It is to be added that, in a note to the print, Marston apologizes
for ‘the fashion of the entrances’ on the ground that the play was
‘presented by youths and after the fashion of the private stage’.
Somewhat exceptional also is the arrangement of _Eastward Ho!_, in
which Chapman, Jonson, and Marston collaborated. The first three acts,
taken by themselves, are easy enough. They need four houses in London.
The most important is Touchstone’s shop, which is ‘discovered’.[495]
The others are the exteriors of Sir Petronel’s house and Security’s
house, with a window or balcony above, and a room in the Blue Anchor
tavern at Billingsgate.[496] But throughout most of Act IV the whole
stage seems to be devoted to a complicated action, for which only one
of these houses, the Blue Anchor, is required. A place above the stage
represents Cuckold’s Haven, on the Surrey side of the Thames near
Rotherhithe, where stood a pole bearing a pair of ox-horns, to which
butchers did a folk-observance. Hither climbs Slitgut, and describes
the wreck of a boat in the river beneath him.[497] It is the boat in
which an elopement was planned from the Blue Anchor in Act III. Slitgut
sees passengers landed successively ‘even just under me’, and then at
St. Katharine’s, Wapping, and the Isle of Dogs. These are three places
on the north bank, all to the east of Billingsgate and on the other
side of the Tower, but as each rescue is described, the passengers
enter the stage, and go off again. Evidently a wild foreshortening is
deliberately involved. Now, although the print obscures the fact, must
begin a new scene.[498] A night has passed, and Winifred, who landed
at St. Katharine’s, returns to the stage, and is now before the Blue
Anchor.[499] From IV. ii onwards the setting is normal again, with
three houses, of which one is Touchstone’s. But the others are now
the exterior of the Counter and of the lodging of Gertrude. One must
conclude that in this play the Blackfriars management was trying an
experiment, and made complete, or nearly complete, changes of setting,
at the end of Act III and again after IV. i. Touchstone’s, which was
discovered, could be covered again. The other houses, except the
tavern, were represented by mere doors or windows, and gave no trouble.
The tavern, the introduction of which in the early acts already
entailed foreshortening, was allowed to stand for IV. i, and was then
removed, while Touchstone’s was discovered again.

Middleton’s tendency to multiply his houses is noticeable, as at
Paul’s, in _Your Five Gallants_. There are eight, in London, with an
open-country scene in Combe Park (III. ii, iii), and one cannot be
confident of continuous setting.[500] But a group of new writers,
enlisted at Blackfriars in Jacobean days, conform well enough to the
old traditions of the house. Daniel’s _Philotas_ has the abstract stage
characteristic of the closet tragedies to the type of which it really
belongs. Any Renaissance façade would do; at most a hall in the court
and the lodging of Philotas need be distinguished. Day’s _Isle of
Gulls_ is _tout en pastoralle_.[501] His _Law Tricks_ has only four
houses, in Genoa.[502] Sharpham’s _Fleir_, after a prelude at Florence,
which needs no house, has anything from three to six in London.[503]
Fletcher’s _Faithful Shepherdess_, again, is _tout en pastoralle_.[504]
Finally, _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_ is, in the strict sense, an
exception which proves the rule. Its shifts of locality are part of the
burlesque, in which the popular plays are taken off for the amusement
of the select audience of the Blackfriars. Its legitimate houses are
only two, Venturewell’s shop and Merrithought’s dwelling, hard by one
another.[505] But the adventures of the prentice heroes take them not
only over down and through forest to Waltham, where the Bell Inn must
serve for a knightly castle, and the barber’s shop for Barbaroso’s
cave, but also to the court of Moldavia, although the players regret
that they cannot oblige the Citizen’s Wife by showing a house covered
with black velvet and a king’s daughter standing in her window all in
beaten gold, combing her golden locks with a comb of ivory.[506] What
visible parody of public stage methods heightened the fun, it is of
course impossible to say.

I do not propose to follow the Queen’s Revels to the Whitefriars, or
to attempt any investigation into the characteristics of that house.
It was occupied by the King’s Revels before the Queen’s Revels, and
probably the Lady Elizabeth’s joined the Queen’s Revels there at a
later date. But the number of plays which can definitely be assigned
to it is clearly too small to form the basis of any satisfactory
induction.[507] So far as the Blackfriars is concerned, my conclusion
must be much the same as for Paul’s--that, when plays began in 1600,
the Chapel revived the methods of staging with which their predecessors
had been familiar during the hey-day of the Court drama under Lyly;
that these methods held their own in the competition with the public
theatres, and were handed on to the Queen’s Revels; but that in
course of time they were sometimes variegated by the introduction,
for one reason or another, of some measure of scene-shifting in
individual plays. This reason may have been the nature of the plot
in _Sophonisba_, the desire to experiment in _Eastward Ho!_, the
restlessness of the dramatist in _Your Five Gallants_, the spirit of
raillery in _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_. Whether Chapman’s
tragedies involved scene-shifting, I am not quite sure. The analogy of
the Hôtel de Bourgogne, where a continuous setting was not inconsistent
with the use of widely distant localities, must always be kept in mind.
On the other hand, what did not appear absurd in Paris, might have
appeared absurd in London, where the practice of the public theatres
had taught the spectators to expect a higher degree of consistency.
I am far from claiming that my theory of the survival of continuous
setting at Paul’s and the Blackfriars has been demonstrated. Very
possibly the matter is not capable of demonstration. Many, perhaps
most, of the plays could be produced, if need be, by alternative
methods. It is really on taking them in the mass that I cannot resist
the feeling that ‘the fashion of the private stage’, as Marston called
it, was something different from the fashion of the public stage. The
technique of the dramatists corresponds to the structural conditions.
An increased respect for unity of place is not the only factor,
although it is the most important. An unnecessary multiplicity of
houses is, except by Dekker and Middleton, avoided. Sometimes one or
two suffice. There is much more interior action than in the popular
plays. One hall or chamber scene can follow upon another more freely.
A house may be used for a scene which would seem absurdly short if the
setting were altered for it. More doors are perhaps available, so that
some can be spared for entrance behind the houses. There is more coming
and going between one house and another, although I have made it clear
that even the public stage was not limited to one house at a time.[508]
One point is, I think, quite demonstrable. Marston has a reference
to ‘the lower stage’ at Paul’s, but neither at Paul’s nor at the
Blackfriars was there an upper stage capable of holding the action of
a complete scene, such as we found at the sixteenth-century theatres,
and apparently on a still larger scale at the Globe and the Fortune.
A review of my notes will show that, although there is action ‘above’
in many private house plays, it is generally a very slight action,
amounting to little more than the use by one or two persons of a window
or balcony. Bedchamber scenes or tavern scenes are provided for below;
the public theatre, as often as not, put them above.[509] I may recall,
in confirmation, that the importance of the upper stage in the plays
of the King’s men sensibly diminishes after their occupation of the
Blackfriars.[510]

There are enigmas still to be solved, and I fear insoluble. Were the
continuous settings of the type which we find in Serlio, with the unity
of a consistent architectural picture, or of the type which we find
at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, with independent and sometimes incongruous
juxtaposed _mansions_? The taste of the dramatists for Italian cities
and the frequent recurrence of buildings which fit so well into a
Serliesque scheme as the tavern, the shop, the house of the _ruffiana_
or courtesan, may tempt one’s imagination towards the former. But
Serlio does not seem to contemplate much interior action, and although
the convention of a half out-of-doors _cortile_ or _loggia_ may help
to get over this difficulty, the often crowded presences and the masks
seem to call for an arrangement by which each _mansion_ can at need
become in its turn the background to the whole of the stage and attach
to itself all the external doors. How were the open-country scenes
managed, which we have noticed in several plays, as a prelude, or even
an interruption, to the strict unity of place?[511] Were these merely
played on the edge of the stage, or are we to assume a curtain, cutting
off the background of houses, and perhaps painted with an open-country
or other appropriate perspective? And what use, if any, can we suppose
to have been made of title or locality labels? The latter would not
have had much point where the locality was unchanged; but Envy calls
out ‘Rome’ three times in the prologue to the _Poetaster_, as if she
saw it written up in three places. Percy may more naturally use them in
_Cuckqueans and Cuckolds_, on a stage which represents a foreshortening
of the distance between three distinct towns. Title-labels seem fairly
probable. _Cynthia’s Revels_ and _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_
bear testimony to them at the Blackfriars; _Wily Beguiled_ perhaps at
Paul’s.[512] And if the prologues none the less thought it necessary
to announce ‘The scene is Libya’, or ‘The scene Gargaphia, which I do
vehemently suspect for some fustian country’, why, we must remember
that there were many, even in a select Elizabethan audience, that could
not hope to be saved by their book.

BOOK V

PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS

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

XXII

THE PRINTING OF PLAYS

[_Bibliographical Note._--The records of the Stationers’ Company
were utilized by W. Herbert in _Typographical Antiquities_
(1785–90), based on an earlier edition (1749) by J. Ames,
and revised, but not for the period most important to us, by
T. F. Dibdin (1810–19). They are now largely available at
first hand in E. Arber, _Transcript of the Registers of the
Stationers’ Company, 1554–1640_ (1875–94), and G. E. B. Eyre,
_Transcript of the Registers of the Worshipful Company of
Stationers, 1640–1708_ (1913–14). Recent investigations are to
be found in the _Transactions_ and other publications of the
Bibliographical Society, and in the periodicals _Bibliographica_
and _The Library_. The best historical sketches are H. R.
Plomer, _A Short History of English Printing_ (1900), E. G.
Duff, _The Introduction of Printing into England_ (1908, _C.
H._ ii. 310), H. G. Aldis, _The Book-Trade, 1557–1625_ (1909,
_C. H._ iv. 378), and R. B. McKerrow, _Booksellers, Printers,
and the Stationers’ Trade_ (1916, _Sh. England_, ii. 212). Of
somewhat wider range is H. G. Aldis, _The Printed Book_ (1916).
Records of individual printers are in E. G. Duff, _A Century
of the English Book Trade, 1457–1557_ (1905), R. B. McKerrow,
_Dictionary of Printers and Booksellers, 1557–1640_ (1910), and
H. R. Plomer, _Dictionary of Booksellers and Printers, 1641–67_
(1907). Special studies of value are R. B. McKerrow, _Printers
and Publishers’ Devices_ (1913), and _Notes on Bibliographical
Evidence for Literary Students_ (1914). P. Sheavyn, _The
Literary Profession in the Elizabethan Age_ (1909), is not very
accurate. The early history of the High Commission (1558–64) is
studied in H. Gee, _The Elizabethan Clergy and the Settlement of
Religion_ (1898). The later period awaits fuller treatment than
that in _An Account of the Courts Ecclesiastical_ by W. Stubbs
in the _Report of the Commission on Ecclesiastical Courts_
(1883), i. 21. J. S. Burn, _The High Commission_ (1865), is
scrappy.

For plays in particular, W. W. Greg, _List of English Plays_
(1900), gives the title-pages, and Arber the registration
entries. Various problems are discussed by A. W. Pollard,
_Shakespeare Folios and Quartos_ (1909) and _Shakespeare’s Fight
with the Pirates_ (1917, ed. 2, 1920), and in connexion with
the Shakespearian quartos of 1619 (cf. ch. xxiii). New ground
is opened by A. W. Pollard and J. D. Wilson, _The ‘Stolne and
Surreptitious’ Shakespearian Texts_ (_T. L. S._ Jan.–Aug. 1919),
and J. D. Wilson, _The Copy for Hamlet, 1603, and the Hamlet
Transcript, 1593_ (1918). Other studies are C. Dewischeit,
_Shakespeare und die Stenographie_ (1898, _Jahrbuch_, xxxiv.
170), B. A. P. van Dam and C. Stoffel, _William Shakespeare,
Prosody and Text_ (1900), _Chapters in English Printing,
Prosody, and Pronunciation_ (1902), P. Simpson, _Shakespearian
Punctuation_ (1911), E. M. Albright, ‘_To be Staied_’ (1915, _M.
L. A._ xxx. 451; cf. _M. L. N._, Feb. 1919), A. W. Pollard, _Ad
Imprimendum Solum_ (1919, _3 Library_, x. 57), H. R. Shipheard,
_Play-Publishing in Elizabethan Times_ (1919, _M. L. A._ xxxiv.
580); M. A. Bayfield, _Shakespeare’s Versification_ (1920); cf.
_T. L. S._ (1919–20).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sometimes the companies were outwitted. Needy and unscrupulous
stationers might use illegitimate means to acquire texts for which
they had not paid as a basis for ‘surreptitious’ or ‘piratical’
prints.[600] A hired actor might be bribed to disclose his ‘part’ and
so much as he could remember of the ‘parts’ of others. Dr. Greg has
made it seem probable that the player of the Host was an agent in
furnishing the text of the _Merry Wives_.[601] A player of Voltimand
and other minor parts may have been similarly guilty as regards
_Hamlet_.[602] Long before, the printer of _Gorboduc_ had succeeded in
‘getting a copie thereof at some yongmans hand that lacked a little
money and much discretion’. Or the poet himself might be to blame.
Thomas Heywood takes credit in the epistle to _The Rape of Lucrece_
that it had not been his custom ‘to commit my playes to the presse’,
like others who ‘have vsed a double sale of their labours, first to the
stage, and after to the presse’. Yet this had not saved his plays from
piracy, for some of them had been ‘copied only by the eare’ and issued
in a corrupt and mangled form. A quarter of a century later, in writing
a prologue for a revival of his _If You Know not Me, You Know Nobody_,
he tells us that this was one of the corrupt issues, and adds that

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

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

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

My lord chamberlens menns plaies Entred
viz

[Sidenote: 27 May 1600 To Master Robertes]

A moral of ‘clothe breches and velvet hose’

[Sidenote: 27 May To hym]

Allarum to London

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

There are possibly two notes here, but we may reasonably date them both
in 1600, as _Every Man In his Humour_ was entered to Cuthbert Burby and
Walter Burre on 14 August 1600 and _Much Ado about Nothing_ to Andrew
Wise and William Aspley on 23 August 1600, and these plays appeared
in 1601 and 1600 respectively. _Henry V_ was published, without entry
and in a ‘bad’ text by Thomas Millington and John Busby, also in 1600,
while _As You Like It_ remained unprinted until 1623. Many attempts
have been made to explain the story of 4 August. Mr. Fleay conjectured
that it was due to difficulties of censorship; Mr. Furness that it was
directed against James Roberts, whom he regarded on the strength of
the conditional entries as a man of ‘shifty character’.[611] But there
is no reason to read Roberts’s name into the August memorandum at all;
and I agree with Mr. Pollard that the evidence of dishonesty against
him has been exaggerated, and that the privilege which he held for
printing all play-bills for actors makes it prima facie unlikely that
his relations with the companies would be irregular.[612] On the other
hand, I hesitate to accept Mr. Pollard’s counter-theory that the four
conditional Roberts entries were of the nature of a deliberate plan
‘in the interest of the players in order to postpone their publication
till it could not injure the run of the play and to make the task of
the pirates more difficult’. One would of course suppose that any
entry, conditional or not, might serve such a purpose, if the entering
stationer was in league with the actors and deliberately reserved
publication. This is presumably what the Admiral’s men paid Cuthbert
Burby to do for _Patient Grissell_. Mr. Pollard applies the same theory
to Edward Blount’s unconditional entries of _Pericles_ and _Antony and
Cleopatra_ in 1608, and it would certainly explain the delays in the
publication of _Troilus and Cressida_ from 1603 to 1609 and of _Antony
and Cleopatra_ from 1608 to 1623, and the absence of any edition of
_Cloth Breeches and Velvet Hose_. But it does not explain why _Hamlet_,
entered by Roberts in 1602, was issued by others in the ‘bad’ text of
1603, or why _Pericles_ was issued by Henry Gosson in the ‘bad’ text
of 1609.[613] Mr. Pollard’s interpretation of the facts appears to be
influenced by the conditional character of four out of Roberts’s five
entries during 1598–1603, and I understand him to believe that the
‘further aucthoritie’ required for _Cloth Breeches and Velvet Hose_
and _A Larum for London_ and the ‘sufficient aucthoritie’ required
for _Troilus and Cressida_ were of the same nature as the licence
from the Lord Chamberlain specifically required for _The Merchant of
Venice_.[614] It is not inconceivable that this may have been so, but
one is bound to take the Roberts conditional entries side by side with
the eight similar entries made between 1601 and 1606 for other men,
and in three at least of these (_The Dutch Courtesan_, _Sir Giles
Goosecap_, _The Fleir_) it is obvious that the authority demanded
was that of the official correctors. Of course, the correctors may
themselves have had a hint from the Lord Chamberlain to keep an eye
upon the interests of his servants, but if the eleven conditionally
entered plays of 1600–6 be looked at as a group, it will be seen that
they are all plays of either a political or a satirical character,
which might well therefore call for particular attention from the
correctors in the discharge of their ordinary functions. I have already
suggested that the normal conditional entries represent cases in which
the wardens of the Stationers’ Company, while not prepared to license
a book on their own responsibility, short-circuited as far as they
could the procedure entailed. Properly they ought to have seen the
corrector’s hand before adding their own endorsement. But if this was
not forthcoming, the applicant may have been allowed, in order to save
time, to have the purely trade formalities completed by a conditional
entry, which would be a valid protection against a rival stationer,
but would not, until the corrector’s hand was obtained, be sufficient
authority for the actual printing. No doubt the clerk should have
subsequently endorsed the entry after seeing the corrector’s hand, but
he did not always do so, although in cases of transfer the transferee
might ask for a record to be made, and in any event the owner of the
copy had the book with the ‘hand’ to it. The Lord Chamberlain’s ‘stay’
was, I think, another matter. I suppose it to have been directed, not
to the correctors, but to the wardens, and to have taken the form of
a request not to enter any play of the Chamberlain’s men, otherwise
entitled to licence or not, without satisfying themselves that the
actors were assenting parties to the transaction. Common sense would
certainly dictate compliance with such a request, coming from such a
source. The plan seems to have worked well enough so far as _As You
Like It_, _Every Man In his Humour_, and _Much Ado about Nothing_
were concerned, for we have no reason to doubt that the subsequent
publication of two of these plays had the assent of the Chamberlain’s
men, and the third was effectively suppressed. But somehow not only
_Hamlet_ but also _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ slipped through in
1602, and although the actors apparently came to some arrangement
with Roberts and furnished a revised text of _Hamlet_, the other play
seems to have gone completely out of their control. Moreover, it was
an obvious weakness of the method adopted, that it gave no security
against a surreptitious printer who was in a position to dispense with
an entry. Danter, after all, had published without entry in 1597. He
had had to go without copyright; but an even more audacious device was
successfully tried in 1600 with _Henry V_. This was one of the four
plays so scrupulously ‘staied’ by the Stationers’ clerk on 4 August.
Not merely, however, was the play printed in 1600 by Thomas Creede for
Thomas Millington and John Busby, but on 21 August it was entered on
the Register as transferred to Thomas Pavier amongst other ‘thinges
formerlye printed and sett ouer to’ him. I think the explanation is
that the print of 1600 was treated as merely a reprint of the old play
of _The Famous Victories of Henry V_, which was indeed to some extent
Shakespeare’s source, and of which Creede held the copyright.[615]
Similarly, it is conceivable that the same John Busby and Nathaniel
Butter forced the hands of the Chamberlain’s men into allowing the
publication of _King Lear_ in 1608 by a threat to issue it as a reprint
of _King Leir_.[616] Busby was also the enterer of _The Merry Wives_,
and he and Butter, at whose hands it was that Heywood suffered, seem to
have been the chief of the surreptitious printers after Danter’s death.

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

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

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

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

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

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

XXIII

PLAYWRIGHTS

[_Bibliographical Note._--The abundant literature of the drama
is more satisfactorily treated in the appendices to F. E.
Schelling, _Elizabethan Drama_ (1908), and vols. v and vi (1910)
of the _Cambridge History of English Literature_, than in R. W.
Lowe, _Bibliographical Account of English Theatrical Literature_
(1888), K. L. Bates and L. B. Godfrey, _English Drama: a Working
Basis_ (1896), or W. D. Adams, _Dictionary of the Drama_ (1904).
There is an American pamphlet on _Materials for the Study of the
English Drama, excluding Shakespeare_ (1912, Newbery Library,
Chicago), which I have not seen. Periodical lists of new books
are published in the _Modern Language Review_, the _Beiblatt_
to _Anglia_, and the _Bulletin_ of the English Association,
and annual bibliographies by the _Modern Humanities Research
Association_ (from 1921) and in the Shakespeare _Jahrbuch_.
The bibliography by H. R. Tedder in the _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_ (11th ed.) s.v. Shakespeare, A. C. Shaw, _Index to
the Shakespeare Memorial Library_ (1900–3), and W. Jaggard,
_Shakespeare Bibliography_ (1911), on which, however, cf. C. S.
Northup in _J. G. P._ xi. 218, are also useful.

W. W. Greg, _Notes on Dramatic Bibliographers_ (1911, _M.
S. C._ i. 324), traces from the publishers’ advertisements
of the Restoration a _catena_ of play-lists in E. Phillips,
_Theatrum Poetarum_ (1675), W. Winstanley, _Lives of the Most
Famous English Poets_ (1687), G. Langbaine, _Momus Triumphans_
(1688) and _Account of the English Dramatick Poets_ (1691), C.
Gildon, _Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick Poets_
(1698), W. R. Chetwood, _The British Theatre_ (1750), E. Capell,
_Notitia Dramatica_ (1783), and the various editions of the
_Biographica Dramatica_ from 1764 to 1812. More recent are J. O.
Halliwell-Phillipps, _Dictionary of Old English Plays_ (1860),
and W. C. Hazlitt, _Manual of Old English Plays_ (1892); but
all are largely superseded by W. W. Greg, _A List of English
Plays_ (1900) and _A List of Masques, Pageants, &c._ (1902).
His account of Warburton’s collection in _The Bakings of Betsy_
(_Library_, 1911) serves as a supplement. A few plays discovered
later than 1900 appeared in an Irish sale of 1906 (cf.
_Jahrbuch_, xliii. 310) and in the Mostyn sale of 1919 (cf. t.p.
facsimiles in Sotheby’s sale catalogue). For the problems of the
early prints, the _Bibliographical Note_ to ch. xxii should be
consulted.

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

The fundamental works on the history of the drama are A. W.
Ward, _History of English Dramatic Literature_ (1875, 1899), F.
G. Fleay, _Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama_ (1891),
F. E. Schelling, _Elizabethan Drama_ (1908), the _Cambridge
History of English Literature_, vols. v and vi (1910), and W.
Creizenach, _Geschichte des neueren Dramas_, vols. iv, v (1909,
1916). These and others, with the relevant periodicals, are
set out in the _General Bibliographical Note_ (vol. i); and to
them may be added F. S. Boas, _Shakspere and his Predecessors_
(1896), B. Matthews, _The Development of the Drama_ (1904), F.
E. Schelling, _English Drama_ (1914), A. Wynne, _The Growth of
English Drama_ (1914). Less systematic collections of studies
are L. M. Griffiths, _Evenings with Shakespeare_ (1889), J. R.
Lowell, _Old English Dramatists_ (1892), A. H. Tolman, _The
Views about Hamlet_ (1904), C. Crawford, _Collectanea_ (1906–7),
A. C. Swinburne, _The Age of Shakespeare_ (1908). The older
critical work of Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, and others
cannot be neglected, but need not be detailed here.

Special dissertations on individual plays and playwrights
are recorded in the body of this chapter. A few of wider
scope may be roughly classified; as dealing with dramatic
structure, H. Schwab, _Das Schauspiel im Schauspiel zur Zeit
Shakespeares_ (1896), F. A. Foster, _Dumb Show in Elizabethan
Drama before 1620_ (1911, _E. S._ xliv. 8); with types of
drama, H. W. Singer, _Das bürgerliche Trauerspiel in England_
(1891), J. Seifert, _Wit-und Science Moralitäten_ (1892), J. L.
McConaughty, _The School Drama_ (1913), E. N. S. Thompson, _The
English Moral Plays_ (1910), R. Fischer, _Zur Kunstentwickelung
der englischen Tragödie bis zu Shakespeare_ (1893), A. C.
Bradley, _Shakespearean Tragedy_ (1904), F. E. Schelling, _The
English Chronicle Play_ (1902), L. N. Chase, _The English
Heroic Play_ (1903), C. G. Child, _The Rise of the Heroic Play_
(1904, _M. L. N._ xix), F. H. Ristine, _English Tragicomedy_
(1910), C. R. Baskervill, _Some Evidence for Early Romantic
Plays in England_ (1916, _M. P._ xiv. 229, 467), L. M. Ellison,
_The Early Romantic Drama at the English Court_ (1917), H.
Smith, _Pastoral Influence in the English Drama_ (1897, _M.
L. A._ xii. 355). A. H. Thorndike, _The Pastoral Element in
the English Drama before 1605_ (1900, _M. L. N._ xiv. 228), J.
Laidler, _History of Pastoral Drama in England_ (1905, _E. S._
xxxv. 193), W. W. Greg, _Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama_
(1906); with types of plot and characterization, H. Graf,
_Der Miles Gloriosus im englischen Drama_ (1891), E. Meyer,
_Machiavelli and the Elizabethan Drama_ (1897), G. B. Churchill,
_Richard the Third up to Shakespeare_ (1900), L. W. Cushman,
_The Devil and the Vice in the English Dramatic Literature
before Shakespeare_ (1900), E. Eckhardt, _Die lustige Person
im älteren englischen Drama_ (1902), F. E. Schelling, _Some
Features of the Supernatural as Represented in Plays of the
Reigns of Elizabeth and James_ (1903, _M. P._ i), H. Ankenbrand,
_Die Figur des Geistes im Drama der englischen Renaissance_
(1906), F. G. Hubbard, _Repetition and Parallelism in the
Earlier Elizabethan Drama_ (1905, _M. L. A._ xx), E. Eckhardt,
_Die Dialekt-und Ausländertypen des älteren englischen Dramas_
(1910–11), V. O. Freeburg, _Disguise Plots in Elizabethan Drama_
(1915); with _Quellenforschung_ and foreign influences, E.
Koeppel, _Quellen-Studien zu den Dramen Jonson’s, Marston’s,
und Beaumont und Fletcher’s_ (1895), _Quellen-Studien zu
den Dramen Chapman’s, Massinger’s und Ford’s_ (1897), _Zur
Quellen-Kunde der Stuarts-Dramen_ (1896, _Archiv_, xcvii),
_Studien zur Geschichte der italienischen Novelle in der
englischen Litteratur des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts_ (1892),
L. L. Schücking, _Studien über die stofflichen Beziehungen
der englischen Komödie zur italienischen bis Lilly_ (1901),
A. Ott, _Die italienische Novelle im englischen Drama von
1600_ (1904), W. Smith, _The Commedia dell’ Arte_ (1912), M.
A. Scott, _Elizabethan Translations from the Italian_ (1916),
A. L. Stiefel, _Die Nachahmung spanischer Komödien in England
unter den ersten Stuarts_ (1890), _Die Nachahmung spanischer
Komödien in England_ (1897, _Archiv_, xcix), L. Bahlsen,
_Spanische Quellen der dramatischen Litteratur besonders
Englands zu Shakespeares Zeit_ (1893, _Z. f. vergleichende
Litteraturgeschichte_, N. F. vi), A. S. W. Rosenbach, _The
Curious Impertinent in English Drama_ (1902, _M. L. N._ xvii),
J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, _Cervantes in England_ (1905), J. W.
Cunliffe, _The Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy_
(1893), O. Ballweg, _Das klassizistische Drama zur Zeit
Shakespeares_ (1909), O. Ballmann, _Chaucers Einfluss auf das
englische Drama_ (1902, _Anglia_, xxv), R. M. Smith, _Froissart
and the English Chronicle Play_ (1915); with the interrelations
of dramatists, A. H. Thorndike, _The Influence of Beaumont and
Fletcher on Shakespeare_ (1901), E. Koeppel, _Studien über
Shakespeares Wirkung auf zeitgenössische Dramatiker_ (1905),
_Ben Jonson’s Wirkung auf zeitgenössische Dramatiker_ (1906).

The special problem of the authorship of the so-called
_Shakespeare Apocrypha_ is dealt with in the editions thereof
described below, and by Halliwell-Phillipps (ii. 413), Ward (ii.
209), R. Sachs, _Die Shakespeare zugeschriebenen zweifelhaften
Stücke_ (1892, _Jahrbuch_, xxvii), and A. F. Hopkinson,
_Essays on Shakespeare’s Doubtful Plays_ (1900). The analogous
question of the possible non-Shakespearian authorship of plays
or parts of plays published as his is too closely interwoven
with specifically Shakespearian literature to be handled here;
J. M. Robertson, in _Did Shakespeare Write Titus Andronicus?_
(1905), _Shakespeare and Chapman_ (1917), _The Shakespeare
Canon_ (1922), is searching; other dissertations are cited
under the plays or playwrights concerned. The attempts to use
metrical or other ‘tests’ in the discrimination of authorship
or of the chronology of work have been predominantly applied to
Shakespeare, although Beaumont and Fletcher (_vide infra_) and
others have not been neglected. The broader discussions of E.
N. S. Thompson, _Elizabethan Dramatic Collaboration_ (1909, _E.
S._ xl. 30) and E. H. C. Oliphant, _Problems of Authorship in
Elizabethan Dramatic Literature_ (1911, _M. P._ viii, 411) are
of value.

To the general histories of Elizabethan literature named in
the _General Bibliographical Note_ may be added _Chambers’s
Cyclopaedia of English Literature_ (1901–3), E. Gosse, _Modern
English Literature_ (1897), G. Saintsbury, _Short History of
English Literature_ (1900), A. Lang, _English Literature from
‘Beowulf’ to Swinburne_ (1912), W. Minto, _Characteristics of
English Poets from Chaucer to Shirley_ (1874), G. Saintsbury,
_Elizabethan Literature_ (1887), E. Gosse, _The Jacobean Poets_
(1894), T. Seccombe and J. W. Allen, _The Age of Shakespeare_
(1903), F. E. Schelling, _English Literature during the Lifetime
of Shakespeare_ (1910); and for the international relations, G.
Saintsbury, _The Earlier Renaissance_ (1901), D. Hannay, _The
Later Renaissance_ (1898), H. J. C. Grierson, _The First Half of
the Seventeenth Century_ (1906), C. H. Herford, _The Literary
Relations of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century_
(1886), L. Einstein, _The Italian Renaissance in England_
(1902), S. Lee, _The French Renaissance in England_ (1910), J.
G. Underhill, _Spanish Literature in the England of the Tudors_
(1899).

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

(_a_) _Shakespeare Apocrypha_

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

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

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

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

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

1848, 1855. W. G. Simms, _A Supplement to the Works of Sh._ (New
York). [_T. N. K._ and the 7 Plays, except _Pericles_.]

N.D. [1851?]. H. Tyrrell, _The Doubtful Plays of Sh._ [The 7
Plays, _T. A._, _Edward III_, _Merry Devil of Edmonton_, _Fair
Em_, _Mucedorus_, _Arden of Feversham_, _Birth of Merlin_, _T.
N. K._]

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

1854–74. N. Delius, _Pseudo-Shakespere’sche Dramen_. [_Edward
III_ (1854), _Arden of Feversham_ (1855), _Birth of Merlin_
(1856), _Mucedorus_ (1874), _Fair Em_ (1874), separately.]

1869. M. Moltke, _Doubtful Plays of Sh._ (Tauchnitz). [_Edward
III_, _Thomas Lord Cromwell_, _Locrine_, _Yorkshire Tragedy_,
_London Prodigal_, _Birth of Merlin_.]

1883–8. K. Warnke und L. Proescholdt, _Pseudo-Shakespearian
Plays_. [_Fair Em_ (1883), _Merry Devil of Edmonton_ (1884),
_Edward III_ (1886), _Birth of Merlin_ (1887), _Arden of
Feversham_ (1888), separately, with _Mucedorus_ (1878) outside
the series.]

1891–1914. A. F. Hopkinson, _Sh.’s Doubtful Plays_ (1891–5).
_Old English Plays_ (1901–2). _Sh.’s Doubtful Works_ (1910–11).
[Under the above collective titles were issued some, but not
all, of a series of plays bearing separate dates as follows:
_Thomas Lord Cromwell_ (1891, 1899), _Yorkshire Tragedy_ (1891,
1910), _Edward III_ (1891, 1911), _Merry Devil of Edmonton_
(1891, 1914), _Warning for Fair Women_ (1891, 1904), _Locrine_
(1892), _Birth of Merlin_ (1892, 1901), _London Prodigal_
(1893), _Mucedorus_ (1893), _Sir John Oldcastle_ (1894),
_Puritan_ (1894), _T. N. K._ (1894), _Fair Em_ (1895), _Famous
Victories of Henry V_ (1896), _Contention of York and Lancaster_
(1897), _Arden of Feversham_ (1898, 1907), _True Tragedy of
Richard III_ (1901), _Sir Thomas More_ (1902). My list may not
be complete.]

1908. C. F. T. Brooke, _The Sh. Apocrypha_. [The 7 Plays except
_Pericles_, _Arden of Feversham_, _Edward III_, _Mucedorus_,
_Merry Devil of Edmonton_, _Fair Em_, _T. N. K._, _Birth of
Merlin_, _Sir Thomas More_.]

(_b_) _General Collections_

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

1750. [W. R. Chetwood], _A Select Collection of Old Plays_
(Dublin).

1773. T. Hawkins, _The Origin of the English Drama_. 3 vols.

1779. [J. Nichols], _Six Old Plays_. 2 vols.

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

1810. [Sir W. Scott], _The Ancient British Drama_. 3 vols.
(W. Miller). [Cited as _A. B. D._]

1811. [Sir W. Scott], _The Modern British Drama_. 5 vols.
(W. Miller). [Cited as _M. B. D._]

1814–15. [C. W. Dilke], _Old English Plays_. 6 vols. [Cited
as _O. E. P._]

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

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

1830. _The Old English Drama._ 3 vols. (Thomas White).

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

1841–53. _Publications of the Shakespeare Society._ [Include,
besides several plays of T. Heywood (q.v.), Dekker, Chettle,
and Haughton’s _Patient Grissell_, Munday’s _John a Kent
and John a Cumber_, Legge’s _Richardus Tertius_, Norton and
Sackville’s _Gorboduc_, Merbury’s _Marriage between Wit and
Wisdom_, and _Sir Thomas More_, _True Tragedy of Richard III_,
_1 Contention_, _True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York_, _Taming
of A Shrew_, _Timon_, by various editors. Some copies of these
plays, not including Heywood’s, were bound up in 4 vols., with
the general date 1853, as a _Supplement_ to Dodsley.]

1848. F. J. Child, _Four Old Plays_.

1851. J. P. Collier, _Five Old Plays_ (Roxburghe Club).

1870. J. S. Keltie, _The Works of the British Dramatists_.

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

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

1875. W. C. Hazlitt, _Shakespeare’s Library_. Second Edition.
Part i, 4 vols.; Part ii, 2 vols. [Part i is based on
Collier’s _Shakespeare’s Library_ (1844). Part ii, based
on the collections of 1779 and 1841–53, adds the dramatic
sources, Warner’s _Menaechmi_, _True Tragedie of Richard
III_, Legge’s _Richardus Tertius_, _Troublesome Raigne of
John_, _Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth_, _1 Contention of
York and Lancaster_, _True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York_,
Shakespeare’s _Merry Wives of Windsor_ (Q_{1}), Whetstone’s
_Promos and Cassandra_, _King Leire_, _Timon_, _Taming of A
Shrew_.]

1878. R. Simpson, _The School of Shakspere_. 2 vols. [_Captain
Thomas Stukeley_, _Nobody and Somebody_, _Histriomastix_, _Jack
Drum’s Entertainment_, _Warning for Fair Women_, _Fair Em_, with
_A Larum for London_ (1872) separately printed.]

1882–5. A. H. Bullen, _A Collection of Old English Plays_. 4
vols. [Cited as Bullen, _O. E. P. Maid’s Metamorphosis_,
_Noble Soldier_, _Sir Giles Goosecap_, _Wisdom of Doctor
Dodipoll_, _Charlemagne or The Distracted Emperor_, _Trial of
Chivalry_, Yarington’s _Two Lamentable Tragedies_, _Costly
Whore_, _Every Woman in her Humour_, with later plays.]

[1885]-91. _43 Shakspere Quarto Facsimiles._ Issued under the
superintendence of F. J. Furnivall. [Photographic facsimiles
by W. Griggs and C. Praetorius, with introductions by various
editors, including, besides accepted Shakespearian plays,
_Pericles_ (Q_{1}, Q_{2}), _1 Contention_ (Q_{1}), _True Tragedy
of Richard Duke of York_ (Q_{1}), _Whole Contention_ (Q_{3}),
_Famous Victories of Henry V_ (Q_{1}), _Troublesome Raigne of
John_ (Q_{1}), _Taming of A Shrew_ (Q_{1}).]

1888. _Nero and other Plays_ (Mermaid Series). [_Nero_ (1624),
Porter’s _Two Angry Women of Abingdon_, Day’s _Parliament
of Bees_ and _Humour Out of Breath_, Field’s _Woman is a
Weathercock_ and _Amends for Ladies_, by various editors.]

1896–1905. _The Temple Dramatists._ [Cited as _T. D._ Single
plays by various editors, including, besides plays of Beaumont
and Fletcher, Dekker, Heywood, Jonson, Kyd, Marlowe, Peele,
Udall, Webster (q.v.), _Arden of Feversham_, _Edward III_,
_Merry Devil of Edmonton_, _Selimus_, _T. N. K._, _Return from
Parnassus_.]

1897. J. M. Manly, _Specimens of the Pre-Shakspearean Drama_.
2 vols. issued. [Udall’s _Roister Doister_, _Gammer Gurton’s
Needle_, Preston’s _Cambyses_, Norton and Sackville’s
_Gorboduc_, Lyly’s _Campaspe_, Greene’s _James IV_, Peele’s
_David and Bethsabe_, Kyd’s _Spanish Tragedy_ in vol. ii;
earlier plays in vol. i.]

1897. H. A. Evans, _English Masques_ (Warwick Library). [Ten
masks by Jonson (q.v.), Daniel’s _Twelve Goddesses_, Campion’s
_Lords’ Mask_, Beaumont’s _Inner Temple Mask_, _Mask of
Flowers_, and later masks.]

1897–1912. _Jahrbuch der deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft_,
vols. xxxiii-xlviii. [Wilson’s _Cobbler’s Prophecy_ (1897), _1
Richard II_ (1899), Wager’s _The Longer Thou Livest, the More
Fool Thou Art_ (1900), _The Wars of Cyrus_ (1901), Jonson’s
_E. M. I._ (1902), Lupton’s _All for Money_ (1904), Wapull’s
_The Tide Tarrieth No Man_ (1907), Lumley’s translation of
_Iphigenia_ (1910), _Caesar and Pompey_, or _Caesar’s Revenge_
(1911, 1912), by various editors.]

1898. A. Brandl, _Quellen des weltlichen Dramas in England vor
Shakespeare_. Ein Ergänzungsband zu Dodsley’s Old English Plays.
(_Quellen und Forschungen_, lxxx.) [_King Darius_, _Misogonus_,
_Horestes_, Wilmot’s _Gismond of Salern_, _Common Conditions_,
and earlier plays.]

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

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

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

1905–8. J. S. Farmer, _Publications of the Early English Drama
Society_. [Modernized texts, mainly of little value, but
including a volume of _Recently Recovered Plays_, from the
quartos in the Irish sale of 1906.]

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

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

1908–14. _The Shakespeare Classics._ General Editor, I.
Gollancz. (_The Shakespeare Library_). [Includes Warner’s
_Menaechmi_ and _Leire_, _Taming of A Shrew_, and _Troublesome
Reign of King John_.]

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

1911. R. W. Bond, _Early Plays from the Italian_. [Gascoigne’s
_Supposes_, _Bugbears_, _Misogonus_.]

1912. J. W. Cunliffe, _Early English Classical Tragedies_.
[Norton and Sackville’s _Gorboduc_, Gascoigne and Kinwelmersh’s
_Jocasta_, Wilmot’s _Gismond of Salerne_, Hughes’s _Misfortunes
of Arthur_.]

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

1915. C. B. Wheeler, _Six Plays by Contemporaries of
Shakespeare_ (_World’s Classics_). [Dekker’s _Shoemaker’s
Holiday_, Beaumont and Fletcher’s _K. B. P._ and _Philaster_,
Webster’s _White Devil_ and _Duchess of Malfi_, Massinger’s _New
Way to Pay Old Debts_.]

* * * * *

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

WILLIAM ALABASTER (1567–1640)

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

_Roxana. c. 1592_

[_MSS._] _T. C. C. MS._ (‘Authore Domino Alabaster’); _Camb. Univ. MS._
Ff. ii. 9; _Lambeth MS._ 838 (‘finis Roxanae Alabastricae’).

_S. R._ 1632, May 9 (Herbert). ‘A Tragedy in Latyn called Roxana &c.’
_Andrew Crooke_ (Arber, iv. 277).

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

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

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

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

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

_Collections_

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

1604. The Monarchicke Tragedies. By William Alexander of Menstrie. _V.
S. for Edward Blount._ [_Croesus_ and _Darius_ (with a separate t.p.).]

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

1616. The Monarchicke Tragedies. The third Edition. By S^r. W.
Alexander Knight. _William Stansby._ [_Croesus_, _Darius_, _The
Alexandraean Tragedy_, _Julius Caesar_, in revised texts, the last
three with separate t.ps.]

1637. Recreations with the Muses. By William Earle of Sterline. _Tho.
Harper._ [_Croesus_, _Darius_, _The Alexandraean Tragedy_, _Julius
Caesar_.]

1870–2. _Poetical Works._ 3 vols.

1921. L. E. Kastner and H. B. Charlton, _The Poetical Works of
Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling_. Vol. i. The Dramatic
Works.--_Dissertations_: C. Rogers, _Memorials of the Earl of S. and
the House of A._ (1877); H. Beumelburg, _Sir W. A. Graf von S., als
dramatischer Dichter_ (1880, Halle _diss._).

_Darius > 1603_

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

1604. _G. Elde for Edward Blount._ [Part of _Coll._ 1604, with separate
t.p.; also in later _Colls._ Two sets of verses to King at end.]

_Croesus > 1604_

1604. [Part of _Coll._ 1604; also in later _Colls._ Argument; Verses to
King at end.]

_The Alexandraean Tragedy > 1607_

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

1607. (_Running Title_). The Alexandraean Tragedie. [Part of _Coll._
1607; also in later _Colls._ Argument.]

_Julius Caesar > 1607_

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

_Edition_ in H. H. Furness, _Julius Caesar_ (1913, _New Variorum
Shakespeare_, xvii).

WILLIAM ALLEY (_c._ 1510–70).

Alley’s Πτωχὸμυσεῖον. _The Poore Mans Librarie_ (1565) contains three
and a half pages of dialogue between Larymos and Phronimos, described
as from ‘a certaine interlude or plaie intituled _Aegio_. In the which
playe ij persons interlocutorie do dispute, the one alledging for the
defence of destenie and fatall necessitie, and the other confuting the
same’. P. Simpson (_9 N. Q._ iii. 205) suggests that Alley was probably
himself the author. The book consists of _praelectiones_ delivered in
1561 at St. Paul’s, of which Alley had been a Prebendary. He became
Bishop of Exeter in 1560. On his attitude to the public stage, cf. App.
C. No. viii. It is therefore odd to find the Lord Bishop’s players at
Barnstaple and Plymouth in 1560–1 (Murray, ii. 78).

ROBERT AMERIE (_c._ 1610).

The deviser of the show of _Chester’s Triumph_ (1610). See ch. xxiv (C).

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

_The Two Maids of Moreclacke. 1607–8_ (?)

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

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

_Doubtful Play_

Armin has been guessed at as the R. A. of _The Valiant Welshman_.

THOMAS ASHTON (_ob._ 1578).

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

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

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

JAMES ASKE (_c._ 1588).

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

THOMAS ATCHELOW (_c._ 1589).

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

FRANCIS BACON (1561–1626).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JOHN BADGER (_c._ 1575).

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

WILLIAM BARKSTED.

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

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

BARNABE BARNES (_c._ 1569–1609).

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

_The Devil’s Charter. 2 Feb. 1607_

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

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

_Extracts_ by A. B. Grosart in Barnes’s _Poems_ (1875), and editions by
_R. B. McKerrow_ (1904, _Materialien_, vi) and J. S. Farmer (1913, _S.
F. T._)--_Dissertation_: A. E. H. Swaen, G. C. Moore Smith, and R. B.
McKerrow, _Notes on the D. C. by B. B._ (1906, _M. L. R._ i. 122).

DAVID, LORD BARRY (1585–1610).

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

_Ram Alley. 1607–8_

_S. R._ 1610, Nov. 9 (Buck). ‘A booke called, Ramme Alley, or merry
trickes. _Robert Wilson_ (Arber, iii. 448).

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

1636; 1639.

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

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

FRANCIS BEAUMONT (_c._ 1584–1616).

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

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

I classify the plays dealt with in these notes as follows: (_a_)
Plays wholly or substantially by Beaumont--_The Woman Hater_, _The
Knight of the Burning Pestle_; (_b_) Plays of the Beaumont-Fletcher
collaboration--_Philaster_, _A Maid’s Tragedy_, _A King and No King_,
_Four Plays in One_, _Cupid’s Revenge_, _The Coxcomb_, _The Scornful
Lady_; (_c_) Plays wholly or substantially by Fletcher--_The Woman’s
Prize_, _The Faithful Shepherdess_, _Monsieur Thomas_, _Valentinian_,
_Bonduca_, _Wit Without Money_; (_d_) Plays of doubtful authorship
and, in some cases, period--_The Captain_, _The Honest Man’s
Fortune_, _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, _The Faithful Friends_, _Thierry
and Theodoret_, _Wit at Several Weapons_, _Love’s Cure_, _The Night
Walker_. Full treatment of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, as of _Henry VIII_,
in which Fletcher certainly had a hand, is only possible in relation
to Shakespeare. I have not thought it necessary to include every play
which, or a hypothetical version of which, an unsupported conjecture,
generally from Mr. Oliphant, puts earlier than 1616. _The Queen of
Corinth_, _The Noble Gentleman_, _The Little French Lawyer_, _The Laws
of Candy_, _The Knight of Malta_, _The Fair Maid of the Inn_, _The
Chances_, _Beggar’s Bush_, _The Bloody Brother_, _Love’s Pilgrimage_,
_Nice Valour_, and _Rule a Wife and Have a Wife_ are omitted on
this principle, and I believe I might safely have extended the same
treatment to some of those in my class (_d_).

_Collections_

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

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

F_{1}, 1647. Comedies and Tragedies Written by Francis Beaumont and
Iohn Fletcher Gentlemen. Never printed before, And now published by
the Authours Originall Copies. _For H. Robinson and H. Moseley._
[Twenty-nine plays of the 1646 entry, excluding _The Wildgoose Chase_,
and the five plays and one mask of the 1660 entry, none but the mask
previously printed; Portrait of Fletcher by W. Marshall; Epistle to
Philip Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, signed ‘John Lowin, Richard
Robinson, Eylaerd Swanston, Hugh Clearke, Stephen Hammerton, Joseph
Taylor, Robert Benfield, Thomas Pollard, William Allen, Theophilus
Bird’; Epistle to the Reader, signed ‘Ja. Shirley’; The Stationer to
the Readers, signed ‘Humphrey Moseley’ and dated ‘Feb. 14^{th} 1646’;
Thirty-seven sets of Commendatory verses, variously signed; Postscript;
cf. W. W. Greg in _4 Library_, ii. 109.]

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

1711. The Works of B. and F. 7 vols. _Jacob Tonson._

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

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

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

_Selections_

1887. J. S. L. Strachey, _The Best Plays of B. and F._ 2 vols. (Mermaid
Series). [_Maid’s Tragedy_, _Philaster_, _Thierry and Theodoret_,
_K. B. P._, _King and No King_, _Bonduca_, _Faithful Shepherdess_,
_Valentinian_, and later plays.]

1912. F. E. Schelling, _Beaumont and Fletcher_ (_M. E. D._).
[_Philaster_, _Maid’s Tragedy_, _Faithful Shepherdess_, _Bonduca_.]

_Dissertations_: A. C. Swinburne, _B. and F._ (1875–94, _Studies in
Prose and Poetry_), _The Earlier Plays of B. and F._ (1910, _English
Review_); F. G. Fleay, _On Metrical Tests as applied to Dramatic
Poetry: Part ii, B., F., Massinger_ (1874, _N. S. S. Trans._ 51, 23*,
61*, reprinted, 1876–8, with alterations in _Shakespeare Manual_, 151),
_On the Chronology of the Plays of F. and Massinger_ (1886, _E. S._ ix.
12), and in _B. C._ (1891), i. 164; R. Boyle, _B., F., and Massinger_
(1882–7, _E. S._ v. 74, vii. 66, viii. 39, ix. 209, x. 383), _B., F.,
and Massinger_ (1886, _N. S. S. Trans._ 579), _Mr. Oliphant on B. and
F._ (1892–3, _E. S._ xvii. 171, xviii. 292), _Daborne’s Share in the
B. and F. Plays_ (1899, _E. S._ xxvi. 352); G. C. Macaulay, _F. B.: a
Critical Study_ (1883), _B. and F._ (1910, _C. H._ vi. 107); E. H. C.
Oliphant, _The Works of B. and F._ (1890–2, _E. S._ xiv. 53, xv. 321,
xvi. 180); E. Koeppel, _Quellen-Studien zu den Dramen Ben Jonson’s,
John Marston’s und B. und F.’s_ (1895, _Münchener Beiträge_, xi); C.
E. Norton, _F. B.’s Letter to Ben Jonson_ (1896, _Harvard Studies
and Notes_, v. 19); A. H. Thorndike, _The Influence of B. and F. on
Shakspere_ (1901); O. L. Hatcher, _J. F.: a Study in Dramatic Method_
(1905); R. M. Alden, _Introduction to B.’s Plays_ (1910, _B. L._);
C. M. Gayley, _F. B.: Dramatist_ (1914); W. E. Farnham, _Colloquial
Contractions in B., F., Massinger and Shakespeare as a Test of
Authorship_ (1916, _M. L. A._ xxxi. 326).

_Bibliographies_: A. C. Potter, _A Bibl. of B. and F._ (1890, _Harvard
Bibl. Contributions_, 39); B. Leonhardt, _Litteratur über B. und F._
(1896, _Anglia_, xix. 36, 542).

_The Woman Hater, c. 1606_

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_The Knight of the Burning Pestle. 1607_

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

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

1635.... Francis Beamont....

_Editions_ by F. W. Moorman (1898, _T. D._), H. S. Murch (1908, _Yale
Studies_, xxxiii), R. M. Alden (1910, _B. L._), W. A. Neilson (1911,
_C. E. D._).--_Dissertations_: R. Boyle, _B. and F.’s K. B. P._ (1889,
_E. S._ xiii. 156); B. Leonhardt, _Ueber B. und F.’s K. B. P._ (1885,
_Annaberg programme_), _Die Text-Varianten von B. und F.’s K. B. P._
(1896, _Anglia_, xix. 509).

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

_The Faithful Shepherdess. 1608–9_

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

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

1629.... newly corrected ... _T. C. for R. Meighen_.

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

1656; 1665.

_Editions_ by F. W. Moorman (1897, _T. D._), W. W. Greg (1908, Bullen,
iii), W. A. Neilson (1911, _C. E. D._).

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

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

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

1679. [Part of F_{2}.]

Fleay, i. 198, Oliphant, and Thorndike, 70, accumulate inconclusive
evidence bearing on the date, of which the most that can be said is
that an answer to _The Taming of the Shrew_ would have more point the
nearer it came to the date of the original, and that the references to
the siege of Ostend in I. iii would be topical during or not long after
that siege, which ended on 8 Sept. 1604. On the other hand, Gayley
(_R. E. C._ iii, lxvi) calls attention to possible reminiscences of
_Epicoene_ (_1609_) and _Alchemist_ (_1610_). I see no justification
for supposing that a play written in 1605 would undergo revision,
as has been suggested, in 1610–14. A revival by the King’s in 1633
got them into some trouble with Sir Henry Herbert, who claimed the
right to purge even an old play of ‘oaths, prophaness, and ribaldrye’
(_Variorum_, iii. 208). Possibly the play is also _The Woman is too
Hard for Him_, which the King’s took to Court on 26 Nov. 1621 (Murray,
ii. 193). But the original writing was not necessarily for this
company. There is general agreement in assigning the play to Fletcher
alone.

_Philaster > 1610_

_S. R._ 1620, Jan. 10 (Taverner). ‘A Play Called Philaster.’ _Thomas
Walkley_ (Arber, iii. 662).

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

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

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

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

_Editions_ by J. S. L. Strachey (1887, _Mermaid_, i), F. S. Boas (1898,
_T. D._), P. A. Daniel (1904, _Variorum_, i), A. H. Thorndike (1906,
_B. L._), W. A. Neilson (1911, _C. E. D._).--_Dissertations_: B.
Leonhardt, _Über die Beziehungen von B. und F.’s P. zu Shakespeare’s
Hamlet und Cymbeline_ (1885, _Anglia_, viii. 424) and _Die
Text-Varianten von B. und F.’s P._ (1896, _Anglia_, xix. 34).

The play is apparently referred to in John Davies of Hereford, _Scourge
of Folly_ (_S. R._ 8 Oct. 1610), ep. 206:

_To the well deseruing_ M^r John Fletcher.
_Loue lies ableeding_, if it should not proue
Her vttmost art to shew why it doth loue.
Thou being the _Subiect_ (now) It raignes vpon:
Raign’st in _Arte_, _Iudgement_, and _Inuention_:
_For this I loue thee: and can doe no lesse_
_For thine as faire, as faithfull_ Shepheardesse.

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

_The Coxcomb. 1608 < > 10_

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

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

_Dissertation_: A. S. W. Rosenbach, _The Curious Impertinent in English
Dramatic Literature_ (1902, _M. L. N._ xvii. 179).

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

_The Maid’s Tragedy > 1611_

_S. R._ 1619, April 28 (Buck). ‘A play Called The maides tragedy.’
_Higgenbotham and Constable_ (Arber, iii. 647).

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

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

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

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

_Editions_ by J. S. L. Strachey (1887, _Mermaid_, i), P. A. Daniel
(1904, _Variorum_, i), A. H. Thorndike (1906, _B. L._), W. A. Neilson
(1911, _C. E. D._).--_Dissertation_: B. Leonhardt, _Die Text-Varianten
in B. und F.’s M. T._ (1900, _Anglia_, xxiii. 14).

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

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

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

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

_A King and No King. 1611_

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

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

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

1631; 1639; 1655; 1661; 1676.

_Editions_ by R. W. Bond (1904, Bullen, i), R. M. Alden (1910, _B.
L._).--_Dissertation_: B. Leonhardt, _Die Text-Varianten von B.’s und
F.’s A K. and No K._ (1903, _Anglia_, xxvi. 313).

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

_Cupid’s Revenge > 1612_

_S. R._ 1615, April 24 (Buck). ‘A play called Cupid’s revenge.’
_Josias Harrison_ (Arber, iii. 566).

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

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

1635.... The third Edition. _A. M._

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

_The Captain. 1609 < > 12_

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

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

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

_Two Noble Kinsmen. 1613_

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

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

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

_Editions_ by W. W. Skeat (1875), H. Littledale (1876–85, _N. S. S._),
C. H. Herford (1897, _T. D._), J. S. Farmer (1910, _T. F. T._), and
with _Works_ of Beaumont and Fletcher, _Sh. Apocrypha_, and sometimes
_Works_ of Shakespeare.--_Dissertations_: W. Spalding, _A Letter on
Sh.’s Authorship of T. N. K._ (1833; 1876, _N. S. S._); S. Hickson,
_The Shares of Sh. and F. in T. N. K._ (1847, _Westminster Review_,
xlvii. 59; 1874, _N. S. S. Trans._ 25*, with additions by F. G. Fleay
and F. J. Furnivall); N. Delius, _Die angebliche Autorschaft des T. N.
K._ (1878, _Jahrbuch_, xiii. 16); R. Boyle, _Sh. und die beiden edlen
Vettern_ (1881, _E. S._ iv. 34), _On Massinger and T. N. K._ (1882,
_N. S. S. Trans._ 371); T. Bierfreund, _Palamon og Arcite_ (1891);
E. H. C. Oliphant (1892, _E. S._ xv. 323); B. Leuschner, _Über das
Verhältniss von T. N. K. zu Chaucer’s Knightes Tale_ (1903, _Halle
diss._); O. Petersen, _The T. N. K._ (1914, _Anglia_, xxxviii. 213); H.
D. Sykes, _The T. N. K._ (1916, _M. L. R._ xi. 136); A. H. Cruickshank,
_Massinger and T. N. K._ (1922).

The date of _T. N. K._ is fairly well fixed to 1613 by its adaptation
of Beaumont’s wedding mask of Shrovetide in that year; there would be
a confirmation in Jonson, _Bartholomew Fair_ (1614), iv. 3,

_Quarlous._ Well my word is out of the _Arcadia_, then: _Argalus_.

_Win-wife._ And mine out of the play, _Palemon_;

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

_The Honest Man’s Fortune. 1613_

[_MS._] _Dyce MS._ 9, formerly in Heber collection.

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

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

_Dissertation_: K. Richter, _H. M. F. und seine Quellen_ (1905, _Halle
diss._).

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

_Bonduca. 1609 < > 14_

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

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

_Dissertations_: B. Leonhardt, _Die Text-Varianten von B. und F.’s B._
(1898, _Anglia_, xx. 421) and _Bonduca_ (_E. S._ xiii. 36).

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

_Monsieur Thomas. 1610 < > 16_

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

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

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

_Edition_ by R. G. Martin (1912, Bullen, iv).--_Dissertations_: H.
Guskar, _Fletcher’s Monsieur Thomas und seine Quellen_ (1905, _Anglia_,
xxviii. 397; xxix. 1); A. L. Stiefel, _Zur Quellenfrage von John
Fletcher’s Monsieur Thomas_ (1906, _E. S._ xxxvi. 238); O. L. Hatcher,
_The Sources of Fletcher’s Monsieur Thomas_ (1907, _Anglia_, xxx. 89).

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

_Valentinian. 1610 < > 14_

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

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

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

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

_Wit Without Money, c. 1614_

_S. R._ 1639, April 25 (Wykes). ‘These fiue playes ... Witt without
money.’ _Crooke and William Cooke_ (Arber, iv. 464).

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

1661.... The Second Impression Corrected. _For Andrew Crooke._

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

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

_The Scornful Lady. 1613 < > 17_

_S. R._ 1616, March 19 (Buck). ‘A plaie called The scornefull ladie
written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher.’ _Miles Partriche_
(Arber, iii. 585).

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

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

1630, 1635, 1639, 1651 (_bis_).

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

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

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

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

_Thierry and Theodoret (?)_

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

1648.... Written by John Fletcher Gent. _For Humphrey Moseley._

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

_Dissertation_: B. Leonhardt, _Die Text-Varianten von B. und F.’s T.
and T._ (1903, _Anglia_, xxvi. 345).

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

_The Nightwalker or The Little Thief (?)_

_S. R._ 25 April 1639 (Wykes). ‘These fiue playes ... Night walters....
_Crooke and William Cooke_ (Arber, iv. 464).

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

1661. _For Andrew Crook._

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

_Four Plays in One (?)_

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

_Dissertation_: W. J. Lawrence, _The Date of F. P. in O._ (_T. L. S._
11 Dec. 1919).

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

_Love’s Cure; or, The Martial Maid_ (?)

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

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

_Dissertation_: A. L. Stiefel, _Die Nachahmung spanischer Komödien in
England_ (1897, _Archiv_, xcix. 271).

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

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

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

_Wit at Several Weapons_ (?)

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

1679. [Part of F_{2}.]

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

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

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

_The Faithful Friends_ (?)

[_MS._] _Dyce MS._ 10, formerly in the Heber collection.

_S. R._ 1660, June 29. ‘The Faithfull Friend a Comedy, by Francis
Beamont & John Fletcher’. _H. Moseley_ (Eyre, ii. 271).

_Edition_ by A. Dyce in _Works_ (1812).

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

_Lost Play_

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

_Inner Temple and Gray’s Inn Mask. 20 Feb. 1613_

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

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

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

1647. [Part of F_{1}.]

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

1653. Poems ... _for William Hope_. [A reissue.]

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

1679. [Part of F_{2}.]

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

_Edition_ in Nichols, _James_ (1828), ii. 591.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chamberlain (Birch, i. 227) says:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RICHARD BERNARD (1568–1641).

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

_Terence in English > 1598_

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

1607.... Secunda editio multo emendatior ... _John Legat_.

1614, 1629, 1641.

WILLIAM BIRD (> 1597–1619 <).

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

RICHARD BOWER (?-1561).

On his Mastership of the Chapel, cf. ch. xii. He has been supposed to
be the R. B. who wrote _Apius and Virginia_, and his hand has also been
sought in the anonymous _Clyomon and Clamydes_ and _Common Conditions_.

SAMUEL BRANDON (?-?).

Beyond his play, nothing is known of him.

_The Virtuous Octavia. 1594 < > 8_

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

1598. The Tragicomoedi of the vertuous Octauia. Done by Samuel Brandon.
_For William Ponsonby._ [Verses to Lady Lucia Audelay; _All’autore_,
signed ‘Mia’; _Prosopopeia al libro_, signed ‘S. B.’; Argument. After
text, Epistle to Mary Thinne, signed ‘S. B.’; Argument; verse epistles
_Octavia to Antonius_ and _Antonius to Octavia_.’]

_Editions_ by R. B. McKerrow (1909, _M. S. R._) and J. S. Farmer (1912,
_S. F. T._).

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

NICHOLAS BRETON (_c._ 1545–_c._ 1626).

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

ANTHONY BREWER (_c._ 1607).

Nothing is known of Brewer beyond his play, unless, as is possible, he
is the ‘Anth. Brew’ who was acting _c._ 1624 at the Cockpit (cf. F. S.
Boas, _A Seventeenth Century Theatrical Repertoire_ in _3 Library_ for
July 1917).

_The Lovesick King. c. 1607_

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

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

1680. The Perjured Nun.

_Editions_ by W. R. Chetwood (1750, _S. C._) and A. E. H. Swaen (1907,
_Materialien_, xviii).--_Dissertation_: A. E. H. Swaen, _The Date of
B.’s L. K._ (1908, _M. L. R._ iv. 87).

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

_Doubtful Plays_

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

ARTHUR BROOKE (_ob._ 1563).

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

SAMUEL BROOKE (_c._ 1574–1631).

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

_Adelphe. 27 Feb. 1613_

[_MSS._] _T. C. C. MS._ R. 3. 9. ‘Comoedia in Collegii Trin. aula bis
publice acta. Authore D^{no} D^{re} Brooke, Coll. Trin.’; _T. C. C.
MS._ R. 10. 4, with prologue dated 1662.

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

_Scyros. 3 March 1613_

[_MSS._] _T. C. C. MS._ R. 3. 9. ‘Fabula Pastoralis acta coram Principe
Charolo et comite Palatino mensis Martii 30 A. D. 1612. Authore D^{re}
Brooke Coll. Trin.’; _T. C. C. MSS._ R. 3. 37; R. 10. 4; R. 17. 10; O.
3. 4; _Emanuel, Cambridge, MS._ iii. i. 17; _Cambridge Univ. Libr. MS._
Ee. v. 16.

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

_Melanthe. 10 March 1615_

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

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

WILLIAM BROWNE (1591–1643?).

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

_Ulysses and Circe. 13 Jan. 1615_

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

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

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

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

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

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

SIR GEORGE BUCK (_ob._ 1623).

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

JAMES CALFHILL (1530?-1570).

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

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

THOMAS CAMPION (1567–1620).

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

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

_Collections_

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

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

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

1907. P. Vivian, _Poetical Works (in English) of T. C._ (_Muses’
Library_).

1909. P. Vivian, _C.’s Works_.

_Dissertation._--T. MacDonagh, _T. C. and the Art of English Poetry_
(1913).

_Lord Hay’s Mask. 6 Jan. 1607_

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

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

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

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

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

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

_The Lords’ Mask. 14 Feb. 1613_

1613. _For John Budge._ [Annexed to _Caversham Entertainment_ (q.v.).]

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

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

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

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

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

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

_The Caversham Entertainment. 27–8 April 1613_

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

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

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

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

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

_Lord Somerset’s Mask [Squires]. 26 Dec. 1613_

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ELIZABETH, LADY CARY (1586–1639).

_Mariam. 1602 < > 5._

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

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

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

i. _Theobalds Entertainment of 1571 (William Lord Burghley)._

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

ii. _Theobalds Entertainment of 1591 (William Lord Burghley)._

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

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

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

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

iii. _Theobalds Entertainment of 1594 (William Lord Burghley)_.

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

iv. _Wimbledon Entertainment of 1599 (Thomas Lord Burghley)_.

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

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

Elizabeth dined with Cecil on 6 Dec. 1602.

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

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

(_c_) _Hatfield MSS_. xii. 568 has verses endorsed ‘1602’ and beginning
‘Now we have present made, To Cynthya, Phebe, Flora’.

vi. _Theobalds Entertainment of 1606 (Earl of Salisbury)._

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

vii. _Theobalds Entertainment of 1607 (Earl of Salisbury)._

See s.v. Jonson.

GEORGE CHAPMAN (_c._ 1560–1634).

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

_Collections_

1873. [R. H. Shepherd.] _The Comedies and Tragedies of George Chapman._
3 vols. (_Pearson reprints_). [Omits _Eastward Ho!_]

1874–5. R. H. Shepherd. _The Works of George Chapman._ 3 vols. [With
Swinburne’s essay. Includes _The Second Maiden’s Tragedy_ and _Two Wise
Men and All the Rest Fools_.]

1895. W. L. Phelps. _The Best Plays of George Chapman_ (_Mermaid
Series_). [_All Fools_, the two _Bussy_ and the two _Byron_ plays.]

1910–14. T. M. Parrott. _The Plays and Poems of George Chapman._ 3
vols. [Includes _Sir Giles Goosecap_, _The Ball_, _Alphonsus Emperor of
Germany_, and _Revenge for Honour_. The _Poems_ not yet issued.]

_Dissertations_: F. Bodenstedt, _C. in seinem Verhältniss zu
Shakespeare_ (1865, _Jahrbuch_, i. 300); A. C. Swinburne, _G. C.: A
Critical Essay_ (1875); E. Koeppel, _Quellen-Studien zu den Dramen G.
C.’s, &c._ (1897, _Quellen und Forschungen_, lxxxii); B. Dobell, _Newly
discovered Documents of the Elizabethan and Jacobean Periods_ (1901,
_Ath._ i. 369, 403, 433, 465); A. Acheson, _Shakespeare and the Rival
Poet_ (1903); E. E. Stoll, _On the Dates of some of C.’s Plays_ (1905,
_M. L. N._ xx. 206); T. M. Parrott, _Notes on the Text of C.’s Plays_
(1907, _Anglia_, xxx. 349, 501); F. L. Schoell, _Chapman as a Comic
Writer_ (1911, _Paris diss._, unprinted, but used by Parrott); J. M.
Robertson, _Shakespeare and C._ (1917).

PLAYS

_The Blind Beggar of Alexandria. 1596_

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

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

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

_An Humorous Day’s Mirth. 1597_

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

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

_The Gentleman Usher. 1602_ (?)

[_MS._] For an unverified MS. cf. s.v. _Monsieur D’Olive._

_S. R._ 1605, Nov. 26 (Harsnett). ‘A book called Vincentio and
Margaret.’ _Valentine Syms_ (iii. 305).

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

_Edition_ by T. M. Parrott (1907, _B. L._).--_Dissertation_: O. Cohn,
_Zu den Quellen von C.’s G. U._ (1912, _Frankfort Festschrift_, 229).

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

_All Fools. 1604_ (?)

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

_Editions_ in Dodsley^{2, 3} (1780–1827) and by W. Scott (1810, _A. B.
D._ ii) and T. M. Parrott (1907, _B. L._).--_Dissertation_: M. Stier,
_C.’s All Fools mit Berücksichtigung seiner Quellen_ (1904, _Halle
diss._).

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

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

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

_Monsieur D’Olive. 1604_

[_MS._] See _infra_.

1606. Monsieur D’Olive. A Comedie, as it was sundrie times acted by her
Majesties children at the Blacke-Friers. By George Chapman. _T. C. for
William Holmes_.

_Edition_ by C. W. Dilke (1814, _O. E. P._ iii).

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

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

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

_Bussy D’Ambois. 1604_

_S. R._ 1607, June 3 (Buck). ‘The tragedie of Busye D’Amboise. Made by
George Chapman.’ _William Aspley_ (Arber, iii. 350).

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

1608. _For William Aspley._ [Another issue.]

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

1646. _T. W. for Robert Lunne._ [Another issue.]

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

_Editions_ by C. W. Dilke (1814, _O. E. P._ iii), F. S. Boas (1905, _B.
L._), W. A. Neilson (1911, _C. E. D._).--_Dissertation_: T. M. Parrott,
_The Date of C.’s B. d’A._ (1908, _M. L. R._ iii. 126).

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

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

They add that

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

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

_Eastward Ho! 1605_

With Jonson and Marston.

_S. R._ 1605, Sept. 4 (Wilson). ‘A Comedie called Eastward Ho:’
_William Aspley and Thomas Thorp_ (Arber, iii. 300).

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

1605. _For William Aspley._ [Another edition, reset.]

_Editions_ in Dodsley^{1, 2, 3} (1744–1825), by W. R. Chetwood in
_Memoirs of Ben Jonson_ (1756), W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ ii),
F. E. Schelling (1903, _B. L._), J. W. Cunliffe (1913, _R. E. C._
ii), J. S. Farmer (1914, _S. F. T._); and with Marston’s _Works_
(q.v.).--_Dissertations_: C. Edmonds, _The Original of the Hero in the
Comedy of E. H._ (_Athenaeum_, 13 Oct. 1883); H. D. Curtis, _Source of
the Petronel-Winifred Plot in E. H._ (1907, _M. P._ v. 105).

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

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

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

_May Day. c. 1609_

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

_Edition_ by C. W. Dilke (1814, _O. E. P._ iv).--_Dissertation_: A. L.
Stiefel, _G. C. und das italienische Drama_ (1899, _Jahrbuch_, xxxv.
180).

The _chorus iuvenum_ with which the play opens fixes it to the
occupancy of the Blackfriars by the Chapel and Revels in 1600–9.
Parrott suggests 1602 on the ground of reminiscences of 1599–1601
plays, of which the most important is a quotation in IV. i. 18 of
Marston’s _2 Antonio and Mellida_ (1599), V. ii. 20. But the force of
this argument is weakened by the admission of a clear imitation in I.
i. 378 _sqq._ of ch. v. of Dekker’s _Gull’s Hornbook_ (1609), which
it seems to me a little arbitrary to explain by a revision. The other
reasons given by Fleay, i. 57, for a date _c._ 1601 are fantastic. So
is his suggestion that the play is founded on the anonymous _Disguises_
produced by the Admiral’s on 2 Oct. 1595, which, as pointed out by Greg
(_Henslowe_, ii. 177), rests merely on the fact that the title would be
appropriate.

_The Widow’s Tears. 1603 < > 9_

_S. R._ 1612, Apr. 17. _John Browne_ [see _The Revenge of Bussy
D’Ambois_].

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

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

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

_Charles, Duke of Byron. 1608_

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

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

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

_Dissertation_: T. M. Parrott, _The Text of C.’s Byron_ (1908, _M. L.
R._ iv. 40).

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

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

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

_The Revenge of Bussy D’Ambois. c. 1610_

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

1613. The Revenge of Bussy D’Ambois. A Tragedie. As it hath beene often
presented at the priuate Play-house in the White-Fryers. Written by
George Chapman, Gentleman. _T. S., sold by Iohn Helme._ [Epistle to Sir
Thomas Howard, signed ‘Geo. Chapman’.]

_Edition_ by F. S. Boas (1905, _B. L._).

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

_Chabot Admiral of France, c. 1613_ (?)

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

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

_Edition_ by E. Lehman (1906, _Pennsylvania Univ. Publ._).

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

_Caesar and Pompey, c. 1613_ (?)

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

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

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

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

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

_Doubtful and Lost Plays_

Chapman’s lost plays for the Admiral’s men of 1598–9 have already been
noted. Two plays, ‘The Fatall Love, a French Tragedy’, and ‘A Tragedy
of a Yorkshire Gentlewoman and her sonne’, were entered as his in the
_S. R._ by Humphrey Moseley on 29 June 1660 (Eyre, ii. 271). They
appear, without Chapman’s name, in Warburton’s list of burnt plays
(W. W. Greg in _3 Library_, ii. 231). The improbable ascriptions to
Chapman of _The Ball_ (1639) and _Revenge for Honour_ (1654) on their
t.ps. and of _Two Wise Men and All the Rest Fools_ (1619) by Kirkman
in 1661 do not inspire confidence in this late entry, and even if they
were Chapman’s, the plays were not necessarily of our period. But it
has been suggested that _Fatal Love_ may be the anonymous _Charlemagne_
(q.v.). J. M. Robertson assigns to Chapman _A Lover’s Complaint_,
accepts the conjecture of Minto and Acheson that he was the ‘rival
poet’ of Shakespeare’s _Sonnets_, believes him to be criticized in the
Holophernes of _L. L. L._ and regards him as the second hand of _Timon
of Athens_, and with varying degrees of assurance as Shakespeare’s
predecessor, collaborator or reviser, in _Per._, _T. C._, _Tp._,
_Ham._, _Cymb._, _J. C._, _T. of S._, _Hen. VI_, _Hen. V_, _C. of E._,
_2 Gent._, _All’s Well_, _M. W._, _K. J._, _Hen. VIII_. These are
issues which cannot be discussed here. The records do not suggest any
association between Chapman and the Chamberlain’s or King’s men, except
possibly in Caroline days.

For other ascriptions to Chapman, see in ch. xxiv, _Alphonsus_, _Fedele
and Fortunio_, _Sir Giles Goosecap_, _Histriomastix_, and _Second
Maiden’s Tragedy_.

MASK

_Middle Temple and Lincoln’s Inn Mask. 15 Feb. 1613_

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

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

N.D. _F. K. for George Norton._

_Edition_ in Nichols, _James_ (1828), ii. 566.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HENRY CHEKE (_c._ 1561).

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

_Free Will > 1561_

_S. R._ 1561, May 11. ‘ij. bokes, the one called ... and the other of
Frewill.’ _John Tysdayle_ (Arber, i. 156).

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

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

HENRY CHETTLE (_c._ 1560–> 1607).

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

PLAYS

_The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon. 1598_

_The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon. 1598_

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

_Patient Grissel. 1600_

With Dekker (q.v.) and Haughton.

_1 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green. 1600_

With Day (q.v.).

_Sir Thomas Wyatt. 1602_

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

_Hoffman_ or _A Revenge for a Father. 1602 <_

_S. R._ 1630, Feb. 26 (Herbert). ‘A play called Hoffman the Revengfull
ffather.’ _John Grove_ (Arber, iv. 229).

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

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

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

_Doubtful and Lost Plays_

Chettle’s hand has been suggested in the anonymous _Trial of Chivalry_
(_vide infra_) and _The Weakest Goeth to the Wall_.

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

(_a_) _Plays for the Admiral’s, 1598–1603_

(i), (ii) _1, 2 Robin Hood._

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

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

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

(iv), (v) _1, 2 Earl Godwin and His Three Sons._

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

(vi) _Pierce of Exton._

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

(vii), (viii) _1, 2 Black Bateman of the North._

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

(ix) _The Funeral of Richard Cœur-de-Lion._

With Drayton, Munday, and Wilson, June 1598.

(x) _A Woman’s Tragedy._

July 1598, but apparently unfinished.

(xi) _Hot Anger Soon Cold._

With Jonson and Porter, Aug. 1598.

(xii) _Chance Medley._

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

(xiii) _Catiline’s Conspiracy._

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

(xiv) _Vayvode._

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

(xv) _2 Brute._

Sept.–Oct. 1598.

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

Nov. 1598, but apparently not finished.

(xvii) _Polyphemus, or Troy’s Revenge._

Feb. 1599.

(xviii) _The Spencers._

With Porter, March 1599.

(xix) _Troilus and Cressida._

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

(xx) _Agamemnon, or Orestes Furious._

With Dekker, May 1599.

(xxi) _The Stepmother’s Tragedy._

With Dekker, Aug.–Oct. 1599.

(xxii) _Robert II or The Scot’s Tragedy._

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

(xxiii) _Patient Grissell._

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

(xxiv) _The Orphan’s Tragedy._

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

(xxv) _The Arcadian Virgin._

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

(xxvi) _Damon and Pythias._

Feb.–May 1600.

(xxvii) _The Seven Wise Masters._

With Day, Dekker, and Haughton, March 1600.

(xxviii) _The Golden Ass_, or _Cupid and Psyche_.

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

(xxix) _The Wooing of Death._

May 1600, but apparently not finished.

(xxx) _1 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green._

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

(xxxi) _All Is Not Gold That Glisters._

March-April 1601.

(xxxii) _King Sebastian of Portingale._

With Dekker, April-May 1601.

(xxxiii), (xxxiv) _1, 2 Cardinal Wolsey._

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

(xxxv) _Too Good To Be True._

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

(xxxvi) _Friar Rush and the Proud Women of Antwerp._

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

(xxxvii) _Love Parts Friendship._

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

(xxxviii) _Tobias._

May–June 1602.

(xxxix) _Hoffman._

July–Dec. 1602, but apparently not finished. _Vide supra._

(xl) _Felmelanco._

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

(xli), (xlii) _1, 2 The London Florentine._

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

(xliii) [Unnamed play].

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

(_b_) _Plays for Worcester’s, 1602–3_

(xliv) [Unnamed play. Collier’s _Robin Goodfellow_ is forged].

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

(xlv) _1 Lady Jane_, or _The Overthrow of Rebels_.

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

(xlvi) _Christmas Comes but Once a Year._

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

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

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

(xlviii) _Shore._

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

THOMAS CHURCHYARD (1520?-1604).

The best account of Churchyard is that by H. W. Adnitt in _Shropshire
Arch. Soc. Trans._ iii (1880), 1, with a bibliography of his numerous
poems. For his share in the devices of the Bristol entertainment
(_1574_) and the Suffolk and Norfolk progress (_1578_), of both of
which he published descriptions, cf. ch. xxiv. He was also engaged
by the Shrewsbury corporation to prepare a show for an expected but
abandoned royal visit in 1575 (_Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 255). His _A
Handful of Gladsome Verses given to the Queenes Maiesty at Woodstocke
this Prograce_ (1592) is reprinted in H. Huth and W. C. Hazlitt,
_Fugitive Tracts_ (1875), i. It is not mimetic. His own account of
his work in _Churchyard’s Challenge_ (1593) suggests that he took a
considerable part in Elizabethan pageantry. He says that he wrote:

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

and

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

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

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

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

ANTHONY CHUTE (_ob. c._ 1595).

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

GEORGE CLIFFORD (1558–1605).

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

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

JO. COOKE (_c._ 1612).

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

_Greenes Tu Quoque or The City Gallant. 1611_

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

1622. _For Thomas Dewe._

N.D. _M. Flesher._

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

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

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

_Bubble._ Green! Green’s an ass.

_Scattergood._ Wherefore do you say so?

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

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

AQUILA CRUSO (_c._ 1610).

Author of the academic _Euribates Pseudomagus_ (cf. App. K).

ROBERT DABORNE (?-1628).

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

_Collection_

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

_Dissertation_: R. Boyle, _D.’s Share in the Beaumont and Fletcher
Plays_ (1899, _E. S._ xxvi. 352).

_A Christian Turned Turk. 1609 < > 12_

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

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

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

_The Poor Man’s Comfort, c. 1617_ (?)

[_MS._] _Egerton MS._ 1994, f. 268.

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

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

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

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

_Doubtful and Lost Plays_

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

(_a_) _Machiavel and the Devil_ (17 April-_c._ 25 June 1613), possibly,
according to Fleay and Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 152, based on the old
_Machiavel_ revived by Strange’s men in 1592.

(_b_) _The Arraignment of London_, probably identical with _The Bellman
of London_ (5 June–9 Dec. 1613), with Cyril Tourneur, possibly, as
Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 75, suggests, based on Dekker’s tract, _The
Bellman of London_ (1608).

(_c_) An unnamed play with Field, Massinger, and Fletcher, the subject
of undated correspondence (_Henslowe Papers_, 65 and possibly 70, 84)
and possibly also of dated letters of July 1613 (_H. P._ 74).

(_d_) _The Owl_ (9 Dec. 1613–28 March 1614). A comedy of this name
is in Archer’s list of 1656, but Greg, _Masques_, xcv, thinks that
Jonson’s _Mask of Owls_ may be meant.

(_e_) _The She Saint_ (2 April 1614).

Daborne has been suggested as a contributor to the _Cupid’s Revenge_,
_Faithful Friends_, _Honest Man’s Fortune_, _Thierry and Theodoret_,
and later plays of the Beaumont (q.v.) and Fletcher series, and
attempts have been made to identify more than one of these with (_c_)
above.

SAMUEL DANIEL (_c._ 1563–1619).

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

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

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

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

In 1619 Jonson told Drummond that he had answered Daniel’s _Defence
of Ryme_ (?1603), that ‘Samuel Daniel was a good honest man, had no
children; but no poet’, and that ‘Daniel was at jealousies with him’
(Laing, 1, 2, 10). All this suggests to me a rivalry at the Jacobean,
rather than the Elizabethan Court, and I concur in the criticisms of
Small, 181, upon the elaborate attempts of Fleay, i. 84, 359, to trace
attacks on Daniel in Jonson’s earlier comedies. Fleay makes Daniel
Fastidious Brisk in _Every Man Out of his Humour_, Hedon in _Cynthia’s
Revels_, and alternatively Hermogenes Tigellius and Tibullus in _The
Poetaster_, as well as Emulo in the _Patient Grissel_ of Dekker and
others. In most of these equations he is followed by others, notably
Penniman, who adds (_Poetaster_, xxxvii) Matheo in _Every Man In his
Humour_ and Gullio in the anonymous _1 Return from Parnassus_. For
all this the only basis is that Brisk, Matheo, and Gullio imitate or
parody Daniel’s poetry. What other poetry, then, would affected young
men at the end of the sixteenth century be likely to imitate? Some
indirect literary criticism on Daniel may be implied, but this does
not constitute the imitators portraits of Daniel. Fleay’s further
identifications of Daniel with Littlewit in _Bartholomew Fair_ and
Dacus in the _Epigrams_ of Sir John Davies are equally unsatisfactory.
To return to biography. In 1604 Daniel, for the first time so far as
is known, became connected with the stage, through his appointment as
licenser for the Queen’s Revels by their patent of 4 Feb. Collier, _New
Facts_, 47, prints, as preserved at Bridgewater House, two undated
letters from Daniel to Sir Thomas Egerton. One, intended to suggest
that Shakespeare was a rival candidate for the post in the Queen’s
Revels, is a forgery, and this makes it impossible to attach much
credit to the other, in which the writer mentions the ‘preferment
of my brother’ and that he himself has ‘bene constrayned to live
with children’. Moreover, the manuscript was not forthcoming in 1861
(Ingleby, 247, 307). Daniel evidently took a part in the management of
the Revels company; the indiscretion of his _Philotas_ did not prevent
him from acting as payee for their plays of 1604–5. But his connexion
with them probably ceased when _Eastward Ho!_ led, later in 1605, to
the withdrawal of Anne’s patronage. The irrepressible Mr. Fleay (i.
110) thinks that they then satirized him as Damoetas in Day’s _Isle
of Gulls_ (1606). Daniel wrote one more mask and two pastorals, all
for Court performances. By 1607 he was Groom of Anne’s Privy Chamber,
and by 1613 Gentleman Extraordinary of the same Chamber. In 1615 his
brother John obtained through his influence a patent for the Children
of the Queen’s Chamber of Bristol (cf. ch. xii). He is said to have had
a wife Justina, who was probably the sister of John Florio, whom he
called ‘brother’ in 1611. The suggestion of Bolton Corney (_3 N. Q._
viii. 4, 40, 52) that this only meant fellow servant of the Queen is
not plausible; this relation would have been expressed by ‘fellow’. He
had a house in Old Street, but kept up his Somerset connexion, and was
buried at Beckington, where he had a farm named Ridge, in Oct. 1619.

_Collections_

1599. The Poeticall Essayes of Sam. Danyel. Newly corrected and
augmented. _P. Short for Simon Waterson._ [Includes _Cleopatra_.]

1601. The Works of Samuel Daniel Newly Augmented. _For Simon Waterson._
[_Cleopatra._]

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

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

1607. Certain Small Workes Heretofore Divulged by Samuel Daniel one of
the Groomes of the Queenes Maiesties priuie Chamber, and now againe by
him corrected and augmented. _I. W. for Simon Waterson._ [Two issues.
_Cleopatra_, _Philotas_, _The Queen’s Arcadia_.]

1611. Certain Small Workes.... _I. L. for Simon Waterson._ [Two issues.
_Cleopatra_, _Philotas_, _The Queen’s Arcadia_.]

1623. The Whole Workes of Samuel Daniel Esquire in Poetrie. _Nicholas
Okes for Simon Waterson._ [_Cleopatra_, _Philotas_, _The Queen’s
Arcadia_, _Hymen’s Triumph_, _The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses_. This
was edited by John Daniel.]

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

1718. _For R. G. Gosling, W. Mears, J. Browne._

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

PLAYS

_Cleopatra > 1593_

_S. R._ 1593, Oct. 19. ‘A booke intituled The Tragedye of Cleopatra.’
_Symond Waterson_ (Arber, ii. 638).

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

1595. _James Roberts and Edward Allde for Simon Waterson._

1598. _Peter Short for Simon Waterson._

Also in _Colls._ 1599–1635.

_Edition_ by M. Lederer (1911, _Materialien_, xxxi).

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

_Philotas. 1604_

_S. R._ 1604, Nov. 29 (Pasfield). ‘A Booke called the tragedie of
Philotus wrytten by Samuel Daniell.’ _Waterson and Edward Blunt_
(Arber, iii. 277).

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

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

Also in _Colls._ 1607–35.

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

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

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

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

_The Queen’s Arcadia. 1605_

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

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

See _Collections_.

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

_Hymen’s Triumph. 1614_

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

_S. R._ 1615, Jan. 13 (Buck). ‘A play called Hymens triumphes.’
_Francis Constable_ (iii. 561), [The clerk first wrote ‘Hymens
pastoralls’.]

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

See _Collections_.

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

_Doubtful Play_

Daniel has been suggested as the author of the anonymous _Maid’s
Metamorphosis_.

MASKS

_The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses. 8 Jan. 1604_

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

1604. The Vision of the 12. Goddesses, presented in a Maske the 8 of
Ianuary, at Hampton Court: By the Queenes most Excellent Maiestie, and
her Ladies. _T. C. for Simon Waterson._ [A preface to Lucy, Countess
of Bedford, is signed by Daniel, who states that the publication was
motived by ‘the unmannerly presumption of an indiscreet Printer, who
without warrant hath divulged the late shewe ... and the same very
disorderly set forth’. Lady Bedford had ‘preferred’ Daniel to the Queen
‘in this imployment’.]

See _Collections_.

_Editions_ by Nichols, _James_, i. 305 (1828), E. Law (1880), and H. A.
Evans (1897, _English Masques_).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_Tethys’ Festival. 5 June 1610_

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

_Edition_ in Nichols, _James_ (1828), ii. 346.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JOHN DAVIDSON (1549?-1603).

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

_The Siege of Edinburgh Castle. 1571_

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

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

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

SIR JOHN DAVIES (1569–1626).

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

_Collections_

_Works_ by A. B. Grosart (1869–76, _Fuller Worthies Library_.
3 vols.).

_Poems_ by A. B. Grosart (1876, _Early English Poets_. 2
vols.).

_Dissertation_: M. Seemann, _Sir J. D., sein Leben und seine Werke_
(1913, _Wiener Beiträge_, xli).

R. DAVIES (_c._ 1610).

Contributor to _Chester’s Triumph_ (cf. ch. xxiv, C).

FRANCIS DAVISON (_c._ 1575–_c._ 1619).

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

JOHN DAY (_c._ 1574–_c._ 1640).

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

_Collection_

1881. A. H. Bullen, _The Works of John Day_.

_The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green. 1600_

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

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

_Editions_ by W. Bang (1902, _Materialien_, i) and J. S.
Farmer (1914, _S. F. T._).

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

_Law Tricks, or Who Would Have Thought It. 1604_

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

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

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

_The Isle of Gulls. 1606_

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

1606. _For John Trundle, sold by John Hodgets._

1633. _For William Sheares._

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

_The Travels of Three English Brothers. 1607_

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

1607. The Travailes of The three English Brothers.

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

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

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

_Humour out of Breath. 1607–8_

_S. R._ 1608, April 12 (Buck). ‘A booke called Humour out of breathe.’
_John Helme_ (Arber, iii. 374).

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

_Editions_ by J. O. Halliwell (1860), A. Symons in _Nero and Other
Plays_ (1888, _Mermaid Series_).

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

_The Parliament of Bees. 1608 < > 16_

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

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

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

_Edition_ by A. Symons in _Nero and Other Plays_ (1888, _Mermaid
Series_).

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

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

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

_Lost and Doubtful Plays_

For the Admiral’s, 1598–1603.

Day appears to have sold the company an old play _1 The Conquest
of Brute_ in July 1598, and to have subsequently written or
collaborated in the following plays:

1599–1600: _Cox of Collumpton_, with Haughton; _Thomas Merry_, or
_Beech’s Tragedy_, with Haughton; _The Seven Wise Masters_, with
Chettle, Dekker, and Haughton; _Cupid and Psyche_, with Chettle and
Dekker; _1 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green_, with Chettle; and the
unfinished _Spanish Moor’s Tragedy_, with Dekker and Haughton.

1600–1: _2 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green_, with Haughton; _Six Yeomen
of the West_, with Haughton.

1601–2: _The Conquest of the West Indies_, with Haughton and Smith;
_3 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green_, with Haughton; _Friar Rush and
The Proud Woman of Antwerp_, with Chettle and Haughton; _The Bristol
Tragedy_; and the unfinished _2 Tom Dough_, with Haughton.

1602–3: _Merry as May Be_, with Hathway and Smith; _The Boss of
Billingsgate_, with Hathway and another.

For Worcester’s men.

1602–3: _1 and 2 The Black Dog of Newgate_, with Hathway, Smith, and
another; _The Unfortunate General_, with Hathway, Smith, and a third;
and the unfinished _Shore_, with Chettle.

Of the above only _The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green_ and a note
of _Cox of Collumpton_ (cf. ch. xiii, s.v. Admiral’s) survive; for
speculations as to others see Heywood, _Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas_
(_Cupid and Psyche_), Marlowe, _Lust’s Dominion_ (_Spanish Moor’s
Tragedy_), Yarington, _Two Lamentable Tragedies_ (_Thomas Merry_),
and the anonymous _Edward IV_ (_Shore_) and _Fair Maid of Bristol_
(_Bristow Tragedy_).

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

Day’s _Mad Pranks of Merry Mall of the Bankside_ (S. R. 7 Aug. 1610)
was probably a pamphlet (cf. Dekker, _The Roaring Girl_). Bullen,
_Introd._ 11, thinks the _Guy Earl of Warwick_ (1661), printed as
‘by B. J.’, too bad to be Day and Dekker’s _Life and Death of Guy of
Warwick_ (S. R. 15 Jan. 1620). On 30 July 1623 Herbert licensed a
_Bellman of Paris_ by Day and Dekker for the Prince’s (Herbert, 24).
_The Maiden’s Holiday_ by Marlowe (q.v.) and Day (S. R. 8 April 1654)
appears in Warburton’s list of burnt plays (_3 Library_, ii. 231) as
Marlowe’s.

For other ascriptions to Day see _The Maid’s Metamorphosis_ and
_Parnassus_ in ch. xxiv.

THOMAS DEKKER (_c._ 1572–_c._ 1632).

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

_Collections_

1873. [R. H. Shepherd], _The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker_. 4 vols.
(_Pearson Reprints_). [Contains 15 plays and 4 Entertainments.]

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

1887. E. Rhys, _Thomas Dekker_ (_Mermaid Series_). [Contains _The
Shoemaker’s Holiday_, _1, 2 The Honest Whore_, _Old Fortunatus_, _The
Witch of Edmonton_.]

_Dissertations_: M. L. Hunt, _Thomas Dekker: A Study_ (1911, _Columbia
Studies in English_); W. Bang, _Dekker-Studien_ (1900, _E. S._ xxviii.
208); F. E. Pierce, _The Collaboration of Webster with Dekker_ (1909,
_Yale Studies_, xxxvii) and _The Collaboration of Dekker and Ford_
(1912, _Anglia_, xxxvi, 141, 289); E. E. Stoll, _John Webster_ (1905),
ch. ii, and _The Influence of Jonson on Dekker_ (1906, _M. L. N._ xxi.
20); R. Brooke, _John Webster and the Elizabethan Drama_ (1916); F. P.
Wilson, _Three Notes on Thomas Dekker_ (1920, _M. L. R._ xv. 82).

PLAYS

_Old Fortunatus. 1599_

_S. R._ 1600, Feb. 20. ‘A commedie called old Fortunatus in his newe
lyuerie.’ _William Aspley_ (Arber, iii. 156).

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

_Editions_ by Dilke (1814, _O. E. P._ iii), H. Scherer (1901,
_Münchener Beiträge_, xxi), O. Smeaton (1904, _T. D._).

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

_The Shoemaker’s Holiday. 1599_

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

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

1610, 1618, 1624, 1631, 1657.

_Editions_ by E. Fritsche (1862), K. Warnke and E. Proescholdt (1886),
W. A. Neilson (1911, _C. E. D._), and A. F. Lange (1914, _R. E. C._
iii).

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

_Patient Grissell. 1600_

_With_ Chettle and Haughton.

_S. R._ 1600, March 28. ‘The Plaie of Patient Grissell.’ _Cuthbert
Burby_ (Arber, iii. 158).

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

_Editions_ by J. P. Collier (1841, _Sh. Soc._), A. B. Grosart (1886,
_Dekker_, v. 109), G. Hübsch (1893, _Erlanger Beiträge_, xv), J. S.
Farmer (1911, _T. F. T._).--_Dissertations_ by A. E. H. Swaen in
_E. S._ xxii. 451, Fr. v. Westenholz, _Die Griseldis-Sage in der
Literaturgeschichte_ (1888).

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

_Satiromastix. 1601_

_With_ Marston?

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

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

_Editions_ by T. Hawkins (1773, _O. E. D._ iii), H. Scherer (1907,
_Materialien_, xx), J. H. Penniman (1913, _B. L._).

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

_Sir Thomas Wyatt. 1602_

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

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

1612. _For Thomas Archer._

_Editions_ by J. Blew (1876), and J. S. Farmer (1914, _S. F. T._) and
with _Works_ of Webster (q.v.).

Henslowe, on behalf of Worcester’s men, paid Chettle, Dekker, Heywood,
Smith, and Webster, for _1 Lady Jane_ in Oct. 1602. He then bought
properties for _The Overthrow of Rebels_, almost certainly the same
play, and began to pay Dekker for a _2 Lady Jane_, which apparently
remained unfinished, at any rate at the time. One or both of these
plays, or possibly only the shares of Dekker and Webster in one or both
of them, may reasonably be taken to survive in _Sir Thomas Wyatt_.
Stoll, 49, thinks the play, as we have it, is practically Dekker’s and
that there is ‘no one thing’ that can be claimed ‘with any degree of
assurance’ for Webster. But this is not the general view. Fleay, ii.
269, followed in the main by Hunt, 76, gives Webster scc. i-ix, Greg
(_Henslowe_, ii. 233) scc. i-x and xvi (with hesitation as to iii-v),
Pierce, after a careful application of a number of ‘tests’ bearing both
on style and on matter, scc. ii, v, vi, x, xiv, xvi; but he thinks that
some or all of these were retouched by Dekker. Brooke inclines to trace
Webster in scc. ii, xvi, Heywood in scc. vi, x, and a good deal of
Dekker. Hunt thinks the planning due to Chettle.

_The Honest Whore. 1604, c. 1605_

_With_ Middleton.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_Editions_ by W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ i) and W. A. Neilson
(1911, _C. E. D._).

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

_Westward Ho! 1604_

_With_ Webster.

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

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

_Editions_ with _Works_ of Webster (q.v.).

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

_Northward Ho! 1605_

_With_ Webster.

_S. R._ 1607, Aug. 6 (Buck). ‘A booke Called Northward Ho.’ _George
Elde_ (Arber, iii. 358).

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

_Editions_ by J. S. Farmer (1914, _S. F. T._) and in _Works_ of Webster
(q.v.).

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

_The Whore of Babylon 1605 < > 7_

_S. R._ 1607, April 20 (Buck). ‘A booke called the Whore of Babilon.’
_Nathanael Butter and John Trundell_ (Arber, iii. 347).

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

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

_The Roaring Girl. c. 1610_

_With_ Middleton.

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

_Editions_ by W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ ii), A. H. Bullen (1885,
_Middleton_, iv. 1), and J. S. Farmer (1914, _S. F. T._).

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

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

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

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

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

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

_Match Me in London_ (?)

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

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

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

_The Virgin Martyr. c. 1620_

_With_ Massinger.

_S. R._ 1621, 7 Dec. (Buck). ‘A Tragedy called The Virgin Martir.’
_Thomas Jones_ (Arber, iv. 62).

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

1631, 1651, 1661.

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

_The Witch of Edmonton. 1621_

_With_ Ford and W. Rowley.

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

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

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

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

_The Wonder of a Kingdom. 1623_

_Possibly with_ Day.

_S. R._ 1631, May 16 (Herbert). ‘A Comedy called The Wonder of a
Kingdome by Thomas Decker.’ _John Jackman_ (Arber, iv. 253).

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

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

Herbert’s diary for 18 Sept. 1623 has the entry: ‘For a company of
strangers. A new comedy called Come see a wonder, written by John
Daye. It was acted at the Red Bull and licensed without my hand to
it because they were none of the 4 companies.’ As _The Wonder of a
Kingdom_ contains scenes which are obviously from Day’s _Parliament of
Bees_ (_1608–16_) it is possible either to adopt the simple theory of
a collaboration between Day and Dekker in 1623, or to hold with Fleay,
i. 136, and Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 174, that Day’s ‘new’ play of 1623
was a revision of an earlier one by Dekker. The mention of cards in the
closing lines seems an inadequate ground for Fleay’s further theory,
apparently approved by Greg, that the original play was _The Mack_,
produced by the Admiral’s on 21 Feb. 1595.

_The Sun’s Darling. 1624_

_With_ Ford.

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

1657. Reissue with same imprint.

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

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

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

_The Noble Soldier > 1631_

_With_ Day and S. Rowley?

_S. R._ 1631, May 16 (Herbert). ‘A Tragedy called The noble Spanish
Souldier by Thomas Deckar.’ _John Jackman_ (Arber, iv. 253).

1633, Dec. 9. ‘Entred for his Copy vnder the handes of Sir Henry
Herbert and Master Kingston warden _Anno Domini_ 1631. a Tragedy called
_The Noble Spanish soldior_ written by master Decker.’ _Nicholas
Vavasour_ (Arber, iv. 310).

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

_Editions_ by A. H. Bullen (1882, _O. E. P._ i) and J. S. Farmer (1913,
_S. F. T._).

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

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

_Lost and Doubtful Plays_

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

(a) _Conjectural anonymous Work before 1598_

(i) _Philipo and Hippolito._

Produced as a new play by the Admiral’s on 9 July 1594. The ascription
to Dekker, confident in Fleay, i. 213, and regarded as possible
by Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 165), appears to be due to the entry of a
_Philenzo and Hypollita_ by Massinger, who revised other early work of
Dekker, in the S. R. on 29 June 1660, to the entry of a _Philenzo and
Hipolito_ by Massinger in Warburton’s list of burnt plays (_3 Library_,
ii. 231), and to the appearance of a _Julio and Hyppolita_ in the
German collection of 1620. A copy of Massinger’s play is said (Collier,
_Henslowe_, xxxi) to be amongst the _Conway MSS._

(ii) _The Jew of Venice._

Entered as a play by Dekker in the S. R. on 9 Sept. 1653 (_3 Library_,
ii. 241). It has been suggested (Fleay, i. 121, and _Sh._ 30, 197; Greg
in _Henslowe_, ii. 170) that it was the source of a German play printed
from a Vienna MS. by Meissner, 131 (cf. Herz, 84). In this a personage
disguises himself as a French doctor, which leads to the conjectural
identification of its English original both with _The Venetian Comedy_
produced by the Admiral’s on 27 Aug. 1594 and with _The French Doctor_
performed by the same men on 19 Oct. 1594 and later dates and bought by
them from Alleyn in 1602. The weakest point in all this guesswork is
the appearance of common themes in the German play and in _The Merchant
of Venice_, which Fleay explains to his own satisfaction by the
assumption that Shakespeare based _The Merchant of Venice_ on Dekker’s
work.

(iii) _Dr. Faustus._

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

(iv) _Diocletian._

Produced by the Admiral’s, 16 Nov. 1599; cf. s.v. _The Virgin Martyr_
(_supra_).

(v) _The Set at Maw._

Produced by the Admiral’s on 14 Dec. 1594; cf. s.v. _Match Me in
London_ (_supra_).

(vi) _Antony and Valia._

Revived by the Admiral’s, 4 Jan. 1595, and ascribed by Fleay, i. 213,
with some encouragement from Greg in _Henslowe_, ii. 174, to Dekker, on
the ground of entries in the S. R. on 29 June 1660 and in Warburton’s
list of burnt plays (_3 Library_, ii. 231) of an _Antonio and Vallia_
by Massinger, who revised other early work by Dekker.

(vii) _The Mack._

Produced by the Admiral’s on 21 Feb. 1595; cf. s.v. _The Wonder of a
Kingdom_ (_supra_).

(viii) _1 Fortunatus._

Revived by the Admiral’s on 3 Feb. 1596; cf. s.v. _Old Fortunatus_
(_supra_).

(ix) _Stukeley._

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

(x) _Prologue to Tamberlaine._

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

(b) _Work for Admiral’s, 1598–1602_

(i) _Phaethon._

Payments in Jan. 1598 and for alterations for the Court in Dec. 1600;
cf. s.v. _The Sun’s Darling_ (_supra_).

(ii) _The Triplicity or Triangle of Cuckolds._

Payment in March 1598.

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

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

(iv) _1 Earl Godwin._

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

(v) _Pierce of Exton._

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

(vi) _1 Black Bateman of the North._

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

(vii) _2 Earl Godwin._

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

(viii) _The Madman’s Morris._

Payments, with Drayton and Wilson, July 1598.

(ix) _Hannibal and Hermes._

Payments, with Drayton and Wilson, July 1598.

(x) _2 Hannibal and Hermes._

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

(xi) _Pierce of Winchester._

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

(xii) _Chance Medley._

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

(xiii) _Worse Afeared than Hurt._

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

(xiv) _1 Civil Wars of France._

Payment, with Drayton, Sept. 1598.

(xv) _Connan Prince of Cornwall._

Payments, with Drayton, Oct. 1598.

(xvi) _2 Civil Wars of France._

Payment, with Drayton, Nov. 1598.

(xvii) _3 Civil Wars of France._

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

(xviii) _Introduction to Civil Wars of France._

Payments, Jan. 1599.

(xix) _Troilus and Cressida._

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

(xx) _Agamemnon or Orestes Furious._

Payments, with Chettle, May 1599.

(xxi) _The Gentle Craft._

Payment, July 1599; cf. _The Shoemaker’s Holiday_ (_supra_).

(xxii) _The Stepmother’s Tragedy._

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

(xxiii) _Bear a Brain._

Payment, Aug. 1599; cf. s.vv. _The Shoemaker’s Holiday_ (_supra_) and
_Look About You_ (Anon.).

(xxiv) _Page of Plymouth._

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

(xxv) _Robert II or The Scot’s Tragedy._

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

(xxvi) _Patient Grissell._

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

(xxvii) _Fortunatus._

Payments, Nov.–Dec. 1599; cf. s.v. _Old Fortunatus_ (_supra_).

(xxviii) _Truth’s Supplication to Candlelight._

Payments, Jan. 1600. Apparently the play was not finished; cf. s.v.
_The Whore of Babylon_ (_supra_).

(xxix) _The Spanish Moor’s Tragedy._

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

(xxx) _The Seven Wise Masters._

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

(xxxi) _The Golden Ass_ or _Cupid and Psyche_.

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

(xxxii) _1 Fair Constance of Rome._

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

(xxxiii) _[1] Fortune’s Tennis._

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

(xxxiv) _King Sebastian of Portugal._

Payments, with Chettle, April-May 1601.

(xxxv) _The Spanish Fig._

Payment, Jan. 1602. The payee is unnamed; cf. _The Noble Soldier_
(_supra_).

(xxxvi) Prologue and Epilogue to _Pontius Pilate_.

Payment, Jan. 1602.

(xxxvii) Alterations to _Tasso’s Melancholy_.

Payments, Jan.–Dec. 1602.

(xxxviii) _Jephthah_.

Payments, with Munday, May 1602.

(xxxix) _Caesar’s Fall, or The Two Shapes_.

Payments, with Drayton, Middleton, Munday, and Webster, May 1602.

(i) _A Medicine for a Curst Wife._

Payments, July–Sept. 1602. The play was begun for the Admiral’s and
transferred to Worcester’s.

(ii) _Additions to Sir John Oldcastle._

Payments, Aug.–Sept. 1602; cf. s.v. Drayton.

(iii) _1 Lady Jane_, or _The Overthrow of Rebels_.

Payments, with Chettle, Heywood, Smith, and Webster, Oct. 1602; cf.
s.v. _Sir Thomas Wyatt_ (_supra_).

(iv) _2 Lady Jane._

Payment, Oct. 1602. Apparently the play was not finished; cf. s.v.
_Sir Thomas Wyatt_ (_supra_).

(v) _Christmas Comes but Once a Year._

Payments, with Chettle, Heywood, and Webster, Nov. 1602.

(d) _Work for Prince’s, 1604_

_The Patient Man and the Honest Whore._

Payments, with Middleton, Jan.–March 1602; cf. s.v. _The Honest Whore_
(_supra_).

The following plays are assigned to Dekker in S. R. but are now lost:

_The Life and Death of Guy of Warwick_, with Day (S. R. 15 Jan.
1620).

_Gustavus King of Swethland_ (S. R. 29 June 1660).

_The Tale of Ioconda and Astolso_, a Comedy (S. R. 29 June 1660).

The two latter are also in Warburton’s list of burnt plays (_3
Library_, ii. 231).

The following are assigned to Dekker in Herbert’s licence entries:

A French Tragedy of _The Bellman of Paris_, by Dekker and Day, for
the Prince’s, on 30 July 1623.

_The Fairy Knight_, by Dekker and Ford, for the Prince’s, on 11 June
1624.

_The Bristow Merchant_, by Dekker and Ford, for the Palsgrave’s, on 22
Oct. 1624.

Fleay, i. 232, seems to have nothing but the names to go upon in
suggesting identifications of the two latter with the _Huon of
Bordeaux_, revived by Sussex’s on 28 Dec. 1593, and Day’s _Bristol
Tragedy_ (q.v.) respectively.

For other ascriptions to Dekker see _Capt. T. Stukeley_, _Charlemagne_,
_London Prodigal_, _Sir Thomas More_, _The Weakest Goeth to the Wall_
in ch. xxiv. He has also been conjectured to be the author of the songs
in the 1632 edition of Lyly’s plays.

ENTERTAINMENTS

_Coronation Entertainment. 1604_

See ch. xxiv, C.

_Troia Nova Triumphans. 29 Oct. 1612_

_S. R._ 1612, Oct. 21. ‘To be prynted when yt is further Aucthorised, A
Booke called Troia Nova triumphans. London triumphinge. or the solemne
receauinge of Sir John Swynerton knight into the citye at his Retourne
from Westminster after the taking his oathe written by Thomas Decker.’
_Nicholas Okes_ (Arber, iii. 500).

1612. Troia-Noua Triumphans. London Triumphing, or, The Solemne,
Magnificent, and Memorable Receiuing of that worthy Gentleman, Sir Iohn
Swinerton Knight, into the Citty of London, after his Returne from
taking the Oath of Maioralty at Westminster, on the Morrow next after
Simon and Iudes day, being the 29. of October, 1612. All the Showes,
Pageants, Chariots of Triumph, with other Deuices (both on the Water
and Land) here fully expressed. By Thomas Dekker. _Nicholas Okes, sold
by John Wright._

_Edition_ in Fairholt (1844), ii. 7.

The opening of the description refers to ‘our best-to-be-beloved
friends, the noblest strangers’. John Chamberlain (Birch, i. 202) says
that the Palsgrave was present and Henry kept away by his illness,
that the show was ‘somewhat extraordinary’ and the water procession
wrecked by ‘great winds’. At Paul’s Chain the Mayor was met by the
‘first triumph’, a sea-chariot, bearing Neptune and Luna, with a
ship of wine. Neptune made a speech. At Paul’s Churchyard came ‘the
second land-triumph’, the throne or chariot of Virtue, drawn by four
horses on which sat Time, Mercury, Desire, and Industry. Virtue made
a speech, and both pageants preceded the Mayor down Cheapside. At the
little Conduit in Cheapside was the Castle of Envy, between whom and
Virtue there was a dialogue, followed by fireworks from the castle. At
the Cross in Cheapside was another ‘triumph’, the House of Fame, with
representations of famous Merchant Tailors, ‘a perticular roome being
reserved for one that represents the person of Henry, the now Prince
of Wales’. After a speech by Fame, the pageant joined the procession,
and from it was heard a song on the way to the Guildhall. On the way
to Paul’s after dinner, Virtue and Envy were again beheld, and at the
Mayor’s door a speech was made by Justice.

THOMAS DELONEY (_c._ 1543–_c._ 1600).

A ballad writer and pamphleteer, who wrote a ballad on the visit to
Tilbury in 1588. See ch. xxiv, C.

ROBERT DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX (1566–1601).

It is possible that Essex, who sometimes dabbled in literature, had
himself a hand in the device of _Love and Self-Love_, with which
he entertained Elizabeth on 17 Nov. 1595, and of which some of the
speeches are generally credited to Bacon (q.v.).

WILLIAM DODD (_c._ 1597–1602).

A Scholar and Fellow of St. John’s, Cambridge, and a conjectured author
of _Parnassus_ (cf. ch. xxiv).

MICHAEL DRAYTON (_c._ 1563–1631).

Drayton was born at Hartshill in Warwickshire, and brought up in the
household of Sir Henry Goodyere of Polesworth, whose daughter Anne,
afterwards Lady Rainsford, is the Idea of his pastorals and sonnets.
With _The Harmony of the Church_ (1591) began a life-long series of
ambitious poems, in all the characteristic Elizabethan manners, for
which Drayton found many patrons, notably Lucy Lady Bedford, Sir Walter
Aston of Tixall, Prince Henry and Prince Charles, and Edward Earl of
Dorset. The guerdons of his pen were not sufficient to keep him from
having recourse to the stage. Meres classed him in 1598 among the
‘best for tragedy’, and Henslowe’s diary shows him a busy writer for
the Admiral’s men, almost invariably in collaboration with Dekker and
others, from Dec. 1597 to Jan. 1599, and a more occasional one from
Oct. 1599 to May 1602. At a later date he may possibly have written for
Queen Anne’s men, since commendatory verses by T. Greene are prefixed
to his _Poems_ of 1605. In 1608 he belonged to the King’s Revels
syndicate at Whitefriars. No later connexion with the stage can be
traced, and he took no steps to print his plays with his other works.
His Elegy to Henry Reynolds of _Poets and Poesie_ (C. Brett, _Drayton’s
Minor Poems_, 108) does honour to Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, and
Beaumont, and tradition makes him a partaker in the drinking-bout that
led to Shakespeare’s end. Jonson wrote commendatory verses for him in
1627, but in 1619 had told Drummond (Laing, 10) that ‘Drayton feared
him; and he esteemed not of him’. The irresponsible Fleay, i. 361;
ii. 271, 323, identifies him with Luculento of _E. M. O._, Captain
Jenkins of Dekker and Webster’s _Northward Ho!_, and the eponym of the
anonymous _Sir Giles Goosecap_; Small, 98, with the Decius criticized
in the anonymous _Jack Drum’s Entertainment_, who may also be Dekker.

The collections of Drayton’s _Poems_ do not include his
plays.--_Dissertations_: O. Elton, _M. D._ (1895, _Spenser Soc._,
1905); L. Whitaker, _M. D. as a Dramatist_ (1903, _M. L. A._ xviii.
378).

_Sir John Oldcastle. 1599_

_With_ Hathaway, Munday, and Wilson.

_S. R._ 1600, Aug. 11 (Vicars). ‘The first parte of the history of the
life of Sir John Oldcastell lord Cobham. Item the second and last parte
of the history of Sir John Oldcastell lord Cobham with his martyrdom,’
_Thomas Pavier_ (Arber, iii. 169).

1600. The first part Of the true and honorable historie, of the life of
Sir John Oldcastle, the good Lord Cobham. As it hath been lately acted
by the right honorable the Earle of Notingham Lord high Admirall of
England his seruants. _V. S. for Thomas Pavier._ [Prologue.]

1600.... Written by William Shakespeare. _For T. P._ [Probably a
forgery of later date than that given in the imprint; cf. p. 479.]

1664. In Third Folio Shakespeare.

1685. In Fourth Folio Shakespeare.

_Editions_ in collections of the Shakespeare _Apocrypha_, and by W.
Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ i), P. Simpson (1908, _M. S. R._), J. S. Farmer
(1911, _T. F. T._).

Henslowe advanced £10 to the Admiral’s as payment to Munday, Drayton,
Wilson, and Hathway for the first part of ‘the lyfe of S^r Jhon
Ouldcasstell’ and in earnest for the second part on 16 Oct. 1599,
and an additional 10_s._ for the poets ‘at the playnge of S^r John
Oldcastell the ferste tyme as a gefte’ between 1 and 8 Nov. 1599.
Drayton had £4 for the second part between 19 and 26 Dec. 1599, and
properties were being bought for it in March 1600. It is not preserved.
By Aug. 1602 the play had been transferred to Worcester’s men. More
properties were bought, doubtless for a revival, and Dekker had £2
10_s._ for ‘new a dicyons’. Fleay, ii. 116, attempts to disentangle the
work of the collaborators. Clearly the play was an answer to _Henry
IV_, in which Sir John Falstaff was originally Sir John Oldcastle, and
this is made clear in the prologue:

It is no pampered glutton we present,
Nor aged Councellour to youthfull sinne.

_Doubtful and Lost Plays_

For ascriptions see _Edward IV_, _London Prodigal_, _Merry Devil of
Edmonton_, _Sir T. More_, and _Thomas Lord Cromwell_ in ch. xxiv.

The complete series of his work for the Admiral’s during 1597–1602 is
as follows:

(i) _Mother Redcap._

Payments, with Munday, Dec. 1597–Jan. 1598.

(ii) _The Welshman’s Prize, or The Famous Wars of Henry I and the
Prince of Wales._

Payments, with Chettle and Dekker, March 1598. Greg (_Henslowe_, ii.
192) thinks that the play may have had some relation to Davenport’s
_Henry I_ of 1624 entered as by Shakespeare and Davenport in S. R. on 9
Sept. 1653.

(iii) _1 Earl Godwin and his Three Sons._

Payments, with Chettle, Dekker, and Wilson, March 1598.

(iv) _2 Earl Godwin and his Three Sons._

Payments, with Chettle, Dekker, and Wilson, May to June 1598.

(v) _Pierce of Exton._

Payment of £2, with Chettle, Dekker, and Wilson, April 1598; but
apparently not finished.

(vi) _1 Black Bateman of the North._

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

(vii) _Funeral of Richard Cœur-de-lion._

Payments, with Chettle, Munday, and Wilson, June 1598.

(viii) _The Madman’s Morris._

Payments, with Dekker and Wilson, July 1598.

(ix) _Hannibal and Hermes._

Payments, with Dekker and Wilson, July 1598.

(x) _Pierce of Winchester._

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

(xi) _Chance Medley._

Payments, with Chettle or Dekker, Munday, and Wilson, Aug. 1598.

(xii) _Worse Afeared than Hurt._

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

(xiii-xv) _1, 2, 3 The Civil Wars of France._

Payments, with Dekker, Sept.–Dec. 1598. Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 198)
suggests some relation with Chapman’s _Bussy D’Ambois_ (q.v.).

(xvi) _Connan Prince of Cornwall._

Payments, with Dekker, Oct. 1598.

(xvii) _William Longsword._

Apparently Drayton’s only unaided play and unfinished. His autograph
receipt for a payment in Jan. 1599 is in Henslowe, i. 59.

[There is now a break in Drayton’s dramatic activities, but not in his
relations with Henslowe, for whom he acted as a witness on 8 July 1599.
On 9 Aug. 1598 he had stood security for the delivery of a play by
Munday (Henslowe, i. 60, 93).]

(xviii-xix) _1, 2 Sir John Oldcastle._

See above.

(xx) _Owen Tudor._

Payments, with Hathway, Munday, and Wilson, Jan. 1600; but apparently
not finished.

(xxi) _1 Fair Constance of Rome._

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

(xxii) _The Rising of Cardinal Wolsey._

Payments, with Chettle (q.v.), Munday, and Smith, Aug.–Nov. 1601.

(xxiii) _Caesar’s Fall, or The Two Shapes._

Payments, with Dekker, Middleton, Munday, and Webster, May 1602.

GILBERT DUGDALE (_c._ 1604).

Author of _Time Triumphant_, an account of the entry and coronation of
James I (cf. ch. xxiv, C).

JOHN DUTTON (_c._ 1598–1602).

Perhaps only a ‘ghost-name’, but conceivably the author of _Parnassus_
(cf. ch. xxiv).

JOHN DYMMOCKE (_c._ 1601).

Possibly the translator of _Pastor Fido_ (cf. ch. xxiv).

RICHARD EDES (1555–1604).

Edes, or Eedes, entered Christ Church, Oxford, from Westminster in
1571, took his B.A. in 1574, his M.A. in 1578, and was University
Proctor in 1583. He took orders, became Chaplain to the Queen, and was
appointed Canon of Christ Church in 1586 and Dean of Worcester in 1597.
Some of his verse, both in English and Latin, has survived, and Meres
includes him in 1598 amongst ‘our best for Tragedie’. The Epilogue,
in Latin prose, of a play called _Caesar Interfectus_, which was both
written and spoken by him, is given by F. Peck in _A Collection of
Curious Historical Pieces_, appended to his _Memoirs of Cromwell_
(1740), and by Boas, 163, from _Bodl. MS. Top. Oxon._ e. 5, f. 359. A
later hand has added the date 1582, from which Boas infers that _Caesar
Interfectus_, of which Edes was probably the author, was one of three
tragedies recorded in the Christ Church accounts for Feb.–March 1582.
Edes appears to have written or contributed to Sir Henry Lee’s (q.v.)
Woodstock Entertainment of 1592.

RICHARD EDWARDES (_c._ 1523–1566).

Edwardes was a Somersetshire man. He entered Corpus Christi College,
Oxford, on 11 May 1540, and became Senior Student of Christ Church in
1547. Before the end of Edward’s reign he was seeking his fortune at
Court and had a fee or annuity of £6 13_s._ 4_d._ (Stopes, _Hunnis_,
147). He must not be identified with the George Edwardes of Chapel
lists, _c._ 1553 (ibid. 23; _Shakespeare’s Environment_, 238; Rimbault,
x), but was of the Chapel by 1 Jan. 1557 (Nichols, _Eliz._ i. xxxv;
_Illustrations_, App. 14), when he made a New Year’s gift of ‘certeigne
verses’, and was confirmed in office by an Elizabethan patent of 27
May 1560. He succeeded Bower as Master of the Children, receiving his
patent of appointment on 27 Oct. 1561 and a commission to take up
children on 4 Dec. 1561 (Wallace, i. 106; ii. 65; cf. ch. xii). Barnabe
Googe in his _Eglogs, Epytaphes and Sonettes_ (15 March 1563) puts his
‘doyngs’ above those of Plautus and Terence. In addition to plays at
Court, he took his boys on 2 Feb. 1565 and 2 Feb. 1566 to Lincoln’s Inn
(cf. ch. vii), of which he had become a member on 25 Nov. 1564 (_L. I.
Admission Register_, i. 72). He appeared at Court as a ‘post’ on behalf
of the challengers for a tilt in Nov. 1565 (cf. ch. iv). In 1566 he
helped in the entertainment of Elizabeth at Oxford, and on Oct. 31 of
that year he died. His reputation as poet and dramatist is testified
to in verses by Barnabe Googe, George Turberville, Thomas Twine, and
others and proved enduring. The author [Richard Puttenham?] of _The
Arte of English Poesie_ (1589) couples him with the Earl of Oxford as
deserving the highest price for comedy and enterlude, and Francis Meres
in his _Palladis Tamia_ (1598) includes him amongst those ‘best for
comedy’. Several of his poems are in _The Paradise of Dainty Devices_
(1576). Warton, iv. 218, says that William Collins (the poet) had a
volume of prose stories printed in 1570, ‘sett forth by maister Richard
Edwardes mayster of her maiesties revels’. One of these contained
a version of the jest used in the _Induction_ of _The Taming of the
Shrew_ (q.v.). There is nothing else to connect Edwardes with the
Revels office, and probably ‘revels’ in Warton’s account is a mistake
for ‘children’ or ‘chapel’.

_Dissertations_: W. Y. Durand, _Notes on R. E._ (1902, _J. G. P._ iv.
348), _Some Errors concerning R. E._ (1908, _M. L. N._ xxiii. 129).

_Damon and Pythias. 1565_

_S. R._ 1567–8. ‘A boke intituled ye tragecall comodye of Damonde and
Pethyas.’ _Rycharde Jonnes_ (Arber, i. 354).

Warton, iv. 214, describes an edition, not now known, as printed by
William How in Fleet Street. The Tragical comedie of Damon and Pythias,
newly imprinted as the same was playde before the queenes maiestie by
the children of her grace’s chapple. Made by Mayster Edwards, then
being master of the children. _William How._ [Only known through
the description of Warton, iv. 214.]

1571. The excellent Comedie of two the moste faithfullest Freendes,
Damon and Pithias. Newly Imprinted, as the same was shewed before the
Queenes Maiestie, by the Children of her Graces Chappell, except the
Prologue that is somewhat altered for the proper vse of them that
hereafter shall haue occasion to plaie it, either in Priuate, or open
Audience. Made by Maister Edwards, then beynge Maister of the Children.
_Richard Jones._

1582. _Richard Jones._

_Editions_ in Dodsley^4, iv (1874), and by W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._
i) and J. S. Farmer (1908, _T. F. T._).--_Dissertation_: W. Y. Durand,
_A Local Hit in E.’s D. and P._ (_M. L. N._ xxii. 236).

The play is not divided into acts or scenes; the characters include
Carisophus a parasite, and Grim the Collier. The prologue [not that
used at Court] warns the audience that they will be ‘frustrate quite
of toying plays’ and that the author’s muse that ‘masked in delight’
and to some ‘seemed too much in young desires to range’ will leave such
sports and write a ‘tragical comedy ... mixed with mirth and care’.
Edwardes adds (cf. App. C, No. ix):

Wherein, talking of courtly toys, we do protest this flat,
We talk of Dionysius court, we mean no court but that.

A song at the end wishes Elizabeth joy and describes her as ‘void of
all sickness, in most perfect health’. Durand uses this reference to
date the play in the early months of 1565, since a letter of De Silva
(_Sp. P._ i. 400) records that Elizabeth had a feverish cold since
8 Dec. 1564, but was better by 2 Jan. 1565. He identifies the play
with the ‘Edwardes tragedy’ of the Revels Accounts for 1564–5 (cf.
App. B), and points out that there is an entry in those accounts for
‘rugge bumbayst and cottone for hosse’, and that in _Damon and Pythias_
(Dodsley, iv. 71) the boys have stuffed breeches with ‘seven ells of
rug’ to one hose. A proclamation of 6 May 1562 (_Procl._ 562) had
forbidden the use of more than a yard and three-quarters of stuff in
the ‘stockes’ of hose, and an enforcing proclamation (_Procl._ 619) was
required on 12 Feb. 1566. Boas, 157, notes a revival at Merton in 1568.

Fleay, 60, thinks that the play contains attacks on the Paul’s boys
in return for satire of Edwardes as Ralph Roister in Ulpian Fulwell’s
_Like Will to Like_ (q.v.).

_Lost Play_

_Palamon and Arcite. 1566_

This play was acted in two parts on 2 and 4 Sept. 1566, before
Elizabeth in the Hall of Christ Church, Oxford (cf. ch. iv). The first
night was made memorable by the fall of part of the staircase wall,
by which three persons were killed. The Queen was sorry, but the play
went on. She gave Edwardes great thanks for his pains. The play was
in English. Several contemporary writers assign it to Edwardes, and
Nicholas Robinson adds that he and other Christ Church men translated
it out of Latin, and that he remained two months in Oxford working at
it. Bereblock gives a long analysis of the action, which shows that,
even if there is no error as to the intervening Latin version, the
original source was clearly Chaucer’s _Knight’s Tale_. W. Y. Durand,
_Journ. Germ. Phil._ iv. 356, argues that Edwardes’s play was not a
source of _Two Noble Kinsmen_, on the ground of the divergence between
that and Bereblock’s summary.

There is no evidence of any edition of the play, although Plummer, xxi,
says that it ‘has been several times printed’.

_Doubtful Plays_

Fleay, ii. 295, assigns to Edwardes _Godly Queen Hester_, a play of
which he had only seen a few lines, and which W. W. Greg, in his
edition in _Materialien_, v, has shown with great probability to date
from about 1525–9. His hand has also been sought in R. B.’s _Apius and
Virginia_ and in _Misogonus_ (cf. ch. xxiv).

ELIZABETH (1533–1603).

H. H. E. Craster (_E. H. R._ xxix. 722) includes in a list of
Elizabeth’s English translations a chorus from Act II of the
pseudo-Senecan _Hercules Oetaeus_, extant in _Bodl. MS. e Museo_, 55,
f. 48, and printed in H. Walpole, _Royal and Noble Authors_ (ed. Park,
1806), i. 102. It probably dates later than 1561. But he can find no
evidence for a Latin version of a play of Euripides referred to by
Walpole, i. 85.

RICHARD FARRANT (?-1580).

Farrant’s career as Master of the Children of Windsor and Deputy Master
of the Children of the Chapel and founder of the first Blackfriars
theatre has been described in chh. xii and xvii. It is not improbable
that he wrote plays for the boys, and W. J. Lawrence, _The Earliest
Private Theatre Play_ (_T. L. S._, 11 Aug. 1921), thinks that one of
these was _Wars of Cyrus_ (cf. ch. xxiv), probably based on W. Barker’s
translation (1567) of Xenophon’s _Cyropaedia_, and that the song of
Panthea ascribed to Farrant in a Christ Church manuscript (cf. vol.
ii, p. 63) has dropped out from the extant text of this. Farrant’s
song, ‘O Jove from stately throne’, mentioning Altages, may be from
another play. I think that _Wars of Cyrus_, as it stands, is clearly
post-_Tamburlaine_, and although there are indications of lost songs
at ll. 985, 1628, there is none pointing to a lament of Panthea. But
conceivably the play was based on one by Farrant.

GEORGE FEREBE (_c._ 1573–1613 <)

A musician and Vicar of Bishop’s Cannings, Wilts.

_The Shepherd’s Song. 1613_

_S. R._ 1613, June 16. ‘A thinge called The Shepeherdes songe before
Queene Anne in 4. partes complete Musical vpon the playnes of Salisbury
&c.’ _Walter Dight_ (Arber, iii. 526).

Aubrey, i. 251, says ‘when queen Anne came to Bathe, her way lay to
traverse the famous Wensdyke, which runnes through his parish. He
made severall of his neighbours good musitians, to play with him in
consort, and to sing. Against her majesties comeing, he made a pleasant
pastorall, and gave her an entertaynment with his fellow songsters
in shepherds’ weeds and bagpipes, he himself like an old bard. After
that wind musique was over, they sang their pastorall eglogues
(which I have, to insert into Liber B).’ Wood’s similar account in
_Fasti_ (1815), i. 270, is probably based on Aubrey’s. He dates the
entertainment June 11 (cf. ch. iv. and App. A, s. ann. 1613), and gives
the opening of the song as

Shine, O thou sacred Shepherds Star,
On silly shepherd swaines.

Aubrey has a shorter notice in another manuscript and adds, ‘He gave
another entertaynment in Cote-field to King James, with carters
singing, with whipps in their hands; and afterwards, a footeball play’.

GEORGE FERRERS (_c._ 1500–79).

A Lincoln’s Inn lawyer, son of Thomas Ferrers of St. Albans, who
was Page of the Chamber to Henry VIII, and acted as Lord of Misrule
to Edward VI at the Christmases of 1551–2 and 1552–3 (_Mediaeval
Stage_, i. 405; Feuillerat, _Edw. and M._ 56, 77, 90). He sat in
Parliaments of both Mary and Elizabeth, and wrote some of the poems
in _The Mirror for Magistrates_ (1559–78). He contributed verses to
the Kenilworth entertainment of 1575, must then have been a very old
man, and died in 1579. Puttenham says of Edward VI’s time, ‘Maister
_Edward Ferrys_ ... wrate for the most part to the stage, in Tragedie
and sometimes in Comedie or Enterlude’, and again, ‘For Tragedie, the
Lord of Buckhurst & Maister _Edward Ferrys_, for such doings as I
haue sene of theirs, do deserue the hyest price’; and is followed by
Meres, who places ‘Master Edward Ferris, the author of the _Mirror for
Magistrates_’ amongst ‘our best for Tragedie’ (cf. App. C, Nos. xli,
lii). Obviously George Ferrers is meant, but Anthony Wood hunted out an
Edward Ferrers, belonging to another family, of Baddesley Clinton, in
Warwickshire, and took him for the dramatist. He died in 1564 and had a
son Henry, amongst whose papers were found verses belonging to certain
entertainments, mostly of the early ‘nineties, which an indiscreet
editor thereupon ascribed to George Ferrers (cf. s.v. Sir H. Lee).

NATHAN FIELD (1587–?).

For life _vide supra_ Actors (ch. xv).

_A Woman is a Weathercock. 1609_ (?)

_S. R._ 1611, Nov. 23 (Buck). ‘A booke called, A woman is a
weather-cocke, beinge a Comedye.’ _John Budge_ (Arber, iii. 471).

1612. A Woman is a Weather-cocke. A New Comedy, As it was acted before
the King in White-Hall. And diuers times Priuately at the White-Friers,
By the Children of her Maiesties Reuels. Written by Nat: Field. _For
John Budge._ [Epistles to Any Woman that hath been no Weathercock and
to the Reader, both signed ‘N. F.’, and Commendatory verses ‘To his
loved son, Nat. Field, and his Weathercock Woman’, signed ‘George
Chapman’.]

_Editions_ in _O. E. D._ (1830, ii), by J. P. Collier (1833, _Five Old
Plays_), in Dodsley^4 (1875, xi), and by A. W. Verity in _Nero and
Other Plays_ (1888, _Mermaid Series_).

This must, I suppose, have been one of the five plays given at Court
by the Children of the Whitefriars in the winter of 1609–10. Fleay, i.
185, notes that I. ii refers to the Cleve wars, which began in 1609.
The Revels children were not at Court in 1610–11. In his verses to _The
Faithful Shepherdess_ (1609–10) Field hopes for his ‘muse in swathing
clouts’, to ‘perfect such a work as’ Fletcher’s. The first Epistle
promises that when his next play is printed, any woman ‘shall see what
amends I have made to her and all the sex’; the second ends, ‘If thou
hast anything to say to me, thou know’st where to hear of me for a year
or two, and no more, I assure thee’, as if Field did not mean to spend
his life as a player.

_Amends for Ladies. > 1611_

1618. Amends for Ladies. A Comedie. As it was acted at the
Blacke-Fryers, both by the Princes Seruants, and the Lady Elizabeths.
By Nat. Field. _G. Eld for Math. Walbancke._

1639.... With the merry prankes of Moll Cut-Purse: Or, the humour of
roaring A Comedy full of honest mirth and wit.... _Io. Okes for Math.
Walbancke._

_Editions_, with _A W. is a W._ (q.v.).

The title-page points to performances in Porter’s Hall (_c._ 1615–16)
by the combined companies of the Prince and Princess; but the Epistle
to _A W. is a W._ (q.v.) makes it clear that the play was at least
planned, and probably written, by the end of 1611. Collier, iii. 434,
and Fleay, i. 201, confirm this from an allusion to the play in A.
Stafford’s _Admonition to a Discontented Romanist_, appended to his
_Niobe Dissolved into a Nilus_ (S. R. 10 Oct. 1611). Fleay is less
happy in fixing an inferior limit of date by the publication of the
version of the _Curious Impertinent_ story in Shelton’s _Don Quixote_
(1612), since that story was certainly available in Baudouin’s French
translation as early as 1608. The introduction of Moll Cutpurse
suggests rivalry with Dekker and Middleton’s _Roaring Girl_ (also _c._
1610–11) at the Fortune, which theatre is chaffed in ii. 1 and iii. 4.

_Later Play_

_The Fatal Dowry_ (1632), a King’s men’s play, assigned on the
title-page to P. M. and N. F., probably dates from 1616–19. C. Beck,
_Philip Massinger, The Fatall Dowry, Einleitung zu einer neuen Ausgabe_
(1906, _Erlangen diss._), assigns the prose of II. ii and IV. i to
Field. There is an edition by C. L. Lockert (1918).

_Doubtful Plays_

Attempts have been made to trace Field’s hand in _Bonduca_, _Cupid’s
Revenge_, _Faithful Friends_, _Honest Man’s Fortune_, _Thierry and
Theodoret_, and _Four Plays in One_, all belonging to the Beaumont
(q.v.) and Fletcher series, and in _Charlemagne_ (cf. ch. xxiv).

JOHN FLETCHER (1579–1625).

Fletcher was born in Dec. 1579 at Rye, Sussex, the living of his father
Richard Fletcher, who became Bishop of Bristol, Worcester, and in 1594
London. His cousins, Giles and Phineas, are known as poets. He seems
too young for the John Fletcher of London who entered Corpus Christi,
Cambridge, in 1591. After his father’s death in 1596, nothing is heard
of him until his emergence as a dramatist, and of this the date cannot
be precisely fixed. Davenant says that ‘full twenty yeares, he wore
the bayes’, which would give 1605, but this is in a prologue to _The
Woman Hater_, which Davenant apparently thought Fletcher’s, although
it is Beaumont’s; and Oliphant’s attempt to find his hand, on metrical
grounds, in _Captain Thomas Stukeley_ (1605) rests only on one not
very conclusive scene. But he had almost certainly written for the
Queen’s Revels before the beginning, about 1608, of his collaboration
with Beaumont, under whom his later career is outlined. It is possible
that he is the John Fletcher who married Joan Herring on 3 Nov. 1612
at St. Saviour’s, Southwark, and had a son John about Feb. 1620 in St.
Bartholomew’s the Great (Dyce, i. lxxiii), and if so one may put the
fact with Aubrey’s gossip (cf. s.v. Beaumont), and with Oldwit’s speech
in Shadwell’s _Bury-Fair_ (1689): ‘I knew Fletcher, my friend Fletcher,
and his maid Joan; well, I shall never forget him: I have supped with
him at his house on the Bankside; he loved a fat loin of pork of all
things in the world; and Joan his maid had her beer-glass of sack;
and we all kissed her, i’ faith, and were as merry as passed.’ I have
sometimes wondered whether Jonson is chaffing Beaumont and Fletcher
in _Bartholomew Fair_ (1614), V. iii, iv, as Damon and Pythias, ‘two
faithfull friends o’ the Bankside’, that ‘have both but one drabbe’,
and enter with a gammon of bacon under their cloaks. I do not think
this can refer to Francis Bacon. Fletcher died in Aug. 1625 and was
buried in St. Saviour’s (_Athenaeum_, 1886, ii. 252).

For Plays _vide_ s.v. Beaumont, and for the ascribed lost play of
_Cardenio_, s.v. Shakespeare.

PHINEAS FLETCHER (1582–1650).

Phineas Fletcher, son of Giles, a diplomatist and poet, brother of
Giles, a poet, and first cousin of John (q.v.), was baptized at
Cranbrook, Kent, on 8 April 1582. From Eton he passed to King’s
College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. in 1604, his M.A. in 1608,
and became a Fellow in 1611. He was Chaplain to Sir Henry Willoughby of
Risley from 1616 to 1621, and thereafter Rector of Hilgay, Norfolk, to
his death in 1650. He wrote much Spenserian poetry, but his dramatic
work was purely academic. In addition to _Sicelides_, he may have
written an English comedy, for which a payment was made to him by
King’s about Easter 1607 (Boas, i. xx).

_Collections_

1869. A. B. Grosart, _The Poems of P. F._ 4 vols. (_Fuller Worthies
Library_).

1908–9. F. S. Boas, _The Poetical Works of Giles Fletcher and P. F._ 2
vols. (_Cambridge English Classics_).

_Sicelides. 1615_

[_MSS._] _Bodl. Rawl. Poet. MS._ 214.

_Addl. MS. 4453._ ‘Sicelides: a Piscatorie made by Phinees Fletcher and
acted in Kings Colledge in Cambridge.’ [A shorter version than that of
Q. and the _Rawl. MS._]

_S. R._ 1631, April 25 (Herbert). ‘A play called Scicelides, acted
at Cambridge.’ _William Sheeres_ (Arber, iv. 251).

1631. Sicelides A Piscatory, As it hath been Acted in Kings Colledge,
in Cambridge. _I. N. for William Sheares._ [Prologue and Epilogue.]

A reference (III. iv) to the shoes hung up by Thomas Coryat in
Odcombe church indicates a date of composition not earlier than 1612.
The play was intended for performance before James at Cambridge, but
was actually given before the University after his visit, on 13 March
1615 (cf. ch. iv).

FRANCIS FLOWER (_c._ 1588).

A Gray’s Inn lawyer, one of the devisers of dumb-shows and directors
for the _Misfortunes of Arthur_ of Thomas Hughes (q.v.) in 1588, for
which he also wrote two choruses.

JOHN FORD (1586–1639 <).

Ford’s dramatic career, including whatever share he may have had
with Dekker (q.v.) in _Sun’s Darling_ and _Witch of Edmonton_, falls
substantially outside my period. But amongst plays entered as his by
Humphrey Moseley on 29 June 1660 (Eyre, ii. 271) are:

‘An ill begining has A good end, and a bad begining may have a
good end, a Comedy.’

‘The London Merchant, a Comedy.’

These ascriptions recur in Warburton’s list of lost plays (_3 Library_,
ii. 231), where the first play has the title ‘A good beginning may
have A good end’. It is possible, therefore, that Ford either wrote or
revised the play of ‘A badd beginininge makes a good endinge’, which
was performed by the King’s men at Court during 1612–13 (cf. App. B).
One may suspect the _London Merchant_ to be a mistake for the _Bristow
Merchant_ of Ford and Dekker (q.v.) in 1624. The offer of the title in
_K. B. P._ ind. 11 hardly proves that there was really a play of _The
London Merchant_. Ford’s _Honor Triumphant: or The Peeres Challenge,
by Armes defensible at Tilt, Turney, and Barriers_ (1606; ed. _Sh.
Soc._ 1843) is a thesis motived by the jousts in honour of Christian of
Denmark (cf. ch. iv). It has an Epistle to the Countesses of Pembroke
and Montgomery, and contains four arguments in defence of amorous
propositions addressed respectively to the Duke of Lennox and the Earls
of Arundel, Pembroke, and Montgomery.

EDWARD FORSETT (_c._ 1553–_c._ 1630).

A political writer (_D. N. B._) and probable author of the academic
_Pedantius_ (cf. App. K).

ABRAHAM FRAUNCE (_c._ 1558–1633 <).

Fraunce was a native of Shrewsbury, and passed from the school of
that place, where he obtained the friendship of Philip Sidney, to
St. John’s, Cambridge, in 1576. He took his B.A. in 1580, played in
Legge’s academic _Richardus Tertius_ and in _Hymenaeus_ (Boas, 394),
which he may conceivably have written (cf. App. K), became Fellow of
the college in 1581, and took his M.A. in 1583. He became a Gray’s Inn
man, dedicated various treatises on logic and experiments in English
hexameters to members of the Sidney and Herbert families during
1583–92, and appears to have obtained through their influence some
office under the Presidency of Wales. He dropped almost entirely out of
letters, but seems to have been still alive in 1633.

_Latin Play_

_Victoria. 1580 < > 3_

[_MS._] In possession of Lord De L’Isle and Dudley at Penshurst, headed
‘Victoria’. [Lines ‘Philippo Sidneio’, signed ‘Abrahamus Fransus’.
Prologue.]

_Edition_ by G. C. Moore Smith (1906, _Materialien_, xiv).

The play is an adaptation of _Il Fedele_ (1575) by Luigi Pasqualigo,
which is also the foundation of the anonymous _Two Italian Gentlemen_
(q.v.). As Sidney was knighted on 13 Jan. 1583, the play was probably
written, perhaps for performance at St. John’s, Cambridge, before that
date and after Fraunce took his B.A. in 1580.

_Translation_

_Phillis and Amyntas. 1591_

_S. R._ 1591, Feb. 9 (Bp. of London). ‘A book intituled The Countesse
of Pembrookes Ivye churche, and Emanuel.’ _William Ponsonby_ (Arber,
ii. 575).

1591. The Countesse of Pembrokes Yuychurch. Containing the affectionate
life, and vnfortunate death of Phillis and Amyntas: That in a
Pastorall; This in a Funerall; both in English Hexameters. By Abraham
Fraunce. _Thomas Orwin for William Ponsonby._

_Dissertation_: E. Köppel, _Die englischen Tasso-Übersetzungen des 16.
Jahrhunderts_ (1889, _Anglia_, xi).

This consists of a slightly altered translation of the _Aminta_ (1573)
of Torquato Tasso, followed by a reprint of Fraunce’s English version
(1587) of Thomas Watson’s _Amyntas_ (1585), which is not a play, but a
collection of Latin eclogues. There is nothing to show that Fraunce’s
version of _Aminta_ was ever acted.

WILLIAM FULBECK (1560–1603?).

He entered Gray’s Inn in 1584, contributed two speeches to the
_Misfortunes of Arthur_ of Thomas Hughes (q.v.) in 1588, and wrote
various legal and historical books.

ULPIAN FULWELL (_c._ 1568).

Fulwell was born in Somersetshire and educated at St. Mary’s
Hall, Oxford. On 14 April 1577 he was of the parish of Naunton,
Gloucestershire, and married Mary Whorewood of Lapworth,
Warwickshire.[657]

_Like Will to Like. c. 1568_

_S. R._ 1568–9. ‘A play lyke Wyll to lyke quod the Devell to the
Collyer.’ _John Alde_ (Arber, i. 379).

1568. An Enterlude Intituled Like wil to like quod the Deuel to the
Colier, very godly and ful of pleasant mirth.... Made by Vlpian
Fulwell. _John Allde._

1587. _Edward Allde._

_Editions_ in Dodsley^4, iii (1874), and by J. S. Farmer (1909, _T. F.
T._).

A non-controversial moral. The characters, allegorical and typical,
are arranged for five actors, and include Ralph Roister, and ‘Nicholas
Newfangle the Vice’, who ‘rideth away upon the Devil’s back’ (Dodsley,
iii. 357). There is a prayer for the Queen at the end.

This might be _The Collier_ played at Court in 1576. Fleay, 60; i.
235, puts it in 1561–3, assigns it to the Paul’s boys, and suggests
that Richard Edwardes (q.v.) is satirized as Ralph Roister. Greg
(_Henslowe_, ii. 228) suggests that Fulwell’s may be the play revived
by Pembroke’s at the Rose on 28 Oct. 1600 as ‘the [devell] licke vnto
licke’.

WILLIAM GAGER (> 1560–1621).

Gager entered Christ Church, Oxford, from Westminster in 1574, and took
his B.A. in 1577, his M.A. in 1580, and his D.C.L. in 1589. In 1606 he
became Chancellor of the diocese of Ely. He had a high reputation for
his Latin verses, many of which are contained in _Exequiae D. Philippi
Sidnaei_ (1587) and other University volumes. A large collection
in _Addl. MS._ 22583 includes lines to George Peele (q.v.). Meres
in 1598 counts him as one of ‘the best for comedy amongst vs’. His
correspondence with John Rainolds affords a summary of the controversy
on the ethics of the stage in its academic aspect.

_Latin Plays_

_Meleager. Feb. 1582_

1592. Meleager. Tragoedia noua. Bis publice acta in aede Christi
Oxoniae. _Oxoniae. Joseph Barnes._ [Epistle to Earl of Essex, ‘ex
aede Christi Oxoniae, Calendis Ianuarij MDXCII. Gulielmus Gagerus’;
Commendatory verses by Richard Edes, Alberico Gentili, and I.
C[ase?]; Epistle _Ad lectorem Academicum_; _Prologus ad academicos_;
_Argumentum_; _Prologus ad illustrissimos Penbrochiae ac Lecestriae
Comites_. At end, _Epilogus ad Academicos_; _Epilogus ad clarissimos
Comites Penbrochiensem ac Lecestrensem_; _Panniculus Hippolyto ...
assutus_ (_vide infra_); _Apollo_ προλογίζει _ad serenissimam Reginam
Elizabetham 1592_; _Prologus in Bellum Grammaticale ad eandem sacram
Maiestatem_; _Epilogus in eandem Comoediam ad Eandem_.]

The dedication says ‘Annus iam pene vndecimus agitur ... ex quo
Meleager primum, octauus ex quo iterum in Scenam venit’, and adds that
Pembroke, Leicester, and Sidney were present on the second occasion.
_Meleager_ is ‘primogenitus meus’. The first production was doubtless
one of those recorded in the Christ Church accounts in Feb. 1582 (Boas,
162), and the second during Leicester’s visit as Chancellor in Jan.
1585 (Boas, 192).

_Dido. 12 June 1583_

[_MSS._] _Christ Church, Oxford, MS_. [complete text].

_Addl. MS._ 22583. [Acts II, III only, with Prologue, Argument, and
Epilogue.]

_Edition_ of B.M. fragment by A. Dyce (1850, _Marlowe’s Works_).
_Abstract_ from _Ch. Ch. MS._ in Boas, 183.

The play was produced before Alasco at Christ Church on 12 June 1583.
It is unlikely that it influenced Marlowe’s play.

_Ulysses Redux. 6 Feb. 1592_

1592. Vlysses Redux Tragoedia Nova. In Aede Christi Oxoniae Publice
Academicis Recitata, Octavo Idus Februarii. 1591. _Oxoniae. Joseph
Barnes._ [_Prologus ad Academicos_; Epistle to Lord Buckhurst, ‘ex
aede Christi Oxoniae sexto Idus Maij, 1592 ... Gulielmus Gagerus’;
Commendatory verses by Thomas Holland, Alberico Gentili, Richard Edes,
Henry Bust, Matthew Gwinne, Richard Late-warr, Francis Sidney, John
Hoschines (Hoskins), William Ballowe, James Weston; Verses _Ad Zoilum_;
Epistle _Ad Criticum_. At end, _Prologus in Rivales Comoediam_;
_Prologus in Hippolytum Senecae Tragoediam_; _Epilogus in eundem_;
_Momus_; _Epilogus Responsiuus_.]

The play was produced on Sunday, 6 Feb. 1592, and an indiscreet
invitation to John Rainolds opened the flood-gates of controversy upon
Gager’s head (cf. vol. i, p. 251 and App. C, No. 1). Gager’s _Rivales_
was revived on 7 Feb. and the pseudo-Senecan _Hippolytus_, with Gager’s
_Panniculus_, on 8 Feb. followed by a speech in the character of Momus
as a carper at plays, and a reply to Momus by way of Epilogue. The
latter was printed in an enlarged form given to it during the course of
the controversy (Boas, 197, 234, with dates which disregard leap-year).

_Additions to Hippolytus. 8 Feb. 1592_

1592. Panniculus Hippolyto Senecae assutus, 1591. [Appended to
_Meleager_; for Gager’s prologue, &c., cf. s.v. _Ulysses Redux_.]

These consist of two scenes, one of the nature of an opening, the other
an insertion between Act I and Act II, written for a performance of the
play at Christ Church on 8 Feb. 1592.

_Oedipus_

_Addl. MS._ 22583, f. 31, includes with other poems by Gager five
scenes from a tragedy on _Oedipus_, of which nothing more is known.

_Lost Play_

_Rivales. 11 June 1583_

This comedy was produced before Alasco at Christ Church, on 11 June
1583. It is assigned to Gager by A. Wood, _Annals_, ii. 216, and
referred to as his in the controversy with Rainolds (Boas, 181), who
speaks of it as ‘the vnprinted Comedie’, and criticizes its ‘filth’.
It contained scenes of country wooing, drunken sailors, a _miles
gloriosus_, a _blanda lena_. The prologue to _Dido_ says of it:

Hesterna Mopsum scena ridiculum dedit.

It was revived at Christ Church on 7 Feb. 1592 (Boas, 197) and again at
the same place before Elizabeth on 26 Sept. 1592, when, according to a
Cambridge critic, it was ‘but meanely performed’. Presumably it is the
prologue for this revival which is printed with _Ulysses Redux_ (q.v.).

BERNARD GARTER (_c._ 1578).

A London citizen, whose few and mainly non-dramatic writings were
produced from 1565 to 1579. For his description of the Norwich
entertainment (_1578_), cf. ch. xxiv.

THOMAS GARTER (_c._ 1569).

He may conceivably be identical with Bernard Garter, since Thomas and
Bernard are respectively given from different sources (cf. _D. N. B._)
as the name of the father of Bernard Garter of Brigstocke, Northants,
whose son was alive in 1634.

_Susanna, c. 1569_

_S. R._ 1568–9. ‘Ye playe of Susanna.’ _Thomas Colwell_ (Arber, i. 383).

1578?

No copy is known, but S. Jones, _Biographica Dramatica_ (1812), iii.
310, says: ‘Susanna. By Thomas Garter 4^{to} 1578. The running title of
this play is, _The Commody of the moste vertuous and godlye Susanna_.’
According to Greg, _Masques_, cxxiii, the original authority for the
statement is a manuscript note by Thomas Coxeter (_ob._ 1747) in a copy
of G. Jacob’s _Lives of the Dramatic Poets_ (1719–20). ‘Susanna’ is in
Rogers and Ley’s list, and an interlude ‘Susanna’s Tears’ in Archer’s
and Kirkman’s.

GEORGE GASCOIGNE (_c._ 1535–77).

George Gascoigne was son of Sir John Gascoigne of Cardington,
Bedfordshire. He was probably born between 1530 and 1535, and was
educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and Gray’s Inn. He misspent
his youth as a dissipated hanger-on at Court, under the patronage of
Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton and others, and won some reputation as
a versifier. About 1566 he married Elizabeth Breton of Walthamstow,
widow of a London merchant, and mother of Nicholas Breton, the poet.
From March 1573 to Oct. 1574 he served as a volunteer under William of
Orange in the Netherlands. In 1575 he was assisting in preparing shows
before Elizabeth at Kenilworth and Woodstock. It is possible that he
was again in the Netherlands and present at the sack of Antwerp in
1576. On 7 Oct. 1577 he died at Stamford.

_Collections_

N.D. [1573] A Hundreth sundrie Flowres bounde up in one small
Poesie.... _For Richard Smith._ [Datable by a prefatory epistle of 20
Jan. 1573, signed ‘H. W.’ and a reference in Gascoigne’s own epistle of
31 Jan. 1575 to Q_{2}. Includes _Jocasta_, _Supposes_, and the Mask.]

1575. The Posies of George Gascoigne Esquire. Corrected, perfected, and
augmented by the Authour. _H. Bynneman for Richard Smith._ [A second
issue, _For Richard Smith_.]

1587. The whole workes of George Gascoigne Esquyre: Newlye compyled
into one Volume.... _Abel Jeffes._ [Adds the _Princely Pleasures_. A
second issue, ‘The pleasauntest workes....’]

1869–70. W. C. Hazlitt, _The Complete Poems of George Gascoigne_. 2
vols. (_Roxburghe Library_). [Adds _Glass of Government_ and _Hemetes_.]

1907–10. J. W. Cunliffe, _The Complete Works of George Gascoigne_. 2
vols. (_C. E. C._).

_Dissertation_: F. E. Schelling, _The Life and Writings of George
Gascoigne_ (1893, _Pennsylvania Univ. Publ._).

_Jocasta. 1566_

_With_ Francis Kinwelmershe.

[_MS._] _B.M. Addl. MS._ 34063, formerly the property of Roger, second
Lord North, whose name and the motto ‘Durum Pati [15]68’ are on the
title.

1573. Iocasta: A Tragedie written in Greke by Euripides, translated
and digested into Acte by George Gascoyne, and Francis Kinwelmershe
of Grayes Inne, and there by them presented. 1566. _Henry Bynneman
for Richard Smith._ [Part of _Collection_, 1573; also in 1575, 1587.
Argument; Epilogue ‘Done by Chr. Yeluerton’.]

_Editions_ by F. J. Child (1848, _Four Old Plays_) and J. W. Cunliffe
(1906, _B. L._, and 1912, _E. E. C. T._).--_Dissertation_: M. T. W.
Foerster, _Gascoigne’s J. a Translation from the Italian_ (1904, _M.
P._ ii. 147).

A blank-verse translation of Lodovico Dolce’s _Giocasta_ (1549),
itself a paraphrase or adaptation of the _Phoenissae_ of Euripides
(Creizenach, ii. 408). After Acts I and IV appears ‘Done by F.
Kinwelmarshe’ and after II, III, V ‘Done by G. Gascoigne’. Before each
act is a description of a dumb-show and of its accompanying music.

_Supposes. 1566_

1573. Supposes: A Comedie written in the Italian tongue by Ariosto,
and Englished by George Gascoyne of Grayes Inne Esquire, and there
presented. [Part of _Collection_, 1573; also in 1575 (with addition of
‘1566’ to title) and 1587. Prologue.]

_Editions_ by T. Hawkins (1773, _O. E. D._ iii), J. W. Cunliffe (1906,
_B. L._), and R. W. Bond (1911, _E. P. I._).

A prose translation of Ludovico Ariosto’s _I Suppositi_ (1509). There
was probably a revival at Trinity, Oxford, on 8 Jan. 1582, when Richard
Madox records, ‘We supt at y^e presidents lodging and after had y^e
supposes handeled in y^e haul indifferently’ (Boas, 161).

_The Glass of Government. c. 1575_

1575. The Glasse of Governement. A tragicall Comedie so entituled,
bycause therein are handled aswell the rewardes for Vertues, as also
the punishment for Vices. Done by George Gascoigne Esquier. 1575. Seen
and allowed, according to the order appointed in the Queenes Maiesties
Injunctions. _For C. Barker._ [Colophon] _H. M. for Christopher
Barker._ [Epistle to Sir Owen Hopton, by ‘G. Gascoigne’, dated 26 Apr.
1575; Commendatory verses by B. C.; Argument; Prologue; Epilogue. A
reissue has a variant colophon (_Henry Middleton_) and Errata.]

_Edition_ by J. S. Farmer (1914, _S. F._).--_Dissertation_: C. H.
Herford, _G.’s G. of G._ (_E. S._ ix. 201).

This, perhaps only a closet drama, is an adaptation of the ‘Christian
Terence’ (cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 216), with which Gascoigne may
have become familiar in Holland during 1573–4. The prologue (cf. App.
C, No. xiv) warns that the play is not a mere ‘worthie jest’, and that

Who list laye out some pence in such a marte,
Bellsavage fayre were fittest for his purse.

MASK

_Montague Mask. 1572_

1573. A Devise of a Maske for the right honourable Viscount Mountacute.
[Part of _Collection_, 1573; also in 1575, 1587.]

Anthony and Elizabeth Browne, children of Anthony, first Viscount
Montague, married Mary and Robert, children of Sir William Dormer of
Eythorpe, Bucks., in 1572 (cf. ch. v).

ENTERTAINMENTS

See s.v. Lee, _Woodstock Entertainment_ (_1575_) and ch. xxiv, s.v.
_Kenilworth Entertainment_ (_1575_).

THOMAS GOFFE (1591–1629).

_Selimus_ and the _Second Maiden’s Tragedy_ have been ascribed to
him, but as regards the first absurdly, and as regards the second not
plausibly, since he only took his B.A. degree in 1613. His known plays
are later in date than 1616.

ARTHUR GOLDING (1536–1605 <).

Arthur was son of John Golding of Belchamp St. Paul, Essex, and
brother-in-law of John, 16th Earl of Oxford. He was a friend of Sidney
and known to Elizabethan statesmen of puritanical leanings. Almost his
only original work was a _Discourse upon the Earthquake_ (1580), but
he was a voluminous translator of theological and classical works,
including Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_ (1565, 1567). Beza’s tragedy was
written when he was Professor at Lausanne in 1550 (Creizenach, ii. 456).

_Abraham’s Sacrifice. 1575_

1577. A Tragedie of Abrahams Sacrifice, Written in french, by Theodore
Beza, and translated into Inglish by A. G. Finished at Powles Belchamp
in Essex, the xj of August, 1575. _Thomas Vautrollier._ [Woodcuts,
which do not suggest a scenic representation.]

_Edition_ by M. W. Wallace (1907, _Toronto Philological Series_).

HENRY GOLDINGHAM (_c._ 1575).

A contributor to the Kenilworth and Norwich entertainments (cf. ch.
xxiv, C) and writer of _The Garden Plot_ (1825, _Roxburghe Club_).
Gawdy, 13, mentions ‘a yonge gentleman touard my L. of Leycester called
Mr. Goldingam’, as concerned _c._ 1587 in a street brawl.

WILLIAM GOLDINGHAM (_c._ 1567).

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

HENRY GOLDWELL (_c._ 1581).

Describer of _The Fortress of Perfect Beauty_ (cf. ch. xxiv, C).

STEPHEN GOSSON (1554–1624).

Gosson was born in Kent during 1554, was at Corpus Christi, Oxford,
1572 to 1576, then came to London, where he obtained some reputation
as playwright and poet. Meres in _Palladis Tamia_ (1598) commends his
pastorals, which are lost. Lodge speaks of him also as a ‘player’.[658]
In 1579 he forsook the stage, became a tutor in the country and
published _The School of Abuse_ (App. C, No. xxii). This he dedicated
to Sidney, but ‘was for his labour scorned’. He was answered the same
year in a lost pamphlet called _Strange News out of Afric_ and also
by Lodge (q.v.), and rejoined with _A Short Apology of the School of
Abuse_ (App. C, No. xxiv). The players revived his plays to spite
him and on 23 Feb. 1582 produced _The Play of Plays and Pastimes_ to
confute him. In the same year he produced his final contribution to
the controversy in _Plays Confuted in Five Actions_ (App. C, No. xxx).
In 1591 Gosson became Rector of Great Wigborough, Essex, and in 1595
published the anonymous pamphlet _Pleasant Quips for Upstart Newfangled
Gentlewomen_. In 1600 he became Rector of St. Botolph’s, Bishopsgate.
In 1616 and 1617 he wrote to Alleyn (q.v.) as his ‘very loving and
ancient friend’.[659] He died 13 Feb. 1624.

Gosson claims to have written both tragedies and comedies,[660] but
no play of his is extant. He names three of them. Of _Catiline’s
Conspiracies_ he says that it was ‘usually brought into the Theater
and that ‘because it is known to be a pig of mine own sow, I will
speak the less of it; only giving you to understand, that the whole
mark which I shot at in that work was to show the reward of traitors
in Catiline, and the necessary government of learned men in the person
of Cicero, which foresees every danger that is likely to happen and
forestalls it continually ere it take effect’.[661] Lodge disparages
the originality of this play and compares it unfavourably with Wilson’s
_Short and Sweet_[662] (q.v.). Of two other plays Gosson says: ‘Since
my publishing the _School of Abuse_ two plays of my making were brought
to the stage; the one was a cast of Italian devices, called, The Comedy
of _Captain Mario_; the other a Moral, _Praise at Parting_. These they
very impudently affirm to be written by me since I had set out my
invective against them. I can not deny they were both mine, but they
were both penned two years at the least before I forsook them, as by
their own friends I am able to prove.’[663] It is conceivable that
Gosson may be the translator of _Fedele and Fortunio_ (cf. ch. xxiv).

ROBERT GREENE (1558–92).

Robert Greene was baptized at Norwich on 11 July 1558. He entered St.
John’s College, Cambridge, as a sizar in 1575 and took his B.A. in
1578 and his M.A. by 1583, when he was residing in Clare Hall. The
addition of an Oxford degree in July 1588 enabled him to describe
himself as _Academiae Utriusque Magister in Artibus_. He has been
identified with a Robert Greene who was Vicar of Tollesbury, Essex,
in 1584–5, but there is no real evidence that he took orders. The
earlier part of his career may be gathered from his autobiographic
pamphlet, _The Repentance of Robert Greene_ (1592), eked out by the
portraits, also evidently in a measure autobiographic, of Francesco
in _Never Too Late_ (1590) and of Roberto in _Green’s Groats-worth
of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance_ (1592). It seems that he
travelled in youth and learnt much wickedness; then married and lived
for a while with his wife and had a child by her. During this period
he began his series of euphuistic love-romances. About 1586, however,
he deserted his wife, and lived a dissolute life in London with the
sister of Cutting Ball, a thief who ended his days at Tyburn, as his
mistress. By her he had a base-born son, Fortunatus. He does not seem
to have been long in London before he ‘had wholly betaken me to the
penning of plays which was my continual exercise’.[664] His adoption
of his profession seems to be described in _The Groats-worth of Wit_.
Roberto meets a player, goes with him, and soon becomes ‘famozed
for an arch-plaimaking poet’.[665] Similarly, in _Never Too Late_,
Francesco ‘fell in amongst a company of players, who persuaded him to
try his wit in writing of comedies, tragedies, or pastorals, and if he
could perform anything worthy of the stage, then they would largely
reward him for his pains’. Hereupon Francesco ‘writ a comedy, which so
generally pleased the audience that happy were those actors in short
time, that could get any of his works, he grew so exquisite in that
faculty’.[666] Greene’s early dramatic efforts seem to have brought
him into rivalry with Marlowe (q.v.). In the preface to _Perimedes the
Blacksmith_ (S. R. 29 March 1588) he writes: ‘I keep my old course to
palter up something in prose, using mine old poesie still, Omne tulit
punctum, although lately two Gentlemen Poets made two mad men of Rome
beat it out of their paper bucklers: and had it in derision for that I
could not make my verses jet upon the stage in tragical buskins, every
word filling the mouth like the faburden of Bo-Bell, daring God out
of heaven with that Atheist _Tamburlan_, or blaspheming with the mad
priest of the Sun.... Such mad and scoffing poets that have poetical
spirits, as bred of Merlin’s race, if there be any in England that set
the end of scholarism in an English blank-verse, I think either it is
the humour of a novice that tickles them with self-love, or too much
frequenting the hot-house (to use the German proverb) hath sweat out
all the greatest part of their wits.... I but answer in print what
they have offered on the stage.’[667] The references here to Marlowe
are unmistakable. His fellow ‘gentleman poet’ is unknown; but the
‘mad priest of the Sun’ suggests the play of ‘the lyfe and deathe of
Heliogabilus’, entered on S. R. to John Danter on 19 June 1594, but now
lost.[668] In 1589 Greene published his _Menaphon_ (S. R. 23 Aug.),
in which he further alluded to Marlowe as the teller of ‘a Canterbury
tale; some prophetical full-mouth that as he were a Cobler’s eldest
son, would by the last tell where anothers shoe wrings’.[669] Doron,
in the same story, appears to parody a passage in the anonymous play
of _The Taming of A Shrew_, which is further alluded to in a prefatory
epistle _To the Gentlemen Students of Both Universities_ contributed to
Greene’s book by Thomas Nashe. Herein Nashe, while praising Peele and
his _Arraignment of Paris_, satirizes Marlowe, Kyd, and particularly
the players (cf. App. C, No. xlii). To _Menaphon_ are also prefixed
lines by Thomas Brabine which tells the ‘wits’ that ‘strive to thunder
from a stage-man’s throat’ how the novel is beyond them. ‘Players,
avaunt!’[670] In the following year, 1590, Greene continued the attack
on the players in the autobiographic romance, already referred to,
of _Never Too Late_ (cf. App. C, No. xliii). In 1590 Greene, whose
publications had hitherto been mainly toys of love and romance, began
a series of moral pamphlets, full of professions of repentance and
denunciations of villainy. To these belong, as well as _Never Too
Late_, _Greene’s Mourning Garment_ (1590) and _Greene’s Farewell
to Folly_ (1591). A preface to the latter contains some satirical
references to the anonymous play of _Fair Em_ (cf. ch. xxiv.) One R. W.
retorted upon Greene in a pamphlet called _Martine Mar-Sextus_ (S. R. 8
Nov. 1591), in which he abuses lascivious authors who finally ‘put on a
mourning garment and cry Farewell’.[671] Similarly, Greene’s exposures
of ‘cony-catching’ or ‘sharping’ provoked the following passage in
the _Defence of Cony-catching_ (S. R. 21 April 1592) by one Cuthbert
Conycatcher: ‘What if I should prove you a cony-catcher, Master R. G.,
would it not make you blush at the matter?... Ask the Queen’s players
if you sold them not Orlando Furioso for twenty nobles, and when they
were in the country sold the same play to the Lord Admiral’s men for
as many more.... I hear, when this was objected, that you made this
excuse; that there was no more faith to be held with players than with
them that valued faith at the price of a feather; for as they were
comedians to act, so the actions of their lives were camelion-like;
that they were uncertain, variable, time-pleasers, men that measured
honesty by profit, and that regarded their authors not by desert but
by necessity of time.’[672] It is probable that the change in the tone
of Greene’s writings did not correspond to any very thorough-going
reformation of life. There is nothing to show that Greene had any share
in the Martinist controversy. But he became involved in one of the
personal animosities to which it led. Richard Harvey, the brother of
Gabriel, in his _Lamb of God_ (S. R. 23 Oct. 1589), while attacking
Lyly as Paphatchet, had ‘mistermed all our other poets and writers
about London, piperly make-plaies and make-bates. Hence Greene, beeing
chiefe agent for the companie [i.e. the London poets] (for hee writ
more than foure other, how well I will not say: but _sat citò, si
sat benè_) tooke occasion to canuaze him a little.’[673] Apparently
he called the Harveys, in his _A Quip for an Upstart Courtier_ (S.
R. 21 July 1592, cf. App. C, No. xlvii), the sons of a ropemaker,
which is what they were.[674] In August Greene partook freely of
Rhenish wine and pickled herrings at a supper with Nashe and one Will
Monox, and fell into a surfeit. On 3 September he died in a squalid
lodging, after writing a touching letter to his deserted wife, and
begging his landlady, Mrs. Isam, to lay a wreath of bays upon him.
These details are recorded by Gabriel Harvey, who visited the place
and wrote an account of his enemy’s end in a letter to a friend, which
he published in his _Four Letters and Certain Sonnets: especially
Touching Robert Greene, and Other Parties by him Abused_ (S. R. 4
Dec. 1592).[675] This brought Nashe upon him in the _Strange News of
the Intercepting of Certain Letters_[676] (S. R. 12 Jan. 1593) and
began a controversy between the two which lasted for several years. In
_Pierce’s Supererogation_ (27 Apr. 1593) Harvey spoke of ‘Nash, the ape
of Greene, Greene the ape of Euphues, Euphues the ape of Envy’, and
declared that Nashe ‘shamefully and odiously misuseth every friend or
acquaintance as he hath served ... Greene, Marlowe, Chettle, and whom
not?’[677] In _Have With You to Saffron Walden_ (1596), Nashe defends
himself against these accusations. ‘I never abusd Marloe, Greene,
Chettle in my life.... He girds me with imitating of Greene.... I
scorne it ... hee subscribing to me in anything but plotting Plaies,
wherein he was his crafts master.’[678] The alleged abuse of Marlowe,
Greene, and Chettle belongs to the history of another pamphlet. This is
_Green’s Groats-worth of Wit, Bought with a Million of Repentance_ (S.
R. 20 Sept. 1592, ‘upon the peril of Henry Chettle’[679]). According
to the title-page, it was ‘written before his death and published at
his dying request’. To this is appended the famous address _To those
Gentlemen, his Quondam Acquaintance, that spend their wits in making
Plays_.[680] The reference here to Shakespeare is undeniable. Of the
three playwrights warned, the first and third are almost certainly
Marlowe and Peele; the third may be Lodge, but on the whole is far more
likely to be Nashe (q.v.). It appears, however, that Nashe himself was
supposed to have had a hand in the authorship. Chettle did his best
to take the responsibility off Nashe’s shoulders in the preface to
his _Kind-Hart’s Dream_ (S. R. 8 Dec. 1592; cf. App. C, No. xlix). In
the epistle prefixed to the second edition of _Pierce Penniless his
Supplication to the Devil_ (_Works_, i. 154), written early in 1593,
Nashe denies the charge for himself and calls _The Groats-worth_ ‘a
scald trivial lying pamphlet’; and it is perhaps to this that Harvey
refers as abuse of Greene, Marlowe, and Chettle, although it is not
clear how Marlowe comes in. There is an echo of Greene’s hit at the
‘upstart crow, beautified with our feathers’ in the lines of R. B.,
_Greene’s Funerals_ (1594, ed. McKerrow, 1911, p. 81):

Greene, gaue the ground, to all that wrote upon him.
Nay more the men, that so eclipst his fame:
Purloynde his plumes, can they deny the same?

It should be added that the theory that Greene himself was actor as
well as playwright rests on a misinterpretation of a phrase of Harvey’s
and is inconsistent with the invariable tone of his references to the
profession.

_Collections_

1831. A. Dyce, _The Dramatic Works of R. G._ 2 vols.

1861, &c. A. Dyce, _The Dramatic and Poetical Works of R. G. and George
Peele_.

1881–6. A. B. Grosart, _The Complete Works in Prose and Verse of R. G._
15 vols. (_Huth Library_).

1905. J. C. Collins, _The Plays and Poems of R. G._ 2 vols.

1909. T. H. Dickinson, _The Plays of R. G._ (_Mermaid Series_).

_Dissertations_: W. Bernhardi, _R. G.’s Leben und Schriften_ (1874);
J. M. Brown, _An Early Rival of Shakespeare_ (1877); N. Storojenko,
_R. G.: His Life and Works_ (1878, tr. E. A. B. Hodgetts, in Grosart,
i); R. Simpson, _Account of R. G., his Life and Works, and his Attacks
on Shakspere_, in _School of Sh._ (1878), ii; C. H. Herford, _G.’s
Romances and Shakespeare_ (1888, _N. S. S. Trans._ 181); K. Knauth,
_Ueber die Metrik R. G.’s_ (1890, Halle diss.); H. Conrad, _R. G. als
Dramatiker_ (1894, _Jahrbuch_, xxix. 210); W. Creizenach, _G. über
Shakespeare_ (1898, _Wiener Festschrift_); G. E. Woodberry, _G.’s Place
in Comedy_, and C. M. Gayley, _R. G., His Life and the Order of his
Plays_ (1903, _R. E. C._ i); K. Ehrke, _R. G.’s Dramen_ (1904); S. L.
Wolff, _R. G. and the Italian Renaissance_ (1907, _E. S._ xxxvii. 321);
F. Brie, _Lyly und G._ (1910, _E. S._ xlii. 217); J. C. Jordan, _R. G._
(1915).

_Alphonsus. c. 1587_

1599. The Comicall Historie of Alphonsus King of Aragon. As it hath
bene sundrie times Acted. Made by R. G. _Thomas Creede_.

There is general agreement that, on grounds of style, this should be
the earliest of Greene’s extant plays. In IV. 1444 is an allusion to
‘mighty Tamberlaine’, and the play reads throughout like an attempt to
emulate the success of Marlowe’s play of 1587 (?). In IV. i Mahomet
speaks out of a brazen head. The play may therefore be alluded to in
the ‘Mahomet’s poo [pow]’ of Peele’s (q.v.) _Farewell_ of April 1589,
although Peele may have intended his own lost play of _The Turkish
Mahomet and Hiren the Fair Greek_. There is no reference in _Alphonsus_
to the Armada of 1588. On the whole, the winter of 1587 appears the
most likely date for it, and if so, it is possibly the play whose ill
success is recorded by Greene in the preface to _Perimedes_ (1588).
The Admiral’s revived a _Mahomet_ on 16 Aug. 1594, inventoried ‘owld
Mahemetes head’ in 1598, and revived the play again in Aug. 1601,
buying the book from Alleyn, who might have brought it from Strange’s,
or bought it from the Queen’s (Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 167; _Henslowe
Papers_, 116). Collins dates _Alphonsus_ in 1591, on a theory,
inconsistent with the biographical indications of the pamphlets,
that Greene’s play-writing did not begin much before that year. A
‘Tragicomoedia von einem Königk in Arragona’ played at Dresden in 1626
might be either this play or _Mucedorus_ (Herz, 66, 78).

_A Looking Glass for London and England. c. 1590_

_With_ Lodge.

_S. R._ 1594, March 5. ‘A booke intituled the lookinge glasse for
London by Thomas Lodg and Robert Greene gent.’ _Thomas Creede_ (Arber,
ii. 645).

1594. A Looking Glasse for London and England. Made by Thomas Lodge
Gentleman, and Robert Greene. In Artibus Magister. _Thomas Creede, sold
by William Barley._

1598. _Thomas Creede, sold by William Barley._

1602. _Thomas Creede, for Thomas Pavier._

1617. _Bernard Alsop._

_Edition_ by J. S. Farmer (1914, _S. F. T._).

The facts of Lodge’s (q.v.) life leave 1588, before the Canaries
voyage, or 1589–91, between that voyage and Cavendish’s expedition,
as possible dates for the play. In favour of the former is Lodge’s
expressed intention in 1589 to give up ‘penny-knave’s delight’. On
the other hand, the subject is closely related to that of Greene’s
moral pamphlets, the series of which begins in 1590, and the fall of
Nineveh is referred to in _The Mourning Garment_ of that year. Fleay,
ii. 54, and Collins, i. 137, accept 1590 as the date of the play.
Gayley, 405, puts it in 1587, largely on the impossible notion that
its ‘priest of the sun’ (IV. iii. 1540) is that referred to in the
_Perimedes_ preface, but partly also from the absence of any reference
to the Armada. It is possible that ‘pleasing Alcon’ in Spenser’s _Colin
Clout’s Come Home Again_ (1591) may refer to Lodge as the author of
the character Alcon in this play. _The Looking Glass_ was revived by
Strange’s men on 8 March 1592. The clown is sometimes called Adam in
the course of the dialogue (ll. 1235 sqq., 1589 sqq., 2120 sqq.), and
a comparison with _James IV_ suggests that the original performer was
John Adams of the Queen’s men, from whom Henslowe may have acquired
the play. Fleay, ii. 54, and Gayley, 405, make attempts to distinguish
Greene’s share from Lodge’s, but do not support their results by
arguments. Crawford, _England’s Parnassus_, xxxii, 441, does not regard
Allot’s ascription of the passages he borrowed to Greene and Lodge
respectively as trustworthy. Unnamed English actors played a ‘comedia
auss dem propheten Jona’ at Nördlingen in 1605 (Herz, 78).

_Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, _c. 1589_

_S. R._ 1594, May 14. ‘A booke entituled the Historye of ffryer Bacon
and ffryer Boungaye.’ _Adam Islip_ (Arber, ii. 649). [Against this and
other plays entered on the same day, Adam Islip’s name is crossed out
and Edward White’s substituted.]

1594. The Honorable Historie of frier Bacon, and frier Bongay. As it
was plaid by her Maiesties seruants. Made by Robert Greene Maister of
Arts. _For Edward White._ [Malone dated one of his copies of the 1630
edition ‘1599’ in error; cf. Gayley, 430.]

1630.... As it was lately plaid by the Prince Palatine his Seruants....
_Elizabeth Allde_. [The t.p. has a woodcut representing Act II, sc.
iii.]

1655. _Jean Bell._

_Editions_ by A. W. Ward (1878, &c.), C. M. Gayley (1903, _R. E. C._
i), W. A. Neilson (1911, _C. E. D._), and J. S. Farmer (1914, _S. F.
T._).--_Dissertation_: O. Ritter, _De R. G. Fabula: F. B. and F. B._
(1866, _Thorn diss._).

Fleay, in _Appendix B_ to Ward’s ed., argues from I. i. 137, ‘next
Friday is S. James’, that the date of the play is 1589, in which year
St. James’s Day fell on a Friday. This does not seem to me a very
reliable argument. Probably the play followed not long after Marlowe’s
_Doctor Faustus_ (q.v.), itself probably written in 1588–9. The date of
1589, which Ward, i. 396, and Gayley, 411, accept, is likely enough.
Collins prefers 1591–2, and notes (ii. 4) a general resemblance in tone
and theme to _Fair Em_, but there is nothing to indicate the priority
of either play, and no charge of plagiarism in the pamphlets (_vide
supra_) to which _Fair Em_ gave rise. _Friar Bacon_ was revived by
Strange’s men on 19 Feb. 1592, and again by the Queen’s and Sussex’s
men together on 1 April 1594. Doubtless it was Henslowe’s property,
as Middleton wrote a prologue and epilogue for a performance by the
Admiral’s men at Court at Christmas 1602 (Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 149).

_Orlando Furioso. c. 1591_

[_MS._] The Dulwich MSS. contain an actor’s copy with cues of Orlando’s
part. Doubtless it belonged to Alleyn. The fragment covers ll. 595–1592
of the Q_{q}, but contains passages not in those texts. It is printed
by Collier, _Alleyn Papers_, 198, Collins, i. 266, and Greg, _Henslowe
Papers_, 155.

_S. R._ 1593, Dec. 7. ‘A plaie booke, intituled, the historye of
Orlando ffurioso, one of the xij peeres of Ffraunce.’ _John Danter_
(Arber, ii. 641).

1594, May 28. ‘Entred for his copie by consent of John Danter.... A
booke entytuled The historie of Orlando furioso, &c. Prouided alwaies,
and yt is agreed that soe often as the same booke shalbe printed, the
saide John Danter to haue thimpryntinge thereof.’ _Cuthbert Burby_
(Arber, ii. 650).

1594. The Historie of Orlando Furioso One of the twelve Pieres of
France. As it was plaid before the Queenes Maiestie. _John Danter for
Cuthbert Burby._

1599. _Simon Stafford for Cuthbert Burby._

_Edition_ by W. W. Greg (1907, _M. S. R._).

The Armada (1588) is referred to in I. i. 87. Two passages are common
to the play and Peele’s _Old Wive’s Tale_ (before 1595), and were
probably borrowed by Peele with the name Sacripant, which Greene got
from Ariosto. The play cannot be the ‘King Charlemagne’ of Peele’s
(q.v.) _Farewell_ (April 1589), as Charlemagne does not appear in
it. The appearance of Sir John Harington’s translation of Ariosto’s
_Orlando Furioso_ in 1591 suggests that as a likely date. This also
would fit the story (_vide supra_) of the second sale to the Admiral’s
men, when the Queen’s ‘were in the country’ (cf. vol. ii, p. 112).
Strange’s men played _Orlando_ for Henslowe on 22 Feb. 1592. Collins,
i. 217, seems to accept 1591 as the date, but Fleay, i. 263, Ward, i.
395, and Gayley, 409, prefer 1588–9. So does Greg (_Henslowe_, ii.
150) on the assumption that _Old Wive’s Tale_ (q.v.) ‘must belong to
1590’. A ‘Comoedia von Orlando Furioso’ was acted at Dresden in 1626
(Herz, 66, 77).

_James the Fourth. c. 1591_

_S. R._ 1594, May 14. ‘A booke intituled the Scottishe story of James
the Ffourth slayne at Fflodden intermixed with a plesant Comedie
presented by Oboron Kinge of ffayres.’ _Thomas Creede_ (Arber, ii. 648.)

1598. The Scottish Historie of Iames the fourth, slaine at Flodden.
Entermixed with a pleasant Comedie, presented by Oboram, King of
Fayeries: As it hath bene sundrie times publikely plaide. Written by
Robert Greene, Maister of Arts. _Thomas Creede._

_Editions_ by J. M. Manly (1897, _Specimens_, ii. 327) and A. E.
H. Swaen and W. W. Greg (1921, _M. S. R._).--_Dissertation_: W.
Creizenach, _Zu G.’s J. IV_ (1885, _Anglia_, viii. 419).

There is very little to date the play. Its comparative merit perhaps
justifies placing it, as Greene’s maturest drama, in 1591. Collins, i.
44, agrees; but Fleay, i. 265; Ward, i. 400; Gayley, 415, prefer 1590.
Fleay finds traces of a second hand, whom he believes to be Lodge, but
he is not convincing. In l. 2269 the name Adam appears for Oberon in a
stage-direction, which, when compared with _A Looking-Glass_, suggests
that the actor was John Adams of the Queen’s.

_Lost Play_

Warburton’s list of burnt plays (_3 Library_, ii. 231) contains the
duplicate entries ‘His^t of Jobe by Rob. Green’ and ‘The Trag^d of
Jobe. Good.’ Greg suggests a confusion with Sir Robert Le Grys, who
appears in the list as ‘S^r Rob. le Green’.

The statement that Greene had a share in a play on Henry VIII
(_Variorum_, xix. 500) seems to be based on a confusion with a Robert
Greene named by Stowe as an authority for his _Annales_ (Collins, i.
69).

_Doubtful Plays_

Greene’s hand has been sought in _Contention of York and Lancaster_,
_Edward III_, _Fair Em_, _George a Greene_, _Troublesome Reign of King
John_, _Knack to Know a Knave_, _Thracian Wonder_, _Leire_, _Locrine_,
_Mucedorus_, _Selimus_, _Taming of A Shrew_, _Thomas Lord Cromwell_
(cf. ch. xxiv), and Shakespeare’s _Titus Andronicus_ and _Henry VI_.

FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE (_c._ 1554–1628).

Greville’s father, Sir Fulke, was a cadet of the Grevilles of Milcote,
and held great estates in Warwickshire. The son was born at Beauchamp
Court ten years before he entered Shrewsbury School on 17 Oct. 1564
with Philip Sidney, of whom he wrote, _c._ 1610–12, a _Life_ (ed.
Nowell Smith, 1907). In 1568 he went to Jesus College, Cambridge, and
from 1577 was a courtier in high favour with Elizabeth, and entrusted
with minor diplomatic and administrative tasks. He took part in the
great tilt of 15 May 1581 (cf. ch. xxiv) and was a steady patron of
learning and letters. His own plays were for the closet. He was
knighted in 1597. James granted him Warwick Castle in 1605, but he was
no friend of Robert Cecil, and took no great part in affairs until
1614, when he became Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1621 he was
created Lord Brooke. On 1 Sept. 1628 he was stabbed to death by his
servant Ralph Haywood. D. Lloyd, _Statesmen of England_ (1665), 504,
makes him claim to have been ‘master’ to Shakespeare and Jonson.

_Collections_

_S. R._ 1632, Nov. 10 (Herbert). ‘A booke called Certaine learned
and elegant Workes of Fulke Lord Brooke the perticular names are as
followeth (viz^t) ... The Tragedy of Alaham. The Tragedy of Mustapha
(by assignment from Master Butter).... _Seile_ (Arber, iv. 288).

1633. Certaine Learned and Elegant Workes of the Right Honorable
Fulke Lord Brooke, Written in his Youth, and familiar exercise with
Sir Philip Sidney. The seuerall Names of which Workes the following
page doth declare. _E. P. for Henry Seyle._ [Contains _Alaham_ and
_Mustapha_.]

1670. The Remains of Sir Fulk Grevill Lord Brooke: Being Poems
of Monarchy and Religion: Never before Printed. _T. N. for Henry
Herringham._ [Contains _Alaham_ and _Mustapha_.]

1870. A. B. Grosart, _The Works in Verse and Prose Complete of the Lord
Brooke_. 4 vols. (_Fuller Worthies Library_).

_Dissertations_: M. W. Croll, _The Works of F. G._ (1903, _Pennsylvania
thesis_); R. M. Cushman (_M. L. N._ xxiv. 180).

_Alaham. c. 1600_ (?)

[_MS._] Holograph at Warwick Castle (cf. Grosart, iv. 336).

1633. [Part of _Coll._ 1633. Prologue and Epilogue; at end, ‘This
Tragedy, called Alaham, may be printed, this 13 day of June 1632, Henry
Herbert.’]

Croll dates 1586–1600 on metrical grounds, and Cushman 1598–1603, as
bearing on Elizabethan politics after Burghley’s death.

_Mustapha. 1603 < > 8_

[_MSS._] Holograph at Warwick Castle (cf. Grosart, iv. 336). _Camb.
Univ. MS._ F. f. 2. 35.

_S. R._ 1608, Nov. 25 (Buck). ‘A booke called the Tragedy of Mustapha
and Zangar.’ _Nathanaell Butter_ (Arber, iii. 396).

1609. The Tragedy of Mustapha. _For Nathaniel Butter._

_S. R._ 1632, Nov. 10. Transfer from Butter to Seile (Arber, iv. 288)
(_vide Collections_, _supra_).

Cushman dates 1603–9, as bearing on the Jacobean doctrine of divine
right.

MATTHEW GWINNE (_c._ 1558–1627).

Gwinne, the son of a London grocer of Welsh descent, entered St.
John’s, Oxford, from Merchant Taylors in 1574, and became Fellow of the
College, taking his B.A. in 1578, his M.A. in 1582, and his M.D. in
1593. In 1592 he was one of the overseers for the plays at the visit of
Elizabeth (Boas, 252). He became Professor of Physic at Gresham College
in 1597 and afterwards practised as a physician in London.

LATIN PLAYS

_Nero > 1603_

_S. R._ 1603, Feb. 23 (Buckerydge). ‘A booke called Nero Tragedia nova
Matheo Gwyn medicine Doctore Colegij Divi Johannis precursoris apud
Oxonienses socio Collecta.’ _Edward Blunt_ (Arber, iii. 228).

1603. Nero Tragoedia Nova; Matthaeo Gwinne Med. Doct. Collegii Diui
Joannis Praecursoris apud Oxonienses Socio collecta è Tacito, Suetonio,
Dione, Seneca. _Ed. Blount._ [Epistle to James, ‘Londini ex aedibus
Greshamiis Cal. Jul. 1603’, signed ‘Matthaeus Gvvinne’; commendatory
verses to Justus Lipsius, signed ‘Io. Sandsbury Ioannensis’; Prologue
and Epilogue.]

1603. _Ed. Blount._ [Epistle to Thomas Egerton and Francis Leigh,
‘Londini ex aedibus Greshamiis in festo Cinerum 1603’; Epilogue.]

1639. _M. F. Prostant apud R. Mynne._

Boas, 390, assigns the play to St. John’s, Oxford, _c._ Easter 1603,
but the S. R. entry and the ‘Elisa regnat’ of the Epilogue point to an
Elizabethan date.

_Vertumnus. 29 Aug. 1605_

[_MS._] _Inner Temple Petyt MS._ 538, 43, f. 293, has a _scenario_,
with the title ‘The yeare about’.

1607. Vertumnus sive Annus Recurrens Oxonii, xxix Augusti, Anno. 1605.
Coram Iacobo Rege, Henrico Principe, Proceribus. A Joannensibus in
Scena recitatus ab vno scriptus, Phrasi Comica propè Tragicis Senariis.
_Nicholas Okes, impensis Ed. Blount._ [Epistle to Henry, signed
‘Matthaeus Gwinne’; Verses to Earl of Montgomery; commendatory verses,
signed ‘Guil. Paddy’, ‘Ioa. Craigius’, ‘Io. Sansbery Ioannensis’,
‘Θώμας ὁ Φρεάῤῥεος’; _Author ad Librum_. Appended are verses, signed
‘M. G.’ and headed ‘Ad Regis introitum, è Ioannensi Collegio extra
portam Vrbis Borealem sito, tres quasi Sibyllae, sic (ut e sylua)
salutarunt’, which are thought to have given a hint for _Macbeth_.]

This was shown to James during his visit to Oxford, and it sent him to
sleep. The performance was at Christ Church by men of St. John’s.

STEPHEN HARRISON (_c._ 1604).

Designer and describer of the arches at the coronation of James I (cf.
ch. xxiv, C).

RICHARD HATHWAY (_c._ 1600).

Practically nothing is known of Hathway outside Henslowe’s diary,
although he was included by Meres amongst the ‘best for comedy’ in
1598, and wrote commendatory verses for Bodenham’s _Belvedere_ (1600).
It is only conjecture that relates him to the Hathaways of Shottery in
Warwickshire, of whom was Shakespeare’s father-in-law, also a Richard.
He has left nothing beyond an undetermined share of _1 Sir John
Oldcastle_, but the following plays by him are traceable in the diary:

(a) _Plays for the Admiral’s, 1598–1602_

(i) _King Arthur._

April 1598.

(ii) _Valentine and Orson._

With Munday, July 1598. It is uncertain what relation, if any, this
bore to an anonymous play of the same name which was twice entered in
the S. R. on 23 May 1595 and 31 March 1600 (Arber, ii. 298, iii. 159),
was ascribed in both entries to the Queen’s and not the Admiral’s, and
is not known to be extant.

(iii, iv) _1, 2 Sir John Oldcastle._

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

(v) _Owen Tudor._

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

(vi) _1 Fair Constance of Rome._

With Dekker, Drayton, Munday, and Wilson (q.v.), June 1600.

(vii) _2 Fair Constance of Rome._

June 1600; but apparently not finished.

(viii) _Hannibal and Scipio._

With Rankins, Jan. 1601. Greg, ii. 216, bravely suggests that Nabbes’s
play of the same name, printed as a piece of Queen Henrietta’s men in
1637, may have been a revision of this.

(ix) _Scogan and Skelton._

With Rankins, Jan.–March 1601.

(x) _The Conquest of Spain by John of Gaunt._

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

(xi, xii) _1, 2 The Six Clothiers._

With Haughton and Smith, Oct.–Nov. 1601; but the second part was
apparently unfinished.

(xiii) _Too Good To Be True._

With Chettle (q.v.) and Smith, Nov. 1601–Jan. 1602.

(xiv) _Merry as May Be._

With Day and Smith, Nov. 1602.

(b) _Plays for Worcester’s, 1602–3_

(xv, xvi) _1, 2 The Black Dog of Newgate._

With Day, Smith, and an anonymous ‘other poete’, Nov. 1602–Feb. 1603.

(xvii) _The Unfortunate General._

With Day, Smith, and a third, Jan. 1603.

(xviii) _The Boss of Billingsgate._

With Day and one or more other ‘felowe poetes’, March 1603.

CHRISTOPHER HATTON (1540–91).

Christopher Hatton, of Holdenby, Northants, entered the Inner Temple
in Nov. 1559. He was Master of the Game at the Grand Christmas of
1561, and the mask to which he is said to have owed his introduction
to Elizabeth’s favour was probably that which the revellers took to
Court, together with Norton (q.v.) and Sackville’s _Gorboduc_ on 18
Jan. 1562. He became a Gentleman Pensioner in 1564, Gentleman of the
Privy Chamber, Captain of the Guard in 1572, Vice-Chamberlain and
Privy Councillor in 1578, when he was knighted, and Lord Chancellor
on 25 April 1587. He was conspicuous at Court in masks and tilts, and
is reported, even as Lord Chancellor, to have laid aside his gown and
danced at the wedding of his nephew and heir, Sir William Newport,
alias Hatton, to Elizabeth Gawdy at Holdenby in June 1590.

His only contribution to the drama is as writer of an act of _Gismond
of Salerne_ at the Inner Temple in 1568 (cf. s.v. Wilmot).

WILLIAM HAUGHTON (_c._ 1575–1605).

Beyond his extant work and the entries in Henslowe’s diary, in the
earliest of which, on 5 Nov. 1597, he appears as ‘yonge’ Haughton,
little is known of Haughton. Cooper, _Ath. Cantab._ ii. 399, identified
him with an alleged Oxford M.A. of the same name who was incorporated
at Cambridge in 1604, but turns out to have misread the name, which is
‘Langton’ (Baugh, 15). He worked for the Admiral’s during 1597–1602,
and found himself in the Clink in March 1600. Baugh, 22, prints his
will, made on 6 June 1605, and proved on 20 July. He left a widow Alice
and children. Wentworth Smith (q.v.) and one Elizabeth Lewes were
witnesses. He was then of Allhallows, Stainings. He cannot be traced
in the parish, but the name, which in his will is Houghton, is also
spelt by Henslowe Harton, Horton, Hauton, Hawton, Howghton, Haughtoun,
Haulton, and Harvghton, and was common in London. He might be related
to a William Houghton, saddler, who held a house in Turnmill Street in
1577 (Baugh, 11), since in 1601 (_H. P._ 57) Day requested that a sum
due to Haughton and himself might be paid to ‘Will Hamton sadler’.

_Englishmen for My Money_, or _A Woman Will Have
Her Will. 1598_

_S. R._ 1601, Aug. 3. ‘A comedy of A woman Will haue her Will.’
_William White_ (Arber, iii. 190).

1616. English-Men For my Money: or, A pleasant Comedy, called, A Woman
will haue her Will. _W. White._

1626.... As it hath beene diuers times Acted with great applause. _I.
N., sold by Hugh Perry._

1631. _A. M., sold by Richard Thrale._

_Editions_ in _O. E. D._ (1830, i) and Dodsley^4, x (1875), and by J.
S. Farmer (1911, _T. F. T._), W. W. Greg (1912, _M. S. R._), and A. C.
Baugh, (1917).

The evidence for Haughton’s evidence is in two payments in Henslowe’s
diary of 18 Feb. and early in May 1598 on behalf of the Admiral’s. The
sum of these is only £2, but it seems possible that at least one, and
perhaps more than one, other payment was made for the book in 1597 (cf.
Henslowe, ii. 191).

_Patient Grissell. 1599_

_With_ Chettle and Dekker (q.v.).

_Lost and Doubtful Plays_

The following plays by Haughton, all for the Admiral’s, are traceable
in Henslowe’s diary:

(i) _A Woman Will Have Her Will._

See _supra_.

(ii) _The Poor Man’s Paradise._

Aug. 1599; apparently not finished.

(iii) _Cox of Collumpton._

With Day, Nov. 1599; on a ‘note’ of the play by Simon Forman, cf. ch.
xiii (Admiral’s).

(iv) _Thomas Merry_, or _Beech’s Tragedy_.

With Day, Nov.–Dec. 1599, on the same theme as one of Yarington’s _Two
Lamentable Tragedies_ (q.v.).

(v) _The Arcadian Virgin._

With Chettle, Dec. 1599; apparently not finished.

(vi) _Patient Grissell._

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

(vii) _The Spanish Moor’s Tragedy._

With Day and Dekker, Feb. 1600; but apparently then unfinished;
possibly identical with _Lust’s Dominion_ (cf. s.v. Marlowe).

(viii) _The Seven Wise Masters._

With Chettle, Day, and Dekker, March 1600.

(ix) _Ferrex and Porrex._

March-April 1600.

(x) _The English Fugitives._

April 1600, but apparently not finished.

(xi) _The Devil and His Dame._

6 May 1600; probably the extant anonymous _Grim the Collier of Croydon_
(q.v.).

(xii) _Strange News Out of Poland._

With ‘M^r. Pett’, May 1600.

(xiii) _Judas._

Haughton had 10_s._ for this, May 1600; apparently the play was
finished by Bird and S. Rowley, Dec. 1601.

(xiv) _Robin Hood’s Pennorths._

Dec. 1600–Jan. 1601; but apparently not finished.

(xv, xvi) _2, 3 The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green._

With Day (q.v.), Jan.–July 1600.

(xvii) _The Conquest of the West Indies._

With Day and Smith, April-Sept. 1601.

(xviii) _The Six Yeomen of the West._

With Day, May–June 1601.

(xix) _Friar Rush and the Proud Woman of Antwerp._

With Chettle and Day, July 1601–Jan. 1602.

(xx) _2 Tom Dough._

With Day, July–Sept. 1601; but apparently not finished.

(xxi, xxii) _1, 2 The Six Clothiers._

With Hathway and Smith, Oct.–Nov. 1601; but apparently the second part
was not finished.

(xxiii) _William Cartwright._

Sept. 1602; perhaps never finished.

WALTER HAWKESWORTH (?-1606).

A Yorkshireman by birth, Hawkesworth entered Trinity College,
Cambridge, in 1588, and became a Fellow, taking his B.A. in 1592 and
his M.A. in 1595. In 1605 he went as secretary to the English embassy
in Madrid, where he died.

LATIN PLAYS

_Leander. 1599_

[_MSS._] _T. C. C. MS._ R. 3. 9. _Sloane MS._ 1762. [‘Authore M^{ro}
Haukesworth, Collegii Trinitatis olim Socio Acta est secundo A. D. 1602
comitiis Baccalaureorum ... primo acta est A. D. 1598.’ Prologue, ‘ut
primo acta est’; Additions for revival; Actor-lists.]

_St. John’s, Cambridge, MS._ J. 8. [Dated at end ‘7 Jan. 1599’.]

_Emmanuel, Cambridge, MS._ I. 2. 30.

_Cambridge Univ. Libr. MS._ Ee. v. 16.

_Bodl. Rawl. Misc. MS._ 341.

_Lambeth MS._ 838.

The production in 1599 and 1603 indicated by the MSS. agrees with the
Trinity names in the actor-lists (Boas, 399).

_Labyrinthus. 1603_ (?)

[_MSS._] _T. C. C. MS._ R. 3. 6.

_Cambridge Univ. Libr. MS._ Ee. v. 16. [Both ‘M^{ro} Haukesworth’.
Prologue. Actor-list in _T. C. C. MS._]

_St. John’s, Cambridge, MS._ J. 8. _T. C. C. MS._ R. 3. 9. _Bodl. Douce
MSS._ 43, 315. _Lambeth MS._ 838.

_S. R._ 1635, July 17 (Weekes). ‘A Latyn Comedy called Laborinthus
&c.’ _Robinson_ (Arber, iv. 343).

1636. Labyrinthus Comoedia, habita coram Sereniss. Rege Iacobo in
Academia Cantabrigiensi. _Londini, Excudebat H. R._ [Prologue.]

An allusion in the text (v. 5) to the marriage ‘_heri_’ of Leander
and Flaminia has led to the assumption that production was on the day
after the revival of _Leander_ in 1603; the actor-list has some
inconsistencies, and is not quite conclusive for any year of the period
1603–6 (Boas, 317, 400).

MARY HERBERT, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE (1561–1621).

Mary, daughter of Sir Henry, and sister of Sir Philip, Sidney, married
Henry, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, in 1577. She had literary tastes and was
a liberal patroness of poets, notably Samuel Daniel. Most of her time
appears to have been spent at her husband’s Wiltshire seats of Wilton,
Ivychurch, and Ramsbury, but in the reign of James she rented Crosby
Hall in Bishopsgate, and in 1615 the King granted her for life the
manor of Houghton Conquest, Beds.

_Dissertation_: F. B. Young, _Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke_ (1912).

TRANSLATION

_Antony. 1590_

_S. R._ 1592, May 3. ‘Item Anthonius a tragedie wrytten also in French
by Robert Garnier ... donne in English by the Countesse of Pembrok.’
_William Ponsonby_ (Arber, ii. 611).

1592. A Discourse of Life and Death. Written in French by Ph. Mornay.
Antonius, A Tragoedie written also in French by Ro. Garnier Both done
in English by the Countesse of Pembroke. _For William Ponsonby._

1595. The Tragedie of Antonie. Doone ... _For William Ponsonby_.

_Edition_ by A. Luce (1897). The _Marc-Antoine_ (1578) of Robert
Garnier was reissued in his _Huit Tragédies_ (1580).

ENTERTAINMENT

_Astraea. 1592_ (?)

In Davison’s _Poetical Rapsody_ (1602, S. R. 28 May 1602) is ‘A
Dialogue betweene two Shepheards, Thenot and Piers, in Praise of
Astrea. Made by the excellent Lady the Lady Mary Countesse of Pembrook
at the Queenes Maiesties being at her house at ---- Anno 15--’.

S. Lee (_D. N. B._) puts the visit at Wilton ‘late in 1599’. But there
was no progress in 1599, and progresses to Wilts. planned in 1600,
1601, and 1602 were abandoned. Presumably the verses were written for
the visit to Ramsbury of 27–9 Aug. 1592 (cf. App. A).

JASPER HEYWOOD (1535–98).

Translator of Seneca (q.v.).

THOMAS HEYWOOD (_c._ 1570–1641).

Heywood regarded Lincolnshire as his ‘country’ and had an uncle
Edmund, who had a friend Sir Henry Appleton. K. L. Bates has found
Edmund Heywood’s will of 7 Oct. 1624 in which Thomas Heywood and
his wife are mentioned, and has shown it to be not improbable that
Edmund was the son of Richard Heywood, a London barrister who had
manors in Lincolnshire. If so, Thomas was probably the son of Edmund’s
disinherited elder brother Christopher who was aged 30 in 1570. And if
Richard Heywood is the same who appears in the circle of Sir Thomas
More, a family connexion with the dramatist John Heywood may be
conjectured. The date of Thomas’s birth is unknown, but he tells us
that he was at Cambridge, although a tradition that he became Fellow
of Peterhouse cannot be confirmed, and is therefore not likely to have
begun his stage career before the age of 18 or thereabouts. Perhaps
we may conjecture that he was born _c._ 1570, for a Thomas Heywood is
traceable in the St. Saviour’s, Southwark, token-books from 1588 to
1607, and children of Thomas Heywood ‘player’ were baptized in the
same parish from 28 June 1590 to 5 Sept. 1605 (Collier, in _Bodl. MS._
29445). This is consistent with his knowledge (App. C, No. lvii) of
Tarlton, but not of earlier actors. He may, therefore, so far as dates
are concerned, easily have written _The Four Prentices_ as early as
1592; but that he in fact did so, as well as his possible contributions
to the Admiral’s repertory of 1594–7, are matters of inference (cf.
Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 284). The editors of the _Apology for Actors_
(Introd. v) say that in his _Funeral Elegy upon James I_ (1625) he
claims to have been ‘the theatrical servant of the Earl of Southampton,
the patron of Shakespeare’. I have never seen the Elegy. It is not in
the B. M., but a copy passed from the Bindley to the Brown collection.
There is no other evidence that Southampton ever had a company of
players. The first dated notice of Heywood is in a payment of Oct.
1596 on behalf of the Admiral’s ‘for Hawodes bocke’. On 25 March 1598
he bound himself to Henslowe for two years as an actor, doubtless for
the Admiral’s, then in process of reconstitution. Between Dec. 1598
and Feb. 1599 he wrote two plays for this company, and then disappears
from their records. He was not yet out of his time with Henslowe, but
if _Edward IV_ is really his, he may have been enabled to transfer his
services to Derby’s men, who seem to have established themselves in
London in the course of 1599. By the autumn of 1602 he was a member
of Worcester’s, for whom he had probably already written _How a Man
may Choose a Good Wife from a Bad_. He now reappears in Henslowe’s
diary both as actor and as playwright. On 1 Sept, he borrowed 2_s._
6_d._ to buy garters, and between 4 Sept, and 6 March 1603 he wrote
or collaborated in not less than seven plays for the company. During
the same winter he also helped in one play for the Admiral’s. It seems
probable that some of his earlier work was transferred to Worcester’s.
He remained with them, and in succession to them Queen Anne’s, until
the company broke up soon after the death of the Queen in 1619. Very
little of his work got into print. Of the twelve plays at most which
appeared before 1619, the first seven were unauthorized issues; from
1608 onwards, he himself published five with prefatory epistles.
About this date, perhaps in the enforced leisure of plague-time, he
also began to produce non-dramatic works, both in prose and verse,
of which the _Apology for Actors_, published in 1612, but written
some years earlier (cf. App. C, No. lvii), is the most important. The
loss of his _Lives of All the Poets_, apparently begun _c._ 1614 and
never finished, is irreparable. After 1619 Heywood is not traceable
at all as an actor; nor for a good many years, with the exception
of one play, _The Captives_, for the Lady Elizabeth’s in 1624, as a
playwright, either on the stage or in print. In 1623 a Thomas Heywarde
lived near Clerkenwell Hill (_Sh.-Jahrbuch_, xlvi. 345) and is probably
the dramatist. In 1624 he claims in the Epistle to _Gynaikeion_ the
renewed patronage of the Earl of Worcester, since ‘I was your creature,
and amongst other your servants, you bestowed me upon the excellent
princesse Q. Anne ... but by her lamented death, your gift is returned
againe into your hands’. But about 1630 he emerges again. Old plays of
his were revived and new ones produced both by Queen Henrietta’s men
at the Cockpit and the King’s at the Globe and Blackfriars. He wrote
the Lord Mayor’s pageants for a series of years. He sent ten more
plays to the press, and included a number of prologues, epilogues,
and complimentary speeches of recent composition in his _Pleasant
Dialogues and Dramas_ of 1637. This period lies outside my survey. I
have dealt with all plays in which there is a reasonable prospect of
finding early work, but have not thought it necessary to discuss _The
English Traveller_, or _A Maidenhead Well Lost_, merely because of
tenuous attempts by Fleay to connect them with lost plays written for
Worcester’s or still earlier anonymous work for the Admiral’s, any
more than _The Fair Maid of the West_, _The Late Lancashire Witches_,
or _A Challenge for Beauty_, with regard to which no such suggestion
is made. As to _Love’s Mistress_, see the note on _Pleasant Dialogues
and Dramas_. The Epistle to _The English Traveller_ (1633) is worth
quoting. Heywood describes the play as ‘one reserued amongst two
hundred and twenty, in which I haue had either an entire hand, or
at the least a maine finger’, and goes on to explain why his pieces
have not appeared as _Works_. ‘One reason is, that many of them by
shifting and change of Companies, haue beene negligently lost, Others
of them are still retained in the hands of some Actors, who thinke
it against their peculiar profit to haue them come in Print, and a
third, That it neuer was any great ambition in me, to bee in this kind
Volumniously read.’ Heywood’s statement would give him an average of
over five plays a year throughout a forty years’ career, and even if
we assume that he included every piece which he revised or supplied
with a prologue, it is obvious that the score or so plays that we have
and the dozen or so others of which we know the names must fall very
short of his total output. ‘Tho. Heywood, Poet’, was buried at St.
James’s, Clerkenwell, on 16 Aug. 1641 (_Harl. Soc. Reg._ xvii. 248),
and therefore the alleged mention of him as still alive in _The Satire
against Separatists_ (1648) must rest on a misunderstanding.

_Collections_

1842–51. B. Field and J. P. Collier, _The Dramatic Works of Thomas
Heywood_. 2 vols. (_Shakespeare Society_). [Intended for a complete
edition, although issued in single parts; a title-page for vol. i was
issued in 1850 and the 10th Report of the Society treats the plays for
1851 as completing vol. ii. Twelve plays were issued, as cited _infra_.]

1874. _The Dramatic Works of Thomas Heywood._ 6 vols. (_Pearson
Reprints_). [All the undoubted plays, with _Edward IV_ and _Fair Maid
of the Exchange_; also Lord Mayors’ Pageants and part of _Pleasant
Dialogues and Dramas_.]

1888. A. W. Verity, _The Best Plays of Thomas Heywood_ (_Mermaid
Series_). [_Woman Killed with Kindness_, _Fair Maid of the West_,
_English Traveller_, _Wise Woman of Hogsdon_, _Rape of Lucrece._]

_Dissertations_: K. L. Bates, _A Conjecture as to Thomas Heywood’s
Family_ (1913, _J. G. P._ xii. 1); P. Aronstein, _Thomas Heywood_
(1913, _Anglia_, xxxvii. 163).

_The Four Prentices of London. 1592_ (?)

_S. R._ 1594, June 19. ‘An enterlude entituled Godfrey of Bulloigne
with the Conquest of Jerusalem.’ _John Danter_ (Arber, ii. 654).

1615. The Foure Prentises of London. With the Conquest of Ierusalem.
As it hath bene diuerse times Acted, at the Red Bull, by the Queenes
Maiesties Seruants. Written by Thomas Heywood. _For I. W._ [Epistle
to the Prentices, signed ‘Thomas Heywood’ and Prologue, really an
Induction.]

1632.... Written and newly reuised by Thomas Heywood. _Nicholas Okes._

_Editions_ in Dodsley^{2, 3} (1780–1827) and by W. Scott (1810, _A. B.
D._ iii).

The Prologue gives the title as _True and Strange, or The Four
Prentises of London_. The Epistle speaks of the play as written ‘many
yeares since, in my infancy of iudgment in this kinde of poetry,
and my first practice’ and ‘some fifteene or sixteene yeares agoe’.
This would, by itself, suggest a date shortly after the publication
of Fairfax’s translation from Tasso under the title of _Godfrey of
Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Ierusalem_ in 1600. But the Epistle
also refers to a recent revival of ‘the commendable practice of long
forgotten armes’ in ‘the Artillery Garden’. This, according to Stowe,
_Annales_ (1615), 906, was in 1610, which leads Fleay, i. 182, followed
by Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 166), to assume that the Epistle was written
for an edition, now lost, of about that date. In support they cite
Beaumont’s _K. B. P._ iv. 1 (dating it 1610 instead of 1607), ‘Read
the play of the _Foure Prentices of London_, where they tosse their
pikes so’. Then, calculating back sixteen years, they arrive at the
anonymous _Godfrey of Bulloigne_ produced by the Admiral’s on 19 July
1594, and identify this with _The Four Prentices_, in which Godfrey
is a character. But this _Godfrey of Bulloigne_ was a second part,
and it is difficult to suppose that the first part was anything but
the play entered on the S. R. earlier in 1594. This, from its title,
clearly left no room for a second part covering the same ground as _The
Four Prentices_, which ends with the capture of Jerusalem. If then
Heywood’s play is as old as 1594 at all, it must be identified with
the first part of _Godfrey of Bulloigne_. And is not this in its turn
likely to be the _Jerusalem_ played by Strange’s men on 22 March and
25 April 1592? If so, Heywood’s career began very early, and, as we
can hardly put his Epistle earlier than the opening of the Artillery
Garden in 1610, his ‘fifteene or sixteene yeares’ must be rather an
understatement. There is of course nothing in the Epistle itself to
suggest that the play had been previously printed, but we know from the
Epistle to _Lucrece_ that the earliest published plays by Heywood were
surreptitious.

Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 230, hesitatingly suggests that a purchase by
Worcester’s of ‘iiij lances for the comody of Thomas Hewedes & M^r.
Smythes’ on 3 Sept. 1602 may have been for a revival of _The Four
Prentices_, ‘where they tosse their pikes so’, transferred from the
Admiral’s. But I think his afterthought, that the comedy was Heywood
and Smith’s _Albere Galles_, paid for on the next day, is sound.

_Sir Thomas Wyatt. 1602_

See s.v. Dekker.

_The Royal King and the Loyal Subject. 1602_ (?)

_S. R._ 1637, March 25 (Thomas Herbert, deputy to Sir Henry Herbert).
‘A Comedy called the Royall king and the Loyall Subiects by Master
Heywood.’ _James Beckett_ (Arber, iv. 376).

1637. The Royall King, and the Loyall Subject. As it hath beene Acted
with great Applause by the Queenes Maiesties Servants. Written by
Thomas Heywood. _Nich. and John Okes for James Becket._ [Prologue
to the Stage and Epilogue to the Reader.]

_Editions_ by J. P. Collier (1850, _Sh. Soc._) and K. W. Tibbals
(1906, _Pennsylvania Univ. Publ._).--_Dissertation_: O. Kämpfer, _Th.
Heywood’s The Royal King and Painter’s Palace of Pleasure_ (1903,
_Halle diss._).

The Epilogue describes the play as ‘old’, and apparently relates it to
a time when rhyme, of which it makes considerable use, was more looked
after than ‘strong lines’, and when stuffed and puffed doublets and
trunk-hose were worn, which would fit the beginning of the seventeenth
century. An anonymous Marshal is a leading character, and the
identification by Fleay, i. 300, with the _Marshal Osric_ written
by Heywood and Smith for Worcester’s in Sept. 1602 is not the worst of
his guesses.

_A Woman Killed With Kindness. 1603_

1607. A Woman Kilde with Kindnesse. Written by Tho: Heywood. _William
Jaggard, sold by John Hodgets._ [Prologue and Epilogue.]

1617.... As it hath beene oftentimes Acted by the Queenes Maiest.
Seruants.... The third Edition. _Isaac Jaggard._

_Editions_ in Dodsley^{1, 2, 3} (1744–1827) and by W. Scott (1810, _A.
B. D._ ii), J. P. Collier (1850, _Sh. Soc._), A. W. Ward (1897, _T.
D._), F. J. Cox (1907), W. A. Neilson (1911, _C. E. D._), K. L. Bates
(1919).--_Dissertation_: R. G. Martin, _A New Source for a Woman Killed
with Kindness_ (1911, _E. S._ xliii. 229).

Henslowe, on behalf of Worcester’s, paid Heywood £6 for this play in
Feb. and March 1603 and also bought properties for it. It is mentioned
in T. M., _The Black Book of London_ (1604), sig. E3.

_The Wise Woman of Hogsdon. c. 1604_ (?)

_S. R._ 1638, Mar. 12 (Wykes). ‘A Play called The wise woman of Hogsden
by Thomas Haywood.’ _Henry Sheapard_ (Arber, iv. 411).

1638. The Wise Woman of Hogsdon. A Comedie. As it hath been sundry
times Acted with great Applause. Written by Tho: Heywood. _M. P. for
Henry Shephard._

Fleay, i. 291, suggested a date _c._ 1604 on the grounds of allusions
to other plays of which _A Woman Killed with Kindness_ is the latest
(ed. Pearson, v. 316), and a conjectural identification with Heywood’s
_How to Learn of a Woman to Woo_, played by the Queen’s at Court on
30 Dec. 1604. The approximate date is accepted by Ward, ii. 574, and
others. It may be added that there are obvious parallelisms with
the anonymous _How a Man may Choose a Good Wife from a Bad_ (1602)
generally assigned to Heywood.

_If You Know not Me, You Know Nobody. 1605_

_S. R._ 1605, July 5 (Hartwell). ‘A booke called yf you knowe not me
you knowe no body.’ _Nathaniel Butter_ (Arber, iii. 295).

1605, Sept. 14 (Hartwell). ‘A Booke called the Second parte of Yf you
knowe not me you knowe no bodie with the buildinge of the exchange.’
_Nathaniel Butter_ (Arber, iii. 301).

[_Part i_]

1605. If you Know not me, You Know no bodie: Or, The troubles of Queene
Elizabeth. _For Nathaniel Butter._

1606, 1608, 1610, 1613, 1623, 1632, 1639.

[_Part ii_]

1606. The Second Part of, If you Know not me, you know no bodie. With
the building of the Royall Exchange: And the famous Victorie of Queene
Elizabeth, in the Yeare 1588. _For Nathaniell Butter._

1609.... With the Humors of Hobson and Tawny-cote. _For Nathaniell
Butter._

N.D. [1623?].

1632. _For Nathaniel Butter._ [With different version of Act V.]

_Editions_ by J. P. Collier (1851, _Sh. Soc._) and J. Blew
(1876).--_Dissertation_: B. A. P. van Dam and C. Stoffel, _The
Fifth Act of Thomas Heywood’s Queen Elizabeth: Second Part_ (1902,
_Jahrbuch_, xxxviii. 153).

_Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas_, 248, has ‘A Prologue to the Play
of Queene Elizabeth as it was last revived at the Cockpit, in which
the Author taxeth the most corrupted copy now imprinted, which was
published without his consent’. It says:

This: (by what fate I know not) sure no merit,
That it disclaimes, may for the age inherit.
Writing ’bove one and twenty; but ill nurst,
And yet receiv’d, as well perform’d at first,
Grac’t and frequented, for the cradle age,
Did throng the Seates, the Boxes, and the Stage
So much; that some by Stenography drew
The plot: put it in print: (scarce one word trew:)

There is also an Epilogue, which shows that both parts were revived.
The piracy may serve to date the original production in 1605 and the
Caroline revival probably led to the reprints of 1632. As the play
passed to the Cockpit, it was presumably written for Queen Anne’s. Greg
(_Henslowe_, ii. 223) rightly resists the suggestion that it was the
old _Philip of Spain_ bought by the Admiral’s from Alleyn in 1602. It
is only Part i which has characteristics attributable to stenography,
and this remained unrevised. According to Van Dam and Stoffel, the 1606
and 1632 editions of Part ii represent the same original text, in the
first case shortened for representation, in the second altered by a
press-corrector.

_Fortune by Land and Sea. c. 1607_ (?)

_With_ W. Rowley.

_S. R._ 1655, June 20. ‘Fortune by Land & sea, a tragicomedie, written
by Tho: Heywood & Wm. Rowley.’ _John Sweeting_ (Eyre, i. 486).

1655. Fortune by Land and Sea. A Tragi-Comedy. As it was Acted with
great Applause by the Queens Servants. Written by Tho. Haywood and
William Rowly. _For John Sweeting and Robert Pollard._

_Edition_ by B. Field (1846, _Sh. Soc._).--_Dissertation_: Oxoniensis,
_Illustration of Fortune by Land and Sea_ (1847, _Sh. Soc. Papers_,
iii. 7).

The action is placed in the reign of Elizabeth (cf. ed. Pearson, vi,
pp. 409, 431), but this may be due merely to the fact that the source
is a pamphlet (S. R. 15 Aug. 1586) dealing with Elizabethan piracy.
Rowley’s co-operation suggests the date 1607–9 when he was writing for
Queen Anne’s men, and other trifling evidence (Aronstein, 237) makes
such a date plausible.

_The Rape of Lucrece. 1603 < > 8_

_S. R._ 1608, June 3 (Buck). ‘A Booke called A Romane tragedie called
The Rape of Lucrece.’ _John Busby and Nathanael Butter_ (Arber, iii.
380).

1608. The Rape of Lucrece. A True Roman Tragedie. With the seuerall
Songes in their apt places, by Valerius, the merrie Lord amongst the
Roman Peeres. Acted by her Maiesties Seruants at the Red Bull, neare
Clarkenwell. Written by Thomas Heywood. _For I. B._ [Epistle to the
Reader, signed ‘T. H.’]

1609. _For I. B._

1630.... The fourth Impression.... _For Nathaniel Butter._

1638.... The copy revised, and sundry Songs before omitted, now
inserted in their right places.... _John Raworth for Nathaniel Butter._
[Note to the Reader at end.]

_Edition_ in 1825 (_O. E. D._ i).

Fleay, i. 292, notes the mention of ‘the King’s head’ as a tavern sign
for ‘the Gentry’, which suggests a Jacobean date. The play was given at
Court, apparently by the King’s and Queen’s men together, on 13 Jan.
1612. The Epistle says that it has not been Heywood’s custom ‘to commit
my Playes to the Presse’, like others who ‘have used a double sale of
their labours, first to the Stage, and after to the Presse’. He now
does so because ‘some of my Playes have (unknowne to me, and without
any of my direction) accidentally come into the Printers hands (and
therefore so corrupt and mangled, copied only by the eare) that I have
beene as unable to knowe them, as ashamed to challenge them’. A play on
the subject seems to have been on tour in Germany in 1619 (Herz, 98).
_The Rape of Lucrece_ was on the Cockpit stage in 1628, according to a
newsletter in _Athenaeum_ (1879), ii. 497, and to the 1638 edition are
appended songs ‘added by the stranger that lately acted Valerius his
part’. It is in the Cockpit list of plays in 1639 (_Variorum_, iii.
159).

_The Golden Age > 1611_

_S. R._ 1611, Oct. 14 (Buck). William Barrenger, ‘A booke called, The
golden age with the liues of Jupiter and Saturne.’ _William Barrenger_
(Arber, iii. 470).

1611. The Golden Age. Or The liues of Iupiter and Saturne, with the
defining of the Heathen Gods. As it hath beene sundry times acted at
the Red Bull, by the Queenes Maiesties Seruants. Written by Thomas
Heywood. _For William Barrenger._ [Epistle to the Reader, signed ‘T.
H.’ Some copies have ‘defining’ corrected to ‘deifying’ in the title.]

_Edition_ by J. P. Collier (1851, _Sh. Soc._).

The Epistle describes the play as ‘the eldest brother of three Ages,
that haue aduentured the Stage, but the onely yet, that hath beene
iudged to the presse’, and promises the others. It came to the press
‘accidentally’, but Heywood, ‘at length hauing notice thereof’,
prefaced it, as it had ‘already past the approbation of auditors’.
Fleay, i. 283, followed hesitatingly by Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 175),
thinks it a revision of the _Olympo_ or _Seleo & Olempo_, which he
interprets _Coelo et Olympo_, produced by the Admiral’s on 5 March
1595. The Admiral’s inventories show that they had a play with Neptune
in it, but it is only at the very end of _The Golden Age_ that the
sons of Saturn draw lots and Jupiter wins Heaven or Olympus. Fleay’s
assumption that the play was revised _c._ 1610, because of Dekker,
_If it be not Good_, i. 1, ‘The Golden Age is moulding new again’, is
equally hazardous.

_The Silver Age > 1612_

1613. The Silver Age, Including. The loue of Iupiter to Alcmena: The
birth of Hercules. And the Rape of Proserpine. Concluding, With the
Arraignement of the Moone. Written by Thomas Heywood. _Nicholas Okes,
sold by Beniamin Lightfoote._ [Epistle to the Reader, signed ‘T. H,’;
Prologue and Epilogue.]

_Edition_ by J. P. Collier (1851, _Sh. Soc._).

The Epistle says, ‘Wee begunne with _Gold_, follow with _Siluer_,
proceede with _Brasse_, and purpose by Gods grace, to end with _Iron_’.
Fleay, i. 283, and Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 175) take this and _The Brazen
Age_ to be the two parts of the anonymous _Hercules_, produced by the
Admiral’s men on 7 and 23 May 1595 respectively. It may be so. But the
text presumably represents the play as given at Court, apparently by
the King’s and Queen’s men together, on 12 Jan. 1612. An Anglo-German
_Amphitryo_ traceable in 1626 and 1678 may be based on Heywood’s work
(Herz, 66; _Jahrbuch_, xli. 201).

_The Brazen Age > 1613_

1613. The Brazen Age, The first Act containing, The death of the
Centaure Nessus, The Second, The Tragedy of Meleager: The Third The
Tragedy of Iason and Medea. The Fourth. Vulcans Net. The Fifth. The
Labours and death of Hercules: Written by Thomas Heywood. _Nicholas
Okes for Samuel Rand._ [Epistle to the Reader; Prologue and Epilogue.]

Cf. s.v. _The Silver Age_.

_The Iron Age. c. 1613_ (?)

1632. [_Part i_] The Iron Age: Contayning the Rape of Hellen: The siege
of Troy: The Combate betwixt Hector and Aiax: Hector and Troilus slayne
by Achilles: Achilles slaine by Paris: Aiax and Vlesses contend for the
Armour of Achilles: The Death of Aiax, &c. Written by Thomas Heywood.
_Nicholas Okes._ [Epistles to Thomas Hammon and to the Reader, signed
‘Thomas Heywood’.]

1632. [_Part ii_] The Second Part of the Iron Age. Which contayneth the
death of Penthesilea, Paris, Priam, and Hecuba: The burning of Troy:
The deaths of Agamemnon, Menelaus, Clitemnestra, Hellena, Orestes,
Egistus, Pillades, King Diomed, Pyrhus, Cethus, Synon, Thersites, &c.
Written by Thomas Heywood. _Nicholas Okes._ [Epistles to the Reader and
to Thomas Mannering, signed ‘Thomas Heywood’.]

_Dissertation_: R. G. Martin, _A New Specimen of the Revenge Play_
(1918, _M. P._ xvi. 1).

The Epistles tell us that ‘these were the playes often (and not with
the least applause,) Publickely Acted by two Companies, vppon one Stage
at once, and haue at sundry times thronged three seuerall Theaters,
with numerous and mighty Auditories’; also that they ‘haue beene long
since Writ’. This, however, was in 1632, and I can only read the
Epistles to the earlier _Ages_ as indicating that the _Iron Age_ was
contemplated, but not yet in existence, up to 1613. I should therefore
put the play _c._ 1613, and take the three theatres at which it was
given to be the Curtain, Red Bull, and Cockpit. Fleay, i. 285, thinks
that Part i was the anonymous _Troy_ produced by the Admiral’s on 22
June 1596. More plausible is the conjecture of Greg (_Henslowe_, ii.
180) that this was ‘an earlier and shorter version later expanded into
the two-part play’. Spencer had a play on the Destruction of Troy at
Nuremberg in 1613 (Herz, 66).

_Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas. 1630–6_ (?)

_S. R._ 1635, Aug. 29 (Weekes). ‘A booke called Pleasant Dialogues
and Dramma’s selected out of Lucian Erasmus Textor Ovid &c. by Thomas
Heywood.’ _Richard Hearne_ (Arber, iv. 347).

1637. Pleasant Dialogues and Dramma’s, selected out of Lucian, Erasmus,
Textor, Ovid, &c. With sundry Emblems extracted from the most elegant
Iacobus Catsius. As also certaine Elegies, Epitaphs, and Epithalamions
or Nuptiall Songs; Anagrams and Acrosticks; With divers Speeches (upon
severall occasions) spoken to their most Excellent Majesties, King
Charles, and Queene Mary. With other Fancies translated from Beza,
Bucanan, and sundry Italian Poets. By Tho. Heywood. _R. O. for R. H.,
sold by Thomas Slater._ [Epistle to the Generous Reader, signed ‘Tho.
Heywood’, and Congratulatory Poems by Sh. Marmion, D. E., and S. N.]

_Edition_ by W. Bang (1903, _Materialien_, iii).

The section called ‘Sundry Fancies writ upon severall occasions’ (Bang,
231) includes a number of Prologues and Epilogues, of which those which
are datable fall between 1630 and 1636. Bang regards all the contents
of the volume as of about this period. Fleay, i. 285, had suggested
that _Deorum Judicium_, _Jupiter and Io_, _Apollo and Daphne_,
_Amphrisa_, and possibly _Misanthropos_ formed the anonymous _Five
Plays in One_ produced by the Admiral’s on 7 April 1597, and also that
_Misanthropos_, which he supposed to bear the name _Time’s Triumph_,
was played with _Faustus_ on 13 April 1597 and carelessly entered by
Henslowe as ‘times triumpe & fortus’. Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 183) says
of the _Dialogues and Dramas_, ‘many of the pieces in that collection
are undoubtedly early’. He rejects Fleay’s views as to _Misanthropos_
on the grounds that it is ‘unrelieved tediousness’ and has no claim to
the title _Time’s Triumph_, and is doubtful as to _Deorum Judicium_.
The three others he seems inclined to accept as possibly belonging to
the 1597 series, especially _Jupiter and Io_, where the unappropriated
head of Argus in one of the Admiral’s inventories tempts him. He is
also attracted by an alternative suggestion of Fleay’s that one of the
_Five Plays in One_ may have been a _Cupid and Psyche_, afterwards
worked up into _Love’s Mistress_ (1636). This he says, ‘if it existed’,
would suit very well. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that it
did exist. Moreover, P. A. Daniel has shown that certain lines found
in _Love’s Mistress_ are assigned to Dekker in _England’s Parnassus_
(1600, ed. Crawford, xxxi. 509, 529) and must be from the _Cupid and
Psyche_ produced by the Admiral’s _c._ June 1600 (_Henslowe_, ii. 212).
There is no indication that Heywood collaborated with Dekker, Chettle,
and Day in this; but it occurs to me that, if he was still at the Rose,
he may have acted in the play and cribbed years afterwards from the
manuscript of his part. I will only add that _Misanthropos_ and _Deorum
Judicium_ seem to me out of the question. They belong to the series of
‘dialogues’ which Heywood in his Epistle clearly treats as distinct
from the ‘dramas’, for after describing them he goes on, ‘For such as
delight in Stage-poetry, here are also divers Dramma’s, never before
published: Which, though some may condemne for their shortnesse, others
againe will commend for their sweetnesse’. It is only _Jupiter and Io_
and _Apollo and Daphne_, which are based on Ovid, and _Amphrisa_, for
which there is no known source, that can belong to this group; and
Heywood gives no indication as to their date.

_Lost and Doubtful Plays_

On _How to Learn of a Woman to Woo_, see s.v. _The Wise Woman of
Hogsden_. The author of _The Second Part of Hudibras_ (1663) names
Heywood as the author of _The Bold Beauchamps_, which is mentioned with
_Jane Shore_ in _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_, Ind. 59.

The following is a complete list of the plays, by Heywood or
conjecturally assigned to him, which are recorded in Henslowe’s diary:

_Possible plays for the Admiral’s, 1594–7_

For conjectures as to the authorship by Heywood of _Godfrey of
Bulloigne_ (1594), _The Siege of London_ (>1594), _Wonder of a Woman_
(1595), _Seleo and Olympo_ (1595), _1, 2 Hercules_ (1595), _Troy_
(1596), _Five Plays in One_ (1597), _Time’s Triumph_ (>1597), see _The
Four Prentices_, the anonymous _Edward IV_, W. Rowley’s _A New Wonder_,
_The Golden Age_, _The Silver Age_, _The Iron Age_, _Pleasant Dialogues
and Dramas_.

_Plays for the Admiral’s, 1598–1603_

(i) _War without Blows and Love without Suit._

Dec. 1598–Jan. 1599; identified, not plausibly, by Fleay, i. 287, with
the anonymous _Thracian Wonder_ (q.v.).

(ii) _Joan as Good as my Lady._

Feb. 1599, identified, conjecturally, by Fleay, i. 298, with _A
Maidenhead Well Lost_, printed as Heywood’s in 1634.

(iii) _1 The London Florentine._

With Chettle, Dec. 1602–Jan. 1603.

_Plays for Worcester’s, 1602–3_

(iv) _Albere Galles._

With Smith, Sept. 1602, possibly identical with the anonymous _Nobody
and Somebody_ (q.v.).

(v) _Cutting Dick_ (additions only).

Sept. 1602, identified by Fleay, ii. 319, with the anonymous _Trial of
Chivalry_, but not plausibly (Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 231).

(vi) _Marshal Osric._

With Smith, Sept. 1602, conceivably identical with _The Royal King and
the Loyal Subject_ (q.v.).

(vii) _1 Lady Jane._

With Chettle, Dekker, Smith, and Webster, Oct. 1602, doubtless
represented by the extant _Sir Thomas Wyatt_ of Dekker (q.v.) and
Webster, in which, however, Heywood’s hand has not been traced.

(viii) _Christmas Comes but Once a Year_.

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

(ix) _The Blind Eats many a Fly_.

Nov. 1602–Jan. 1603.

(x) [Unnamed play.]

With Chettle, Jan. 1603, but apparently not finished, or possibly
identical with the _Shore_ of Chettle (q.v.) and Day. The title _Like
Quits Like_, inserted into one entry for this play, is a forgery (Greg,
_Henslowe_, i. xliii).

(xi) _A Woman Killed With Kindness_.

Feb.–March 1603. _Vide supra._

Heywood’s hand or ‘finger’ has also been suggested in the _Appius and
Virginia_ printed as Webster’s (q.v.), in _Pericles_, and in _Fair Maid
of the Exchange_, _George a Greene_, _How a Man May Choose a Good Wife
from a Bad_, _Thomas Lord Cromwell_, and _Work for Cutlers_ (cf. ch.
xxiv).

GRIFFIN HIGGS (1589–1659).

A student at St. John’s, Oxford (1606), afterwards Fellow of Merton
(1611), Chaplain to Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia (1627), and Dean of
Lichfield (1638). The MS. of _The Christmas Prince_ (_1607_) was once
thought to be in his handwriting (cf. ch. xxiv, C).

THOMAS HUGHES (_c._ 1588).

A Cheshire man, who matriculated from Queens’ College, Cambridge, in
Nov. 1571 and became Fellow of the College on 8 Sept. 1576.

_The Misfortunes of Arthur. 28 Feb. 1588_

1587. Certain deuises and shewes presented to her Maiestie by the
Gentlemen of Grayes Inne at her Highnesse Court in Greenewich, the
twenty-eighth day of Februarie in the thirtieth yeare of her Maiesties
most happy Raigne. _Robert Robinson._ [‘An Introduction penned by
Nicholas Trotte Gentleman one of the society of Grayes Inne’; followed
by ‘The misfortunes of Arthur (Vther Pendragons Sonne) reduced into
Tragicall notes by Thomas Hughes one of the societie of Grayes Inne.
And here set downe as it past from vnder his handes and as it was
presented, excepting certaine wordes and lines, where some of the
Actors either helped their memories by brief omission: or fitted their
acting by some alteration. With a note at the ende, of such speaches
as were penned by others in lue of some of these hereafter following’;
Arguments, Dumb-Shows, and Choruses between the Acts; at end, two
substituted speeches ‘penned by William Fulbecke gentleman, one of the
societie of Grayes Inne’; followed by ‘Besides these speaches there was
also penned a Chorus for the first act, and an other for the second
act, by Maister Frauncis Flower, which were pronounced accordingly.
The dumbe showes were partly deuised by Maister Christopher Yeluerton,
Maister Frauncis Bacon, Maister Iohn Lancaster and others, partly by
the saide Maister Flower, who with Maister Penroodocke and the said
Maister Lancaster directed these proceedings at Court.’]

_Editions_ in Collier, _Five Old Plays_ (1833), and Dodsley^4 (1874,
iv), and by H. C. Grumbine (1900), J. S. Farmer (1911, _T. F. T._), and
J. W. Cunliffe (1912, _E. E. C. T._).

Of the seven collaborators, three--Bacon, Yelverton, and
Fulbecke--subsequently attained distinction. It is to be wished that
editors of more important plays had been as communicative as offended
dignity, or some other cause, made Thomas Hughes.

WILLIAM HUNNIS (?-1597).

[Nearly all that is known of Hunnis, except as regards his connexion
with the Blackfriars, and much that is conjectural has been gathered
and fully illustrated by Mrs. C. C. Stopes in _Athenaeum_ and
_Shakespeare-Jahrbuch_ papers, and finally in _William Hunnis and the
Revels of the Chapel Royal_ (1910, _Materialien_, xxix).]

The date of Hunnis’s birth is unknown, except as far as it can be
inferred from the reference to him as ‘in winter of thine age’ in 1578.
He is described on the title-page of his translation of _Certayne
Psalmes_ (1550) as ‘seruant’ to Sir William Herbert, who became
Earl of Pembroke. He is in the lists of the Gentlemen of the Chapel
about 1553, but he took part in plots against Mary and in 1556 was
sent to the Tower. He lost his post, but this was restored between
Elizabeth’s accession in 1558 and the opening of the extant _Cheque
Book_ of the Chapel in 1561, and on 15 Nov. 1566 he was appointed
Master of the Children in succession to Richard Edwardes (q.v.). For
the history of his Mastership, cf. ch. xii (Chapel). Early in 1559 he
married Margaret, widow of Nicholas Brigham, Teller of the Exchequer,
through whom he acquired a life-interest in the secularized Almonry at
Westminster. She died in June 1559, and about 1560 Hunnis married Agnes
Blancke, widow of a Grocer. He took out the freedom of the Grocers’
Company, and had a shop in Southwark. He was elected to the livery of
the Company in 1567, but disappears from its records before 1586. In
1569 he obtained a grant of arms, and is described as of Middlesex.
From 1576–85, however, he seems to have had a house at Great Ilford,
Barking, Essex. His only known child, Robin, was page to Walter Earl
of Essex in Ireland, and is said in _Leicester’s Commonwealth_ to have
tasted the poison with which Leicester killed Essex in 1576 and to have
lost his hair. But he became a Rider of the Stable under Leicester as
Master of the Horse during 1579–83, and received payments for posting
services in later years up to 1593. In 1562 William Hunnis became
Keeper of the Orchard and Gardens at Greenwich, and held this post
with his Mastership to his death. He supplied greenery and flowers
for the Banqueting Houses of 1569 and 1571 (cf. ch. i). In 1570 the
Queen recommended him to the City as Taker of Tolls and Dues on London
Bridge, and his claim was bought off for £40. In 1583 he called
attention to the poor remuneration of the Mastership, and in 1585 he
received grants of land at Great Ilford and elsewhere. He died on 6
June 1597.

Hunnis published several volumes of moral and religious verse, original
and translated: _Certayne Psalmes_ (1550); _A Godly new Dialogue of
Christ and a Sinner_ (S. R. 1564, if this is rightly identified with
the _Dialogue_ of Hunnis’s 1583 volume); _A Hive Full of Honey_ (1578,
S. R. 1 Dec. 1577, dedicated to Leicester); _A Handful of Honnisuckles_
(N.D., S. R. 11 Dec. 1578, a New Year’s gift to the Ladies of the Privy
Chamber); _Seven Sobbes of a Sorrowful Soule for Sinne_ (1583, S. R.
7 Nov. 1581, with the _Handful of Honnisuckles_, _The Widow’s Mite_,
and _A Comfortable Dialogue between Christ and a Sinner_, dedicated to
Lady Sussex); _Hunnies Recreations_ (1588, S. R. 4 Dec. 1587, dedicated
to Sir Thomas Heneage). Several poems by Hunnis are also with those of
Richard Edwardes and others in _The Paradyse of Daynty Deuises_ (1567);
one, the _Nosegay_, in Clement Robinson’s _A Handfull of Pleasant
Delites_ (1584); and it is usual to assign to him two bearing the
initials W. H., _Wodenfride’s Song in Praise of Amargana_ and _Another
of the Same_, in _England’s Helicon_ (1600).

The name of no play by Hunnis has been preserved, although he may
probably enough have written some of those produced by the Chapel boys
during his Mastership. That he was a dramatist is testified to by the
following lines contributed by Thomas Newton, one of the translators of
Seneca, to his _Hive Full of Honey_.

In prime of youth thy pleasant Penne depaincted Sonets sweete,
Delightfull to the greedy Eare, for youthfull Humour meete.
Therein appeared thy pregnant wit, and store of fyled Phraze
Enough t’ astoune the doltish Drone, and lumpish Lout amaze,
Thy Enterludes, thy gallant Layes, thy Rond’letts and thy Songes,
Thy Nosegay and thy Widowes’ Mite, with that thereto belonges....
... Descendinge then in riper years to stuffe of further reache,
Thy schooled Quill by deeper skill did graver matters teache,
And now to knit a perfect Knot; In winter of thine age
Such argument thou chosen hast for this thy Style full sage.
As far surmounts the Residue.

Newton’s account of his friend’s poetic evolution seems to assign his
‘enterludes’ to an early period of mainly secular verse; but if this
preceded his _Certayne Psalmes_ of 1550, which are surely of ‘graver
matters’, it must have gone back to Henry VIII’s reign, far away from
his Mastership. On the other hand, Hunnis was certainly contributing
secular verse and devices to the Kenilworth festivities (cf. s.v.
Gascoigne) only three years before Newton wrote. Mrs. Stopes suggests,
with some plausibility, that the Amargana songs of _England’s Helicon_
may come from an interlude. She also assigns to Hunnis, by conjecture,
_Godly Queen Hester_, in which stress is laid on Hester’s Chapel Royal,
and _Jacob and Esau_ (1568, S. R. 1557–8), which suggests gardens.

LEONARD HUTTEN (_c._ 1557–1632).

Possibly the author of the academic _Bellum Grammaticale_ (cf. App. K).

THOMAS INGELEND.

Lee (_D. N. B._) conjecturally identifies Ingelend with a man of the
same name who married a Northamptonshire heiress.

_The Disobedient Child, c. 1560_

_S. R._ 1569–70. ‘An enterlude for boyes to handle and to passe tyme
at christinmas.’ _Thomas Colwell_ (Arber, i. 398). [The method of
exhaustions points to this as the entry of the play.]

N.D. A pretie and Mery new Enterlude: called the Disobedient Child.
Compiled by Thomas Ingelend late Student in Cambridge. _Thomas Colwell._

_Editions_ by J. O. Halliwell (1848, _Percy Soc._ lxxv), in Dodsley^4
(1874, ii), and by J. S. Farmer (1908, _T. F. T._).--_Dissertation_: F.
Holthausen, _Studien zum älteren englischen Drama_ (1902, _E. S._ xxxi.
90).

J. Bolte, _Vahlen-Festschrift_, 594, regards this as a translation of
the _Iuvenis, Pater, Uxor_ of J. Ravisius Textor (_Dialogi_, ed. 1651,
71), which Holthausen reprints, but which is only a short piece in one
scene. Brandl, lxxiii, traces the influence of the _Studentes_ (1549)
of Christopherus Stymmelius (Bahlmann, _Lat. Dr._ 98). The closing
prayer is for Elizabeth.

JAMES I (1566–1625).

_An Epithalamion on the Marquis of Huntly’s Marriage.
21 July 1588_

R. S. Rait, _Lusus Regis_ (1901), 2, printed from _Bodleian MS._ 27843
verses by James I, which he dated _c._ 1581. The occasion and correct
date are supplied by another text, with a title, in A. F. Westcott,
_New Poems of James I_ (1911). The bridal pair were George Gordon,
6th Earl and afterwards 1st Marquis of Huntly, and Henrietta Stuart,
daughter of Esme, Duke of Lennox. The verses consist of a hymeneal
dialogue, with a preliminary invocation by the writer, and speeches by
Mercury, Nimphes, Agrestis, Skolar, Woman, The Vertuouse Man, Zani,
The Landvart Gentleman, The Soldat. The earlier lines seem intended to
accompany a tilting at the ring or some such contest, but at l. 74 is a
reference to the coming of ‘strangers in a maske’.

Westcott, lviii, says that James helped William Fowler in devising a
mimetic show for the banquet at the baptism of Prince Henry on 23 Aug.
1594.

JOHN JEFFERE (?-?).

Nothing is known of him, beyond his possible authorship of the
following play:

_The Bugbears. 1563 <_

[_MS._] _Lansdowne MS._ 807, f. 57. [The MS. contains the relics
of John Warburton’s collection, and on a slip once attached to the
fly-leaf is his famous list of burnt plays, which includes ‘Bugbear
C. Jo^n. Geffrey’ (Greg in _3 Library_, ii. 232). It appears to be
the work of at least five hands, of which one, acting as a corrector,
as well as a scribe, may be that of the author. The initials J. B.
against a line or two inserted at the end do not appear to be his, but,
as there was no single scribe, he may be writer of a final note to
the text, written in printing characters, ‘Soli deo honor et gloria
Johannus Jeffere scribebat hoc’. This note is followed by the songs and
their music, and at the top of the first is written ‘Giles peperel for
Iphiginia’. On the last page are the names ‘Thomas Ba ...’ and ‘Frances
Whitton’, which probably do not indicate authorship. A title-page may
be missing, and a later hand has written at the head of the text, ‘The
Buggbears’.]

_Editions_ by C. Grabau (1896–7, _Archiv_, xcviii. 301; xcix. 311) and
R. W. Bond (1911, _E. P. I._).--_Dissertation_: W. Dibelius (_Archiv_,
cxii. 204).

The play is an adaptation of A. F. Grazzini, _La Spiritata_ (1561), and
uses also material from J. Weier (_De Praestigiis Daemonum_) (1563) and
from the life of Michel de Nôtredame (Nostradamus), not necessarily
later than his death in 1566. Bond is inclined to date the play, partly
on metrical grounds, about 1564 or 1565. Grabau and Dibelius suggest a
date after 1585, apparently under the impression that the name Giles
in the superscription to the music may indicate the composition of
Nathaniel Giles, of the Chapel Royal, who took his Mus. Bac. in 1585.
But the name, whether of a composer, or of the actor of the part of
Iphigenia, is Giles Peperel. The performers were ‘boyes’, but the
temptation to identify the play with the _Effiginia_ shown by Paul’s at
Court on 28 Dec. 1571 is repressed by the description of _Effiginia_ in
the Revels account as a ‘tragedye’, whereas _The Bugbears_ is a comedy.
Moreover, Iphigenia is not a leading part, although one added by the
English adapter.

LAURENCE JOHNSON (_c._ 1577).

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

BENJAMIN JONSON (1572–1637).

Benjamin Johnson, or Jonson, as he took the fancy to spell his name,
was born, probably on 11 June 1572, at Westminster, after the death
of his father, a minister, of Scottish origin. He was withheld, or
withdrawn, from the University education justified by his scholastic
attainments at Westminster to follow his step-father’s occupation
of bricklaying, and when this proved intolerable, he served as a
soldier in the Netherlands. In a prologue to _The Sad Shepherd_, left
unfinished at his death in August 1637, he describes himself as ‘He
that has feasted you these forty years’, and by 1597 at latest his
connexion with the stage had begun. Aubrey tells us (ii. 12, 226) that
he ‘acted and wrote, but both ill, at the Green Curtaine, a kind of
nursery or obscure play-house, somewhere in the suburbes (I thinke
towards Shoreditch or Clarkenwell)’, and again that he ‘was never a
good actor, but an excellent instructor’. The earliest contemporary
records, however, show Jonson not at the Curtain, but on the Bankside.
On 28 July 1597 Henslowe (i. 200) recorded a personal loan to ‘Bengemen
Johnson player’ of £4 ‘to be payd yt agayne when so euer ether I or any
for me shall demande yt’, and on the very same day he opened on another
page of his diary (i. 47) an account headed ‘Received of Bengemenes
Johnsones share as ffoloweth 1597’ and entered in it the receipt of
a single sum of 3_s._ 9_d._, to which no addition was ever made. Did
these entries stand alone, one would infer, on the analogy of other
transactions of Henslowe’s and from the signatures of two Admiral’s
men as witnesses to the loan, that Jonson had purchased a share in
the Admiral’s company for £4, that he borrowed the means to do this
from Henslowe, and that Henslowe was to recoup himself by periodical
deductions from the takings of the company as they passed through his
hands. But there is no other evidence that Jonson ever had an interest
in the Admiral’s, and there are facts which, if one could believe that
Henslowe would regard the takings of any company but the Admiral’s as
security for a loan, would lead to the conclusion that Jonson’s ‘share’
was with Pembroke’s men at the Swan. The day of Henslowe’s entries,
28 July 1597, is the very day on which the theatres were suppressed
as a result of the performance of _The Isle of Dogs_ (cf. App. D, No.
cx), and it is hardly possible to doubt that Jonson was one of the
actors who had a hand with Nashe (q.v.) in that play. The Privy Council
registers record his release, with Shaw and Spencer of Pembroke’s
men, from the Marshalsea on 3 Oct. 1597 (Dasent, xxviii. 33; cf. App.
D, No. cxii); while Dekker in _Satiromastix_ (l. 1513) makes Horace
admit that he had played Zulziman in Paris Garden, and Tucca upbraid
him because ‘when the Stagerites banisht thee into the Ile of Dogs,
thou turn’dst Bandog (villanous Guy) & ever since bitest’. The same
passage confirms Aubrey’s indication that Jonson was actor, and a bad
actor, as well as poet. ‘Thou putst vp a supplication’, says Tucca, ‘to
be a poor iorneyman player, and hadst beene still so, but that thou
couldst not set a good face vpon ’t: thou hast forgot how thou amblest
(in leather pilch) by a play-wagon, in the high way, and took’st mad
Ieronimoes part, to get seruice among the mimickes.’ Elsewhere (l. 633)
Tucca taunts him that ‘when thou ranst mad for the death of Horatio,
thou borrowedst a gowne of Roscius the stager, (that honest Nicodemus)
and sentst it home lowsie’. This imprisonment for the _Isle of Dogs_
is no doubt the ‘bondage’ for his ‘first error’ to which Jonson refers
in writing to Salisbury about _Eastward Ho!_ in 1605, and the ‘close
imprisonment, under Queen Elizabeth’, during which he told Drummond he
was beset by spies (Laing, 19). Released, Jonson borrowed 5_s._ more
from Henslowe (i. 200) on 5 Jan. 1598, and entered into a relationship
with him and the Admiral’s as a dramatist, which lasted intermittently
until 1602. It was broken, not only by plays for the King’s men,
whose employment of him, which may have been at the Curtain, was due,
according to Rowe, to the critical instinct of Shakespeare (H.-P.
ii. 74), and for the Chapel children when these were established at
Blackfriars in 1600, but also by a quarrel with Gabriel Spencer, whose
death at his hands during a duel with swords in Hoxton Fields on 22
Sept. 1598 was ‘harde & heavey’ news to Henslowe (_Henslowe Papers_,
48) and brought Jonson to trial for murder, from which he only escaped
by reading his neck-verse (Jeaffreson, _Middlesex County Records_,
i. xxxviii; iv. 350; cf. Laing, 19). Jonson’s pen was critical, and
to the years 1600–2 belongs the series of conflicts with other poets
and with the actors generically known as the _Poetomachia_ or Stage
Quarrel (cf. ch. xi). Meanwhile Jonson, perhaps encouraged by his
success in introducing a mask into _Cynthia’s Revels_ (1601), seems to
have conceived the ambition of becoming a Court poet. At first he was
not wholly successful, and the selection of Daniel to write the chief
Christmas mask of 1603–4 appears to have provoked an antagonism between
the two poets, which shows itself in Jonson’s qualified acknowledgement
to Lady Rutland of the favours done him by Lady Bedford (_Forest_, xii):

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

and long after in the remark to Drummond (Laing, 10) that ‘Daniel was
at jealousies with him’. But the mask was a form of art singularly
suited to Jonson’s genius. In the next year he came to his own, and
of ten masks at Court during 1605–12 not less than eight are his.
This employment secured him a considerable vogue as a writer of
entertainments and complimentary verses, and a standing with James
himself, with the Earl of Salisbury, and with other persons of honour,
which not only brought him pecuniary profit, but also enabled him to
withstand the political attacks made upon _Sejanus_, for which he was
haled before the Council, and upon _Eastward Ho!_, for which he was
once more imprisoned. During this period he continued to write plays,
with no undue frequency, both for the King’s men and for the Queen’s
Revels and their successors, the Lady Elizabeth’s. As a rule, he had
published his plays, other than those bought by Henslowe, soon after
they were produced, and in 1612 he seems to have formed the design of
collecting them, with his masks and occasional verses, into a volume
of Works. Probably the design was deferred, owing to his absence in
France as tutor to the son of Sir Walter Raleigh, from the autumn of
1612 (_M. P._ xi. 279) to some date in 1613 earlier than 29 June, when
he witnessed the burning of the Globe (_M. L. R._ iv. 83). For the
same reason he took no part in the masks for the Princess Elizabeth’s
wedding at Shrovetide. But he returned in time for that of the Earl of
Somerset at Christmas 1613, and wrote three more masks before his folio
_Works_ actually appeared in 1616. In the same year he received a royal
pension of 100 marks.

Jonson’s later life can only be briefly summarized. During a visit to
Scotland he paid a visit to William Drummond of Hawthornden in January
1619, and of his conversation his host took notes which preserve many
biographical details and many critical utterances upon the men, books,
and manners of his time. In 1621 (cf. ch. iii) he obtained a reversion
of the Mastership of the Revels, which he never lived to enjoy. His
masks continued until 1631, when an unfortunate quarrel with Inigo
Jones brought them to an end. His play-writing, dropped after 1616,
was resumed about 1625, and to this period belong his share in _The
Bloody Brother_ of the Beaumont and Fletcher series, _The Staple of
News_, _The New Inn_, _The Magnetic Lady_, and _The Tale of a Tub_.
In 1637, probably on 6 August, he died. He had told Drummond ‘that
the half of his comedies were not in print’, as well as that ‘of all
his playes he never gained two hundreth pounds’ (Laing, 27, 35), and
in 1631 he began the publication, by instalments, of a second volume
of his Works. This was completed after his death, with the aid of Sir
Kenelm Digby, in 1640 and 1641. But it did not include _The Case is
Altered_, the printing of which in 1609 probably lacked his authority,
or the Henslowe plays, of which his manuscripts, if he had any, may
have perished when his library was burnt in 1623.

_Collections_

_F_{1}_ (_1616_)

_S. R._ 1615, Jan. 20 (Tavernour). William Stansbye, ‘Certayne Masques
at the Court never yet printed written by Ben Johnson’ (Arber, iii.
562).

1616. The Workes of Beniamin Jonson. _W. Stansby, sold by Rich.
Meighen._ [Contains (_a_) commendatory verses, some reprinted from Qq,
signed ‘I. Selden I.C.’, ‘Ed. Heyward’, ‘Geor. Chapman’, ‘H. Holland’,
‘I. D.’, ‘E. Bolton’, and for three sets ‘Franc. Beaumont’; (_b_) nine
plays, being all printed in Q, except _The Case is Altered_; (_c_)
the five early entertainments; (_d_) the eleven early masks and two
barriers, with separate title-page ‘Masques at Court, London, 1616’;
(_e_) non-dramatic matter. For bibliographical details on both Ff.,
see B. Nicholson, _B. J.’s Folios and the Bibliographers_ (1870, _4 N.
Q._ v. 573); Greg, _Plays_, 55, and _Masques_, xiii, 11; G. A. Aitken,
_B. J.’s Works_ (_10 N. Q._ xi. 421); the introductions to the Yale
editions; and B. A. P. van Dam and C. Stoffel, _The Authority of the B.
J. Folio of 1616_ (1903, _Anglia_, xxvi. 377), whose conclusion that
Jonson did not supervise F_{1} is not generally accepted. It is to be
noted that, contrary to the usual seventeenth-century practice, some,
and possibly all, of the dates assigned to productions in F_{1} follow
the Circumcision and not the Annunciation style; cf. Thorndike, 17,
whose demonstration leaves it conceivable that Jonson only adopted the
change of style from a given date, say, 1 Jan. 1600, when it came into
force in Scotland.]

_F_{2}_ (_1631–41_)

1640. The Workes of Beniamin Jonson. _Richard Bishop, sold by Andrew
Crooke._ [Same contents as F_{1}.]

1640. The Workes of Benjamin Jonson. The second volume. Containing
these Playes, Viz. 1 Bartholomew Fayre. 2 The Staple of Newes. 3 The
Divell is an Asse. _For Richard Meighen._ [Contains (_a_) reissue of
folio sheets of three plays named with separate title-pages of 1631;
(_b_) _The Magnetic Lady_, _A Tale of a Tub_, _The Sad Shepherd_,
_Mortimer his Fall_; (_c_) later masks; (_d_) non-dramatic matter. The
editor is known to have been Sir Kenelm Digby.]

_S. R._ 1658, Sept. 17. ‘A booke called Ben Johnsons Workes ye 3^d
volume containing these peeces, viz^t. Ffifteene masques at court and
elsewhere. Horace his art of Poetry Englished. English Gramar. Timber
or Discoveries. Underwoods consisting of divers poems. The Magnetick
Lady. A Tale of a Tub. The sad shephard or a tale of Robin hood. The
Devill is an asse. Salvo iure cuiuscunque. _Thomas Walkley_ (Eyre,
ii. 196).

1658, Nov. 20. Transfer of ‘Ben Johnsons workes ye 3^d vol’ from
Walkley to Humphrey Moseley (Eyre, ii. 206). [Neither Walkley nor
Moseley ever published the _Works_.]

_F_{3}_ (_1692_)

1692. The Works of Ben Jonson, Which were formerly Printed in Two
Volumes, are now Reprinted in One. To which is added a Comedy, called
the New Inn. With Additions never before Published. _Thomas Hodgkin,
for H. Herringham_ [&c.].

The more important of the later collections are:

1756. P. Whalley, _The Works of B. J._ 7 vols. [Adds _The Case is
Altered_.]

1816, 1846. W. Gifford, _The Works of B. J._ 9 vols.

1828. J. Nichols, _The Progresses, Processions and Magnificent
Festivities of King James the First_. 4 vols. [Prints the masks.]

1871, &c. W. Gifford, edited by F. Cunningham, _The Works of B. J._ 3
vols.

1875. W. Gifford, edited by F. Cunningham, _The Works of B. J._ 9 vols.

1893–5. B. Nicholson, _The Best Plays of B. J._ 3 vols. (_Mermaid
Series_). [The nine plays of F_{1}.]

1905–8 (_in progress_). W. Bang, _B. J.’s Dramen in Neudruck
herausgegeben nach der Folio 1616_. (_Materialien_, vi.)

1906. H. C. Hart, _The Plays of B. J._ 2 vols. (_Methuen’s Standard
Library_). [_Case is Altered_, _E. M. I._, _E. M. O._, _Cynthia’s
Revels_, _Poetaster_.]

In the absence of a complete modern critical edition, such as is
promised by C. H. Herford and P. Simpson from the Clarendon Press,
reference must usually be made to the editions of single plays in the
_Yale Studies_ and _Belles Lettres Series_.

_Select Dissertations_: W. R. Chetwood, _Memoirs of the Life and
Writings of B. J._ (1756); O. Gilchrist, _An Examination of the
Charges of B. J.’s Enmity to Shakespeare_ (1808), _A Letter to W.
Gifford_ (1811); D. Laing, _Notes of B. J.’s Conversations with
Drummond of Hawthornden_ (1842, _Sh. Soc._); B. Nicholson, _The
Orthography of B. J.’s Name_ (1880, _Antiquary_, ii. 55); W. Wilke,
_Metrische Untersuchungen zu B. J._ (1884, _Halle diss._), _Anwendung
der Rhyme-test und Double-endings test auf. B. J.’s Dramen_ (1888,
_Anglia_, x. 512); J. A. Symonds, _B. J._ (1888, _English Worthies_);
A. C. Swinburne, _A Study of B. J._ (1889); P. Aronstein, _B. J.’s
Theorie des Lustspiels_ (1895, _Anglia_, xvii. 466), _Shakespeare and
B. J._ (1904, _E. S._ xxxiv. 193); _B. J._ (1906, _Literarhistorische
Forschungen_, xxxiv); E. Koeppel, _Quellen-Studien zu den Dramen B.
J.’s, John Marston’s, und Beaumont und Fletcher’s_ (1895, _Münchener
Beiträge_, xi), _B. J.’s Wirkung auf zeitgenössische Dramatiker_ (1906,
_Anglistische Forschungen_, xx); J. H. Penniman, _The War of the
Theatres_ (1897, _Pennsylvania Univ. Series_, iv. 3); E. Woodbridge,
_Studies in J.’s Comedy_ (1898, _Yale Studies_, v); R. A. Small, _The
Stage-Quarrel between B. J. and the so-called Poetasters_ (1899); B.
Dobell, _Newly Discovered Documents_ (1901, _Athenaeum_, i. 369, 403,
433, 465); J. Hofmiller, _Die ersten sechs Masken B. J.’s in ihrem
Verhältnis zur antiken Literatur_ (1901, _Freising progr._); H. C.
Hart, _B. J., Gabriel Harvey and Nash_, &c. (1903–4, _9 N. Q._ xi. 201,
281, 343, 501; xii. 161, 263, 342, 403, 482; _10 N. Q._ i. 381); G.
Sarrazin, _Nym und B. J._ (1904, _Jahrbuch_, xl. 212); M, Castelain,
_B. J., l’Homme et l’Œuvre_ (1907); _Shakespeare and B. J._ (1907,
_Revue Germanique_, iii. 21, 133); C. R. Baskervill, _English Elements
in J.’s Early Comedy_ (1911, _Texas Univ. Bulletin_, 178); W. D.
Briggs, _Studies in B. J._ (1913–14, _Anglia_, xxxvii. 463; xxxviii.
101), _On Certain Incidents in B. J.’s Life_ (1913, _M. P._ xi. 279),
_The Birth-date of B. J._ (1918, _M. L. N._ xxxiii. 137); G. Gregory
Smith, _Ben Jonson_ (1919, _English Men of Letters_); J. Q. Adams, _The
Bones of Ben Jonson_ (1919, _S. P._ xvi. 289). For fuller lists, see
Castelain, xxiii, and _C. H._ vi. 417.

PLAYS

_The Case is Altered. 1597 (?)-1609_

_S. R._ 1609, Jan. 26 (Segar, ‘deputy to Sir George Bucke’). ‘A booke
called The case is altered.’ _Henry Walley_, _Richard Bonion_ (Arber,
iii. 400).

1609, July 20. ‘Entred for their copie by direction of master Waterson
warden, a booke called the case is altered whiche was entred for H.
Walley and Richard Bonyon the 26 of January last.’ _Henry Walley_,
_Richard Bonyon_, _Bartholomew Sutton_ (Arber, iii. 416).

1609. [Three issues, with different t.ps.]

(_a_) Ben: Ionson, His Case is Alterd. As it hath beene sundry times
Acted by the Children of the Blacke-friers. _For Bartholomew Sutton._
[B.M. 644, b. 54.]

(_b_) A Pleasant Comedy, called: The Case is Alterd. As it hath beene
sundry times acted by the children of the Black-friers. Written by Ben.
Ionson. _For Bartholomew Sutton and William Barrenger._ [B.M. T. 492
(9); Bodl.; W. A. White.]

(_c_) A Pleasant Comedy, called: The Case is Alterd. As it hath
been sundry times acted by the children of the Black-friers. _For
Bartholomew Sutton and William Barrenger._ [Devonshire.]

_Edition_ by W. E. Selin (1917, _Yale Studies_, lvi).--_Dissertation_:
C. Crawford, _B. J.’s C. A.: its Date_ (1909, _10 N. Q._ xi. 41).

As Nashe, _Lenten Stuff_ (_Works_, iii. 220), which was entered in S.
R. on 11 Jan. 1599, refers to ‘the merry coblers cutte in that witty
play of _the Case is altered_’, and as I. i chaffs Anthony Munday as
‘in print already for the best plotter’, alluding to the description of
him in Francis Meres’s _Palladis Tamia_ (S. R. 7 Sept. 1598), the date
would seem at first sight to be closely fixed to the last few months of
1598. But I. i has almost certainly undergone interpolation. Antonio
Balladino, who appears in this scene alone, and whose dramatic function
is confused with that later (II. vii) assigned to Valentine, is only
introduced for the sake of a satirical portrait of Munday. He is
‘pageant poet to the City of Milan’, at any rate ‘when a worse cannot
be had’. He boasts that ‘I do use as much stale stuff, though I say it
myself, as any man does in that kind’, and again, ‘An they’ll give me
twenty pound a play, I’ll not raise my vein’. Some ‘will have every
day new tricks, and write you nothing but humours’; this pleases the
gentlemen, but he is for ‘the penny’. Crawford points out that there
are four quotations from the play in Bodenham’s _Belvedere_ (1600), of
which Munday was the compiler, and suggests that he would have left it
alone had the ridicule of himself then been a part of it. I should put
the scene later still. Antonio makes an offer of ‘one of the books’
of his last pageant, and as far as is known, although Munday may have
been arranging city pageants long before, the first which he printed
was that for 1605. Nor does the reference to plays of ‘tricks’ and
‘humours’ necessarily imply proximity to Jonson’s own early comedies,
for Day’s _Law Tricks_ and his _Humour out of Breath_, as well as
probably the anonymous _Every Woman in her Humour_, belong to 1604–8.
Moreover, the play was certainly on the stage about this time, since
the actors are called ‘Children of Blackfriars’, although of course
this would not be inconsistent with their having first produced it when
they bore some other name. The text is in an odd state. Up to the end
of Act III it has been arranged in scenes, on the principle usually
adopted by Jonson; after ‘Actus 3 [an error for 4] Scaene 1’ there is
no further division, and in Act V verse and prose are confused. As
Jonson was careful about the printing of his plays, as there is no
epistle, and as _C. A._ was left out of the Ff., there is some reason
to suppose that the publication in this state was not due to him. Is
it possible that Day, whom Jonson described to Drummond as a ‘rogue’
and a ‘base fellow’, was concerned in this transaction? It is obvious
that, if I. i is a later addition, the original production may have
been earlier than 1598. And the original company is unknown. The mere
fact that the Children of the Blackfriars revived it shortly before
1609 does not in the least prove that it was originally written for
the Children of the Chapel. If Chapman’s _All Fools_ is a Blackfriars
revival of an Admiral’s play, _C. A._ might even more easily be a
Blackfriars revival of a play written, say, for the extinct Pembroke’s.
With the assumption that _C. A._ was a Chapel play disappears the
assumption that the Chapel themselves began their renewed dramatic
activities at a date earlier than the end of 1600. Selin shows a fair
amount of stylistic correspondence with Jonson’s other work, but it is
quite possible that, as suggested by Herford (_R. E. C._ ii. 9), he had
a collaborator. If so, Chapman seems plausible.

_C. A._ has nothing to do with the _Poetomachia_. Hart (_9 N. Q._ xi.
501, xii. 161, 263) finds in the vocabulary of Juniper a parody of the
affected phraseology of Gabriel Harvey, and in the critical attitude of
Valentine a foreshadowing of such autobiographical studies as that of
Asper in _E. M. O._ His suggestion that the cudgel-play between Onion
and Martino in II. vii represents the controversy between Nashe and
Martin Marprelate is perhaps less plausible. Nashe would be very likely
to think the chaff of Harvey ‘witty’.

_Every Man In his Humour. 1598_

_S. R._ [1600], Aug. 4. ‘Euery man in his humour, a booke ... to be
staied’ (Arber, iii. 37). [_As You Like It_, _Henry V_, and _Much
Ado about Nothing_ are included in the entry, which appears to be an
exceptional memorandum. The year 1600 is conjectured from the fact that
the entry follows another of May 1600.]

1600, Aug. 14 (Pasfield). ‘A booke called Euery man in his humour.’
_Burby and Walter Burre_ (Arber, iii. 169).

1609, Oct. 16. Transfer of Mrs. Burby’s share to Welby (Arber, iii.
421).

1601. Every Man In his Humor. As it hath beene sundry times publickly
acted by the right Honorable the Lord Chamberlaine his seruants.
Written by Ben. Iohnson. _For Walter Burre._

1616. Euery Man In His Humour. A Comœdie. Acted in the yeere 1598.
By the then Lord Chamberlaine his Seruants. The Author B. I. _By
William Stansby._ [Part of F_{1}. Epistle to William Camden, signed
‘Ben. Ionson’, and Prologue. After text: ‘This Comoedie was first
Acted, in the yeere 1598. By the then L. Chamberlayne his Seruants.
The principall Comœdians were, Will. Shakespeare, Ric. Burbadge,
Aug. Philips, Ioh. Hemings, Hen. Condel, Tho. Pope, Will. Slye, Chr.
Beeston, Will. Kempe, Ioh. Duke. With the allowance of the Master of
Revells.’]

_Editions_ by W. Scott (1811, _M. B. D._ iii), H. B. Wheatley (1877),
W. M. Dixon (1901, _T. D._), H. Maas (1901, _Rostock diss._), W. A.
Neilson (1911, _C. E. D._), C. H. Herford (1913, _R. E. C._ ii), P.
Simpson (1919), H. H. Carter (1921, _Yale Studies_, lii), and facsimile
reprints of Q_{1} by C. Grabau (1902, _Jahrbuch_, xxxviii. 1), W.
Bang and W. W. Greg (1905, _Materialien_, x).--_Dissertations_: A.
Buff, _The Quarto Edition of B. J.’s E. M. I._ (1877, _E. S._ i. 181),
B. Nicholson, _On the Dates of the Two Versions of E. M. I._ (1882,
_Antiquary_, vi. 15, 106).

The date assigned by F_{1} is confirmed by an allusion (IV. iv. 15) to
the ‘fencing Burgullian’ or Burgundian, John Barrose, who challenged
all fencers in that year, and was hanged for murder on 10 July (Stowe,
_Annales_, 787). The production must have been shortly before 20 Sept,
when Toby Mathew wrote to Dudley Carleton (_S. P. D. Eliz._ cclxviii.
61; Simpson, ix) of an Almain who lost 300 crowns at ‘a new play
called, Euery mans humour’. Two short passages were taken from the
play in R. Allot’s _England’s Parnassus_ (1600, ed. Crawford, xxxii.
110, 112, 436) which is earlier than Q_{1}. The Q_{1} text (I. i. 184)
contains a hit at Anthony Munday in ‘that he liue in more penurie of
wit and inuention, then eyther the Hall-Beadle, or Poet Nuntius’.
This has disappeared from F_{1}, which in other respects represents a
complete revision of the Q_{1} text. Many passages have been improved
from a literary point of view; the scene has been transferred from
Italy to London and the names anglicized; the oaths have all been
expunged or softened. Fleay, i. 358, finding references to a ‘queen’ in
F_{1} for the ‘duke’ of Q_{1} and an apparent dating of St. Mark’s Day
on a Friday, assigned the revision to 1601, and conjectured that it was
done by Jonson for the Chapel, that the Chamberlain’s published the Q
in revenge, and that Jonson tried to stay it. Here he is followed by
Castelain. But Q_{1} is a good edition and there is no sign whatever
that it had not Jonson’s authority, and as the entry in S. R. covers
other Chamberlain’s plays, it is pretty clear that the company caused
the ‘staying’. St. Mark’s Day did not, as Fleay thought, fall on a
Friday in 1601, and if it had, the dating is unchanged from Q_{1} and
the references to a queen may, as Simpson suggests, be due to Jonson’s
conscientious desire to preserve consistency with the original date of
1598. Nor is the play likely to have passed to the Chapel, since the
King’s men played it before James on 2 Feb. 1605 (cf. App. B). This
revival would be the natural time for a revision, and in fact seems to
me on the whole the most likely date, in spite of two trifling bits
of evidence which would fit in rather better a year later. These are
references to the siege of Strigonium or Graan (1595) as ten years
since (III. i. 103), and to a present by the Turkey company to the
Grand Signior (I. ii. 78), which was perhaps the gift worth £5,000
sent about Christmas 1605 (_S. P. D. Jac. I_, xv. 3; xvii. 35; xx.
27). No doubt also the revision of oaths in Jacobean plays is usually
taken as due to the _Act against Abuses of Players_ (1606), although
it is conceivable that the personal taste of James may have required
a similar revision of plays selected for Court performance at an
earlier date. Or this particular bit of revision, which was done for
other plays before F_{1}, may be of later date than the rest. Simpson
is in favour, largely on literary grounds, for a revision in 1612,
in preparation for F_{1}. The Prologue, which is not in Q, probably
belongs to the revision, or at any rate to a revival later than 1598,
since it criticizes not only ‘Yorke, and Lancasters long jarres’, but
also plays in which ‘Chorus wafts you ore the seas’, as in _Henry V_
(1599). These allusions would not come so well in 1612; on the other
hand, Simpson’s date would enable us to suppose that the play in which
the public ‘grac’d monsters’ was the _Tempest_ (cf. the similar jibe
in _Bartholomew Fair_). The character Matheo or Mathew represents a
young gull of literary tendencies, and is made to spout passages from,
or imitations of, Daniel’s verses. Perhaps this implies some indirect
criticism of Daniel, but it can hardly be regarded as a personal attack
upon him.

_Every Man Out of his Humour. 1599_

_S. R._ 1600, April 8 (Harsnett). ‘A Comicall Satyre of euery man out
of his humour.’ _William Holme_ (Arber, iii. 159).

1638, April 28. Transfer by Smethwicke to Bishop (Arber, iv. 417).

Q_{1}, 1600. The Comicall Satyre of Every Man Out Of His Humor. As
it was first composed by the Author B. I. Containing more than hath
been Publickely Spoken or Acted. With the seuerall Character of euery
Person. _For William Holme._ [Names and description of Characters;
Publisher’s note, ‘It was not neere his thoughts that hath publisht
this, either to traduce the Authour; or to make vulgar and cheape, any
the peculiar & sufficient deserts of the Actors; but rather (whereas
many Censures flutter’d about it) to giue all leaue, and leisure, to
iudge with Distinction’; Induction, by Asper, who becomes Macilente
and speaks Epilogue, Carlo Buffone who speaks in lieu of Prologue, and
Mitis and Cordatus, who remain on stage as Grex or typical spectators.]

Q_{2}, 1600. [_Peter Short_] _For William Holme_. [W. W. Greg (1920,
_4 Library_, i. 153) distinguished Q_{1}, of which he found a copy in
Brit. Mus. C. 34, i. 29, from Q_{2}, (Bodl. and Dyce).]

Q_{3}, 1600. _For Nicholas Linge._ [‘A careless and ignorant reprint’
(Greg) of Q_{1}.]

F_{1}, 1616. Euery Man Out Of His Humour. A Comicall Satyre. Acted
in the yeere 1599. By the then Lord Chamberlaine his Seruants. The
Author B. I. _William Stansby for Iohn Smithwicke._ [Epistle to the
Inns of Court, signed ‘Ben. Ionson’. After text: ‘This Comicall Satyre
was first acted in the yeere 1599. By the then Lord Chamberlaine his
Seruants. The principall Comœdians were, Ric. Burbadge, Ioh. Hemings,
Aug. Philips, Hen. Condel, Wil. Sly, Tho. Pope. With the allowance of
the Master of Revels.’]

_Facsimile reprints_ of Q_{1} by W. W. Greg and F. P. Wilson (1920, _M.
S. R._) and of Q_{2, 3} by W. Bang and W. W. Greg (1907, _Materialien_,
xvi, xvii).--_Dissertations_: C. A. Herpich, _Shakespeare and B. J. Did
They Quarrel?_ (1902, _9 N. Q._ ix. 282); Van Dam and C. Stoffel, _The
Authority of the B. J. Folio of 1616_ (1903, _Anglia_, xxvi. 377); W.
Bang, _B. J. und Castiglione’s Cortegiano_ (1906, _E. S._ xxxvi. 330).

In the main the text of F_{1} follows that of Q_{1} with some slight
revision of wording and oaths. The arrangement of the epilogues is
somewhat different, but seems intended to represent the same original
stage history. In Q_{1} Macilente speaks an epilogue, ‘with Aspers
tongue (though not his shape)’, evidently used in the theatre as it
begs ‘The happier spirits in this faire-fild Globe’ to confirm applause

as their pleasures Pattent: which so sign’d,
Our leane and spent Endeuours shall renue
Their Beauties with the _Spring_ to smile on you.

Then comes a ‘Finis’ and on the next page, ‘It had another
_Catastrophe_ or Conclusion at the first Playing: which (διὰ τὸ
τὴν βασίλισσαν προσωποποιεῖσθαι) many seem’d not to relish it: and
therefore ’twas since alter’d: yet that a right-ei’d and solide
_Reader_ may perceiue it was not so great a part of the Heauen awry,
as they would make it; we request him but to looke downe vpon these
following Reasons.’ There follows an apology, from which it is clear
that originally Macilente was cured of his envious humour by the
appearance on the stage of the Queen; and this introduces a different
epilogue of the nature of an address to her. At the end of all comes
a short dialogue between Macilente, as Asper, and the _Grex_. There
is no mention of the Globe, but as the whole point of the objection
to this epilogue, which it is not suggested that Elizabeth herself
shared, lay in the miming of the Queen, one would take it, did the
Q_{1} stand alone, to have been, like its substitute, a theatre and
not a Court epilogue. In F_{1}, however, we get successively (_a_) a
shortened version of the later epilogue, (_b_) the dialogue with the
_Grex_, followed by ‘The End’, and (_c_) a version of the original
epilogue, altered so as to make it less of a direct address and headed
‘Which, in the presentation before Queen E. was thus varyed’. It seems
to me a little difficult to believe that the play was given at Court
before it had been ‘practised’ in public performances, and I conclude
that, having suppressed the address to a mimic Elizabeth at the Globe,
Jonson revived it in a slightly altered form when he took the play
to Court at Christmas. As to the date of production, Fleay, i. 361,
excels himself in the suggestion that ‘the mention of “spring” and the
allusion to the company’s new “patent” for the Globe in the epilogue’
fix it to _c._ April 1599. Even if this were the original epilogue,
it alludes to a coming and not a present spring, and might have been
written at any time in the winter, either before or after the New Year.
Obviously, too, there can be no allusion to an Elizabethan patent for
the Globe, which never existed. I do not agree with Small, 21, that
the Globe was not opened until early in 1600, nor do I think that any
inference can be drawn from the not very clear notes of dramatic time
in I. iii and III. ii. At first sight it seems natural to suppose that
the phrase ‘would I had one of Kempes shooes to throw after you’ (IV.
v) was written later than at any rate the planning of the famous morris
to Norwich, which lasted from 11 Feb. to 11 March 1600 and at the end
of which Kempe hung his shoes in Norwich Guildhall. Certainly it cannot
refer, as Fleay thinks, merely to Kempe’s leaving the Chamberlain’s
men. Conceivably it might be an interpolation of later date than the
original production. Creizenach, 303, however, points out that in 1599
Thomas Platter saw a comedy in which a servant took off his shoe and
threw it at his master, and suggests that this was a bit of common-form
stage clownery, in which case the Norwich dance would not be concerned.
The performance described by Platter was in September or October, and
apparently at the Curtain (cf. ch. xvi, introd.). Kempe may quite
well have been playing then at the Curtain with a fresh company after
the Chamberlain’s moved to the Globe. Perhaps the episode had already
found a place in Phillips’s _Jig of the Slippers_, printed in 1595
and now lost (cf. ch. xviii). If 1600 is the date of _E. M. O._, the
Court performance may have been that of 3 February, or perhaps more
probably may have fallen in the following winter, which would explain
the divergence between Q_{1} and F_{1} as to the epilogues. But it
must be remembered that the F_{1} date is 1599, and that most, if not
quite all, of the F_{1} dates follow Circumcision style, although
Jonson may not have adopted this style as early as 1600. On the whole,
I think that the balance of probability is distinctly in favour of
1599. If so, the production must have been fairly late in that year,
as there is a hit (III. i) at the _Histriomastix_ of the same autumn.
The play has been hunted through and through for personalities, most
of which are effectively refuted by Small. Most of the characters are
types rather than individuals, and social types rather than literary
or stage types. I do not think there are portraits of Daniel, Lyly,
Drayton, Donne, Chapman, Munday, Shakespeare, Burbadge, in the play or
its induction at all. Nor do I think there are portraits in the strict
sense of Marston and Dekker, although no doubt some parody of Marston’s
‘fustian’ vocabulary is put into the mouth of Clove (iii. 1), and, on
the other hand, the characters of Carlo Buffone and Fastidious Brisk
have analogies with the Anaides and Hedon of _Cynthia’s Revels_, and
these again with the Demetrius and Crispinus of _Poetaster_, who are
undoubtedly Dekker and Marston. But we know from Aubrey, ii. 184, that
Carlo was Charles Chester, a loose-tongued man about town, to whom
there are many contemporary references. To those collected by Small and
Hart (_10 N. Q._ i. 381) I may add Chamberlain, 7, Harington, _Ulysses
upon Ajax_ (1596), 58, and _Hatfield Papers_, iv. 210, 221; x. 287.
The practical joke of sealing up Carlo’s mouth with wax (V. iii) was,
according to Aubrey, played upon Chester by Raleigh, and there may be
traits of Raleigh in Puntarvolo, perhaps combined with others of Sir
John Harington, while Hart finds in the mouths both of Puntarvolo and
of Fastidious Brisk the vocabulary of Gabriel Harvey. The play was
revived at Court on 8 Jan. 1605.

_Cynthia’s Revels. 1600–1_

_S. R._ 1601, May 23 (Pasfield). ‘A booke called Narcissus the
fountaine of self-love.’ _Walter Burre_ (Arber, iii. 185).

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.

[236] Cf. p. 51, n. 3 (_Downfall of R. Hood_, ‘curtaines’ of bower
‘open’); p. 51, n. 4 (_Battle of Alcazar_, cave behind ‘curtaines’);
p. 53, n. 5 (_Edw. I_, tent ‘opens’ and is closed, and Queen is
‘discouered’); p. 55, n. 1 (_Looking-Glass_, ‘curtaines’ of tent
drawn to shut and open); p. 63, n. 1 (_Old Fortunatus_, _M. V._,
‘curtaines’ drawn to reveal caskets); p. 63, n. 4 (_Sir T. More_,
‘arras’ drawn); p. 65, n. 3 (_2 Tamburlaine_, ‘arras’ drawn;
_Selimus_, ‘curtins’ drawn; _Battle of Alcazar_, ‘curtains’ drawn;
_Famous Victories_, ‘curtains’ drawn; _1 Contention_, ‘curtains’
drawn and bodies ‘discouered’; _1 Rich. II_, ‘curtayne’ drawn; _Death
of R. Hood_, ‘vaile’ or ‘curten’ drawn; _R. J._, ‘curtens’ shut);
p. 67, n. 1 (_Friar Bacon_, ‘courtaines’ drawn by actor with stick;
_Lord Cromwell_, ‘curtaines’ drawn); p. 68, n. 1 (_Old Fortunatus_,
‘curtaine’ drawn; _Downfall of R. Hood_, ‘curteines’ drawn and ‘shut’).

[237] _M. W._ III. iii. 97; cf. p. 66, n. 1 (_K. J._), p. 68, n. 3 (_1
Hen. IV_).

[238] So probably in _Dr. Faustus_, 28, where the prol. ends ‘And this
the man that in his study sits’, and the s.d. follows, ‘Enter Faustus
in his study’.

[239] The ‘groom’ of the seventeenth-century _Devil’s Charter_ (cf. p.
110) might be a servitor.

[240] Cf. p. 53, n. 5 (_Edw. I_; _Trial of Chivalry_); p. 65, n. 3 (_1
Contention_); p. 67, n. 1 (_E. M. I._). In _James IV_, V. vi. 2346, ‘He
discouereth her’ only describes the removal of a disguise.

[241] Prölss, 85; Albright, 140; Reynolds, i. 26; cf. p. 65, n. 3
(_Battle of Alcazar_); p. 67, n. 1 (_Dr. Faustus_).

[242] W. Archer in _Quarterly Review_, ccviii. 470; Reynolds, i. 9;
Graves, 88; cf. Brereton in _Sh. Homage_, 204.

[243] Cf. p. 65, n. 3 (_2 Tamburlaine_).

[244] Cf. p. 64, n. 2 (_Alphonsus_).

[245] Cf. p. 85.

[246] Cf. vol. ii, p. 539.

[247] W. Archer in _Quarterly Review_, ccviii. 470; Graves, 13.

[248] Cf. p. 73. T. Holyoke, _Latin Dict._ (1677), has ‘_Scena_--the
middle door of the stage’.

[249] Lawrence, ii. 50. A window could also be shown in front, if
needed, but I know of no clear example; cf. Wegener, 82, 95.

[250] Cf. p. 51, n. 2 (_R. J._).

[251] Cf. p. 67, n. 1 (_Stukeley_).

[252] _Stratford Town Shakespeare_, x. 360; cf. Wegener, 56, 73;
Neuendorff, 124; Reynolds, i. 25.

[253] Cf. p. 65, n. 3.

[254] Cf. vol. ii, p. 520.

[255] Of the examples cited on p. 80, n. 3, bed-curtains could only
suffice for _Selimus_, _Battle of Alcazar_, _1 Rich. II_, and possibly
_R. J._ and _Bacon and Bungay_; in the others either there is no bed,
or there is a clear indication of a discovered chamber. The curtains in
_Sp. Trag._ need separate consideration; cf. p. 93, n. 1.

[256] The s.ds. of _2 Hen. VI_, in so far as they vary from _1
Contention_, may date from the seventeenth century; cf. ch. xxi, p. 113.

[257] _Henslowe Papers_, 130.

[258] Prölss, 96; Reynolds, i. 24, 31; Albright, 111.

[259] Cf. p. 63, n. 4.

[260] _Dr. Faustus_, 1007 sqq., is apparently a hall scene, but in 1030
(an addition of 1616 text), ‘Enter Benuolio aboue at a window’, whence
he views the scene with a state. On the play scene, with a gallery for
the court, in _Sp. Trag._ IV. ii, cf. p. 93.

[261] _Famous Victories_, sc. viii; _2 Hen. IV_, IV. iv, v; _1
Contention_, scc. x, xi; _2 Hen. VI_, III. ii, iii (cf. p. 65, n. 3);
_Edw. II_, 2448–2565; _1 Tr. Raigne_, xii; _K. J._ IV. i (cf. p. 66, n.
1); _Lord Cromwell_, III. ii (cf. p. 67, n. 1); _Downfall of R. Hood_,
ind. (cf. p. 68, n. 1); _Arden of Feversham_, V. i (cf. p. 68, n. 2);
_1 Hen. IV_, II. iv; _Humorous Day’s Mirth_, viii (cf. p. 68, n. 3).

[262] Cf. p. 64, n. 6. W. Archer (_Quarterly Review_, ccviii. 457)
suggests that convention allowed properties, but not dead or drunken
men, to be moved in the sight of the audience by servitors. But as a
rule the moving could be treated as part of the action, and need not
take place between scenes.

[263] _Rich. II_, I. iii; _2 Edw. IV_, II. iv, ‘This while the hangman
prepares, Shore at this speech mounts vp the ladder ... Shoare comes
downe’. The Admiral’s inventories of 1598 (_Henslowe Papers_, 116)
include ‘j payer of stayers for Fayeton’.

[264] The dissertations of Reynolds (cf. _Bibl. Note_ to ch. xviii) are
largely devoted to the exposition of this theory.

[265] Cf. p. 52, n. 2. The Admiral’s inventories of 1598 (_Henslowe
Papers_, 116) include ‘j baye tree’, ‘j tree of gowlden apelles’,
‘Tantelouse tre’, as well as ‘ij mose banckes’.

[266] Cf. p. 51, n. 3.

[267] _Looking Glass_, II. i. 495, ‘The Magi with their rods beate the
ground, and from vnder the same riseth a braue Arbour’; _Bacon and
Bungay_, sc. ix. 1171, ‘Heere Bungay coniures and the tree appeares
with the dragon shooting fire’; _W. for Fair Women_, ii. 411, ‘Suddenly
riseth vp a great tree betweene them’. On the other hand, in _Old
Fortunatus_, 609 (ind.), the presenters bring trees on and ‘set the
trees into the earth’. The t.p. of the 1615 _Spanish Tragedy_ shows the
arbour of the play as a small trellissed pergola with an arched top,
not too large, I should say, to come up and down through a commodious
trap.

[268] _1 Contention_, sc. ii (cf. p. 56, n. 3); _John a Kent_, III. i
(cf. p. 74, n. 3); &c.

[269] _Looking Glass_, IV. ii, s.d. ‘Jonas the Prophet cast out of the
Whales belly vpon the Stage’.

[270] _Dr. Faustus_, 1450, s.d. (addition of 1616 text), ‘Hell is
discouered’; cf. p. 72 for the description of the imaginary stage
in the _Wagner Book_. The Admiral’s inventories of 1598 (_Henslowe
Papers_, 116) include ‘j Hell mought’.

[271] _Arden of Feversham_, IV. ii, iii.

[272] Cf. p. 51.

[273] Cf. p. 43.

[274] Cf. p. 76.

[275] Of the late woodcuts, _Roxana_ shows ‘above’ two compartments,
clearly with spectators; _Messalina_ one, closed by curtains; _The
Wits_ a central one closed by curtains, and three on each side, with
female spectators. In view of their dates and doubtful provenances
(cf. _Bibl. Note_ to ch. xviii), these are no evidence for the
sixteenth-century public theatre, but they show that at some plays,
public or private, the audience continued to sit ‘over the stage’ well
in to the seventeenth century.

[276] Cf. vol. ii, p. 542.

[277] Cf. p. 45.

[278] _Henslowe Papers_, 139.

[279] _James IV_, 106, 605, 618, 1115.

[280] _Looking Glass_, 152, 1756.

[281] _T. of a Shrew_, scc. ii, xvi. In _T. of the Shrew_, sc. ii of
the Induction is ‘aloft’ (1), and the presenters ‘sit’ to watch the
play (147), but they only comment once (I. i. 254) with the s.d. ‘The
Presenters aboue speakes’, and Sly is not carried down at the end.

[282] Cf. p. 57, n. 4. The main induction ends (38) with, ‘Why stay we
then? Lets giue the Actors leaue, And, as occasion serues, make our
returne’.

[283] Revenge says (I. i. 90), ‘Here sit we downe to see the misterie,
And serue for Chorus in this Tragedie’, and the Ghost (III. xv. 38),
‘I will sit to see the rest’. In IV. i Hieronimo discusses with his
friends a tragedy which he has promised to give before the Court, and
alludes (184) to ‘a wondrous shew besides. That I will haue there
behinde a curtaine’. The actual performance occupies part of IV. iii,
iv (a continuous scene). In IV. iii. 1, ‘Enter Hieronimo; he knocks up
the curtaine’. We must not be misled by the modern French practice of
knocking for the rise of the front curtain. The tragedy has not yet
begun, and this is no front curtain, but the curtain already referred
to in IV. i, which Hieronimo is now hammering up to conceal the dead
body of Horatio, as part of the setting which he is arranging at one
end of the main stage. The Duke of Castile now enters, and it is clear
that the Court audience are to sit ‘above’, for Hieronimo begs the
Duke (12) that ‘when the traine are past into the gallerie, You would
vouchsafe to throw me downe the key’. He then bids (16) a Servant
‘Bring a chaire and a cushion for the King’ and ‘hang up the Title: Our
scene is Rhodes’. We are still concerned with Court customs, and no
light is thrown on the possible use of title-boards on the public stage
(cf. p. 126). The royal train take their places, and the performance
is given. Hieronimo epilogizes and suddenly (IV. iv. 88) ‘Shewes his
dead sonne’. Now it is clear why he wanted the key of the gallery, for
(152) ‘He runs to hange himselfe’, and (157) ‘They breake in, and hold
Hieronimo’.

[284] Cf. p. 87, n. 3.

[285] _Locrine_, I. iii; _Sp. Trag._ II. ii, III. ii, ix; _T. A._
V. ii; _T. G._ IV. ii, iv; _R. J._ II. ii, III. v; _M. V._ II. vi;
_Englishmen for my Money_, sc. ix; _Two Angry Women_, 1495; cf. p. 56,
n. 3, p. 58, n. 4, p. 67, n. 1.

[286] Cf. p. 66, n. 1, p. 67, n. 1, p. 68, n. 2, p. 68, n. 3.

[287] In _R. J._ II. ii Romeo is in the orchard, and (2) ‘But soft,
what light through yonder window breaks?’ The lovers discourse, he
below, she ‘o’er my head’ (27). Presently (F_{1}; Q_{1}, is summary
here) Juliet says ‘I hear some noise within’ (136), followed by s.d.
‘Cals within’ and a little later ‘Within: Madam’, twice. Juliet then
‘Exit’ (155), and (159) ‘Enter Juliet again’. Modern editors have
reshuffled the s.ds. In III. v, Q_{2} (reproduced in F_{1}), in
addition to textual differences from Q_{1}, may represent a revised
handling of the scene. Q_{1} begins ‘Enter Romeo and Juliet at the
window’. They discuss the dawn. Then ‘He goeth downe’, speaks from
below, and ‘Exit’. Then ‘Enter Nurse hastely’ and says ‘Your Mother’s
comming to your Chamber’. Then ‘She goeth downe from the Window’. I
take this to refer to Juliet, and to close the action above, at a
point represented by III. v. 64 of the modern text. Then follow ‘Enter
Juliets Mother, Nurse’ and a dialogue below. Q_{2} begins ‘Enter
Romeo and Juliet aloft’. Presently (36) ‘Enter Madame [? an error]
and Nurse’, and the warning is given while Romeo is still above.
Juliet says (41) ‘Then, window, let day in, and let life out’, and
Romeo, ‘I’ll descend’. After his ‘Exit’ comes ‘Enter Mother’ (64), and
pretty clearly discourses with Juliet, not below, but in her chamber.
Otherwise there would be no meaning in Juliet’s ‘Is she not downe so
late or vp so early? What vnaccustomd cause procures her hither?’
Probably, although there is no s.d., they descend (125) to meet
Capulet, for at the end of the scene Juliet bids the Nurse (231) ‘Go
in’, and herself ‘Exit’ to visit Friar Laurence.

[288] Cf. p. 65, n. 3.

[289] Cf. p. 58, n. 2.

[290] Cf. p. 119.

[291] _Arden of Feversham_, III. i (p. 61, n. 3), and _Death of R.
Hood_, IV. i (p. 66, n. 1), require stairs of which the foot or
‘threshold’ is visible. For the execution scene in _Sir T. More_,
sc. xvii (p. 57, n. 2), the whole stairs should be visible, but
perhaps here, as elsewhere, the scaffold, although More likens it to
a ‘gallerie’, was to be at least in part a supplementary structure.
The Admiral’s inventory of 1598 (_Henslowe Papers_, 116; cf. ch. ii,
p. 168) included ‘j payer of stayers for Fayeton’. In _Soliman and
Perseda_, I. iii (p. 57, n. 4), where the back wall represents the
outer wall of a tiltyard, ladders are put up against it.

[292] Albright, 66; Lawrence, ii. 45. I am not prepared to accept the
theory that in _R. J._ III. v Romeo descends his ladder from behind;
cf. p. 94, n. 2. The other examples cited are late, but I should add
the ‘window that goes out into the leads’ of _1 Oldcastle_, 2016 (p.
66, n. 1).

[293] _Jew of Malta_, V. 2316; cf. p. 68, n. 5.

[294] _E. M. I._ I. v, ‘Bobadilla discouers himselfe: on a bench’.

[295] Cf. p. 54, nn. 2–5.

[296] See the conjectural reconstruction in Albright, 120.

[297] _Jonsonus Virbius_ (1638).

[298] Cf. p. 72.

[299] _1 Hen. VI_, II. i (p. 54, n. 5). This arrangement would also fit
I. ii, in which a shot is fired from the walls at ‘the turrets’, which
could then be represented by the back wall. On a possible similar wall
in the Court play of _Dido_, cf. p. 36.

[300] W. Archer (_Quarterly Review_, ccviii. 466) suggests the possible
use of a machine corresponding to the Greek ἐκκύκλημα (on which cf. A.
E. Haigh, _Attic Theatre_^3, 201), although he is thinking of it as a
device for ‘thrusting’ out a set interior from the alcove, which does
not seem to me necessary.

[301] _Henslowe Papers_, 118. The ‘j payer of stayers for Fayeton’
may have been a similar structure; cf. p. 95, n. 4. Otway, _Venice
Preserved_ (_1682_), V, has ‘Scene opening discovers a scaffold and a
wheel prepared for the executing of Pierre’.

[302] _Henslowe Papers_, 116.

[303] Cf. p. 56, nn. 2, 3. The courtyard in _Arden of Feversham_, III.
i, ii, might have been similarly staged.

[304] _1 Hen. VI_, I. ii (a tower with a ‘grate’ in it), III. ii
(p. 55); _1 Contention_, sc. iii (p. 56); _Soliman and Perseda_, V.
ii. 118 (p. 57); _Blind Beggar of Alexandria_, sc. ii (p. 62); _Old
Fortunatus_, 769 (p. 63).

[305] Cf. p. 54.

[306] _Arden of Feversham_, sc. i, begins before Arden’s house whence
Alice is called forth (55); but, without any break in the dialogue, we
get (245) ‘This is the painter’s house’, although we are still (318)
‘neare’ Arden’s, where the speakers presently (362) breakfast.

[307] _T. of A Shrew_, sc. xvi (cf. p. 92), see. iii, iv, v (a
continuous scene). _T. of The Shrew_, I. i, ii, is similarly before the
houses both of Baptista and Hortensio.

[308] _Blind Beggar_, scc. v, vii. The use of the houses seems natural,
but not perhaps essential.

[309] _1 Oldcastle_, II. i. 522, 632.

[310] Cf. p. 67, n. 1.

[311] _K. to K. Honest Man_, sc. v. 396, 408, 519, 559; sc. vii. 662,
738, 828, 894; sc. xv. 1385, 1425, 1428; cf. Graves, 65.

[312] Cf. pp. 25, 33.

[313] _George a Greene_, sc. xi. 1009, ‘Wil you go to the townes
end.... Now we are at the townes end’.

[314] _A. of Feversham_, III. vi. 55, ‘See Ye ouertake vs ere we come
to Raynum down’.... (91) ‘Come, we are almost now at Raynum downe’.

[315] _Dr. Faustus_, 1110, ‘let vs Make haste to Wertenberge ... til I
am past this faire and pleasant greene, ile walke on foote’, followed
immediately by ‘Enter a Horse-courser’ to Faustus, evidently in his
‘chaire’ (1149) at Wittenberg.

[316] _R. J._ I. iv. 113, where, in Q_{1}, Romeo’s ‘on lustie
Gentlemen’ to the maskers is followed by ‘Enter old Capulet with the
Ladies’, while in Q_{2}, Benvolio responds ‘Strike drum’, and then
‘They march about the Stage, and Seruingmen come forth with Napkins’,
prepare the hall, and ‘Exeunt’, when ‘Enter all the guests and
gentlewomen to the Maskers’.

[317] In _T. of The Shrew_, V. i. 17, ‘Pedant lookes out of the
window’, while the presenters are presumably occupying the gallery, but
even if this is a sixteenth-century s.d., the window need not be an
upper one.

[318] The s.d. to _Sp. Trag._ III. xi. 8, where ‘He goeth in at one
doore and comes out at another’, is rather obscure, but the doors are
probably those of a house which has just been under discussion, and if
so, more than one door was sometimes supposed to belong to the same
house.

[319] Cf. pp. 3, 4, 11.

[320] See my diagrams on pp. 84–5.

[321] W. Archer in _Universal Review_ (1888), 281; J. Le G. Brereton,
_De Witt at the Swan_ (_Sh. Homage_, 204); cf. p. 7.

[322] Serlio’s ‘comic’ and ‘tragic’ scenes (cf. App. G) show steps to
the auditorium from the front of the stage.

[323] Creizenach, iii. 446; iv. 424 (Eng. tr. 370), with engravings
from printed descriptions of 1539 and 1562.

[324] The contest of 1561 is described in a long letter to Sir Thomas
Gresham (Burgon, i. 377) by his agent at Antwerp, Richard Clough.
It might be possible to trace a line of affiliation from another of
Gresham’s servants, Thomas Dutton, who was his post from Antwerp
_temp._ Edw. VI, and his agent at Hamburg _c._ 1571 (Burgon, i. 109;
ii. 421). The actor Duttons, John and Laurence, seem also to have
served as posts from Antwerp and elsewhere (cf. ch. xv).

[325] _Thomas Lord Cromwell_ and _A Larum for London_, dealt with in
the last chapter, might also be Globe plays.

[326] _Henry V_, _Much Ado about Nothing_, _Merry Wives of Windsor_,
_Hamlet_, _King Lear_, _Troilus and Cressida_, _Pericles_, _Every Man
Out of his Humour_, _Sejanus_, _Volpone_, _Yorkshire Tragedy_, _London
Prodigal_, _Fair Maid of Bristow_, _Devil’s Charter_, _Merry Devil
of Edmonton_, _Revenger’s Tragedy_, _Miseries of Enforced Marriage_,
and perhaps _1 Jeronimo_; with the second version of _Malcontent_,
originally a Queen’s Revels play, and _Satiromastix_, the s.ds. of
which perhaps belong rather to Paul’s, where it was also played.

[327] _Catiline_, _Alchemist_; _Second Maid’s Tragedy_.

[328] _Julius Caesar_, _Twelfth Night_, _As You Like It_, _All’s
Well that Ends Well_, _Measure for Measure_, _Othello_, _Macbeth_,
_Coriolanus_, _Antony and Cleopatra_, _Timon of Athens_.

[329] _Cymbeline_, _Winter’s Tale_, _Tempest_, _Henry VIII_, _Duchess
of Malfi_, _Two Noble Kinsmen_, _Maid’s Tragedy_, _King and no King_,
_Philaster_, and perhaps _Thierry and Theodoret_.

[330] I have only occasionally drawn upon plays such as _Bonduca_,
whose ascription in whole or part to 1599–1613 is doubtful; these will
be found in the list in App. L.

[331] _1 Honest Whore_, _When You See Me You Know Me_, _Whore of
Babylon_, _Roaring Girl_, and possibly _Two Lamentable Tragedies_. The
extant text of _Massacre at Paris_ may also represent a revival at the
Fortune.

[332] _Nobody and Somebody_, _Travels of Three English Brothers_,
_Woman Killed With Kindness_, _Sir Thomas Wyat_, _Rape of Lucrece_,
_Golden Age_, _If It Be Not Good the Devil is in It_, _White Devil_,
_Greene’s Tu Quoque_, _Honest Lawyer_, and probably _1, 2 If You Know
Not Me You Know Nobody_, _Fair Maid of the Exchange_, _Silver Age_,
_Brazen Age_. _How to Choose a Good Wife from a Bad_ is probably a Rose
or Boar’s Head play.

[333] _Hen. V_, IV. iv-viii; _T. C._ V. iv-x; _J. C._ V. i-v; _Lear_,
IV. iii, iv, vii; V. i-iii; _A. C._ III. vii-x, xii; IV. i, iii, v-xiv;
V. i, &c.

[334] _Hen. V_, IV. viii; _J. C._ IV. ii, iii; _T. C._ I. iii; II. i,
iii; III. iii; IV. v; V. i, ii, apparently with tents in one or other
scene of Agamemnon (I. iii. 213), Ulysses (I. iii. 305), Ajax (II. i),
Achilles (II. iii. 84; III. iii. 38; V. i. 95), and Calchas (V. i. 92;
V. ii); _Devil’s Charter_, IV. iv. 2385, ‘He discouereth his Tent where
her two sonnes were at Cardes’; and in s.d. of Prol. 29 (not a battle
scene) ‘Enter, at one doore betwixt two other Cardinals, Roderigo ...
one of which hee guideth to a Tent, where a table is furnished ... and
to another Tent the other’.

[335] _Hen. V_, III. vi, vii; IV. i-iii.

[336] _Hen. V_, III. i. 1, ‘Scaling Ladders at Harflew’; III. iii.
1, ‘Enter the King and all his Traine before the Gates’.... (58)
‘Flourish, and enter the Towne’; _Cor._ I. iv. 13, ‘Enter two Senators
with others on the Walles of Corialus’.... (29) ‘The Romans are beat
back to their Trenches’.... (42) ‘Martius followes them to their gates,
and is shut in’.... (62) ‘Enter Martius bleeding, assaulted by the
enemy’.... ‘They fight and all enter the City’, and so on to end of sc.
x; _Tim._ V. iv. 1, ‘Enter Alcibiades with his Powers before Athens....
The Senators appeare vpon the wals’; IV. i; _Devil’s Charter_, II. i;
IV. iv; _Maid’s Tragedy_, V. iii.

[337] _A. Y. L._ III. ii. 1; _Philaster_, IV. iv. 83, ‘Philaster creeps
out of a bush’ (as shown in the woodcut on the t.p. of the Q.); _T. N.
K._ III. i. 37, ‘Enter Palamon as out of a bush’; V. i. 169, ‘Here the
Hynde vanishes under the Altar: and in the place ascends a Rose Tree,
having one Rose upon it’.

[338] _Ham._ III. ii. 146 (Q_{1}) ‘Enter in a Dumb Show, the King and
the Queene, he sits downe in an Arbor’, (Q_{2}, F_{2}) ‘he lyes him
downe vpon a bancke of flowers’; _M. Ado_, I. ii. 10; III. i. 7, 30;
_J. C._ III. ii. 1, ‘Enter Brutus and goes into the Pulpit’; _Tim._ V.
iii. 5; _E. M. O._ III. ii.

[339] _Ham._ V. i; _Macb._ IV. i; _Devil’s Charter_, prol.; _Catiline_,
I. i, &c.; I do not know whether hell-mouth remained in use; there is
nothing to point to it in the hell scene of _The Devil is an Ass_, I. i.

[340] _Pericles_, II. i. 121, ‘Enter the two Fisher-men, drawing vp a
Net’.

[341] _Devil’s Charter_, III. v. Caesar Borgia and Frescobaldi murder
the Duke of Candie (_vide infra_). Caesar says ‘let vs heaue him ouer,
That he may fall into the riuer Tiber, Come to the bridge with him’; he
bids Frescobaldi ‘stretch out their armes [for] feare that he Fall not
vpon the arches’, and ‘Caesar casteth Frescobaldi after’.

[342] _Rape of Lucrece_ (ed. Pearson), p. 240. It is before ‘yon
walles’ of Rome. Horatius has his foot ‘fixt vpon the bridge’ and
bids his friends break it behind him, while he keeps Tarquin’s party
off. Then ‘a noise of knocking downe the bridge, within’ and ‘Enter
... Valerius aboue’, who encourages Horatius. After ‘Alarum, and the
falling of the Bridge’, Horatius ‘exit’, and Porsenna says ‘Hee’s leapt
off from the bridge’. Presently ‘the shout of all the multitude Now
welcomes him a land’.

[343] _Devil’s Charter_, III. v, Frescobaldi is to waylay the Duke of
Candie. ‘He fenceth’ (s.d.) with ‘this conduct here’ (1482), and as the
victim arrives, ‘Here will I stand close’ (1612) and ‘He stands behind
the post’ (s.d.); cf. _Satiromastix_ (p. 141, n. 4).

[344] _Tp._ IV. i. 72.

[345] _Tp._ III. iii. 17, ‘Solemne and strange Musicke: and Prosper
on the top (invisible:) Enter severall strange shapes, bringing in a
Banket; and dance about it with gentle actions of salutations, and
inuiting the King, &c. to eate, they depart’.... (52) ‘Thunder and
lightning. Enter Ariell (like a Harpey) claps his wings upon the Table,
and with a queint device the Banquet vanishes’.... (82) ‘He vanishes
in Thunder: then (to soft Musicke) Enter the shapes againe, and daunce
(with mockes and mowes) and carrying out the Table’; IV. i. 134, ‘Enter
Certaine Nimphes.... Enter certaine Reapers (properly habited:) they
ioyne with the Nimphes, in a gracefull dance, towards the end whereof,
_Prospero_ starts sodainly and speakes, after which to a strange hollow
and confused noyse, they heauily vanish’.... (256) ‘A noyse of Hunters
heard. Enter divers Spirits in shape of Dogs and Hounds, hunting them
about: Prospero and Ariel setting them on’. Was the ‘top’ merely the
gallery, or the third tiring-house floor (cf. p. 98) above? Ariel, like
Prospero, enters ‘invisible’ (III. ii. 48). Is this merely the touch
of an editor (cf. ch. xxii) or does it reflect a stage convention? The
Admiral’s tiring-house contained in 1598 (_Henslowe Papers_, 123) ‘a
robe for to goo invisibell’.

[346] _G. A._ V, ‘Iris descends ... Iupiter first ascends upon the
Eagle, and after him Ganimed’.... ‘Enter at 4 severall corners the
4 winds’; _S. A._ II, ‘Thunder and lightning. Iupiter discends in a
cloude’.... ‘Iuno and Iris descend from the heavens’; III, ‘Enter Iuno
and Iris above in a cloud’.... ‘Enter Pluto, his Chariot drawne in by
Divels’.... ‘Mercury flies from above’.... ‘Earth riseth from under
the stage’.... ‘Earth sinkes’.... ‘The river Arethusa riseth from the
stage’; IV, ‘Iupiter taking up the Infant speakes as he ascends in
his cloud’; V, ‘Hercules sinkes himselfe: Flashes of fire; the Diuels
appeare at every corner of the stage with severall fireworkes’....
‘Exeunt three wayes Ceres, Theseus, Philoctetes, and Hercules dragging
Cerberus one way: Pluto, hels Iudges, the Fates and Furies downe to
hell: Iupiter, the Gods and Planets ascend to heaven’; _B. A._ I,
‘When the Fury sinkes, a Buls head appeares’; V, ‘Enter Hercules from
a rocke above, tearing down trees’.... ‘Iupiter above strikes him with
a thunderbolt, his body sinkes, and from the heavens discends a hand
in a cloud, that from the place where Hercules was burnt, brings up a
starre, and fixeth it in the firmament’.

[347] _G. A._ II, ‘Enter Iupiter like a Nimph, or a Virago’; IV,
‘Enter Iupiter like a Pedler’; _S. A._ II, ‘Enter ... Iupiter shapt
like Amphitrio’; IV, ‘Enter Iuno in the shape of old Beroe’.... ‘Enter
Iupiter like a woodman’; _B. A._ V, ‘Enter ... Hercules attired like a
woman, with a distaffe and a spindle’.

[348] _S. A._ III, ‘The Nurses bring yong Hercules in his Cradle, and
leave him. Enter Iuno and Iris with two snakes, put them to the childe
and depart: Hercules strangles them: to them Amphitrio, admiring the
accident’; _B. A._ IV, ‘Enter Vulcan and Pyragmon with his net of
wire.... Vulcan catcheth them fast in his net.... All the Gods appeare
above and laugh, Iupiter, Iuno, Phoebus, Mercury, Neptune’.

[349] _G. A._ II, ‘A confused fray, an alarme.... Lycaon makes head
againe, and is beat off by Iupiter and the Epirians, Iupiter ceazeth
the roome of Lycaon’; II, ‘Enter with musicke (before Diana) sixe
Satires, after them all their Nimphs, garlands on their heads, and
iavelings in their hands, their Bowes and Quivers: the Satyrs sing’....
‘Hornes winded, a great noise of hunting. Enter Diana, all her Nimphes
in the chase, Iupiter pulling Calisto back’; III, ‘Alarm. They combat
with iavelings first, after with swords and targets’; _S. A._ III,
‘Enter Ceres and Proserpine attired like the Moone, with a company of
Swaines, and country Wenches: They sing’.... ‘A confused fray with
stooles, cups and bowles, the Centaurs are beaten.... Enter with
victory, Hercules’; _B. A._ IV, ‘Enter Aurora, attended with Seasons,
Daies, and Howers’; V, ‘Hercules swings Lychas about his head, and kils
him’.

[350] _G. A._ I, ‘Enter Saturn with wedges of gold and silver, models
of ships and buildings, bow and arrowes, &c.’; II, ‘Vesta and the
Nurse, who with counterfeit passion present the King a bleeding heart
upon a knives point, and a bowle of bloud’.... ‘A banquet brought in,
with the limbes of a man in the service’; _B. A._ V, ‘Enter to the
sacrifice two Priests to the Altar, sixe Princes with sixe of his
labours, in the midst Hercules bearing his two brazen pillars, six
other Princes, with the other six labours’.

[351] _G. A._ V, ‘Pluto drawes hell: the Fates put upon him a
burning Roabe, and present him with a Mace, and burning crowne’;
_S. A._ II, ‘Jupiter appeares in his glory under a Raine-bow’; IV,
‘Thunder, lightnings, Jupiter descends in his maiesty, his Thunderbolt
burning’.... ‘As he toucheth the bed it fires, and all flyes up’; V,
‘Fire-workes all over the house’.... ‘Enter Pluto with a club of fire,
a burning crowne, Proserpine, the Judges, the Fates, and a guard of
Divels, all with burning weapons’; _B. A._ II, ‘There fals a shower of
raine’. Perhaps one should remember the sarcasm of _Warning for Fair
Women_, ind. 51, ‘With that a little rosin flasheth forth, Like smoke
out of a tobacco pipe, or a boys squib’.

[352] _Revenger’s Tragedy_ (Dodsley^4), p. 99; it recurs in _2 If You
Know Not Me_ (ed. Pearson), p. 292.

[353] _T. N._ IV. ii; _M. for M._ IV. iii; _Fair Maid of Bristow_, sig.
E 3; _Philaster_, V. ii.

[354] _Tp._ V. i. 172, ‘Here Prospero discouers Ferdinand and Miranda,
playing at Chesse’.

[355] _Tim._ IV. iii.; V. i. 133.

[356] _M. Wives_, I. iv. 40, ‘He steps into the Counting-house’
(Q_{1}); _2 Maid’s Tragedy_, 1995, 2030, ‘Locks him self in’.

[357] _M. D. of Edmonton_, prol. 34, ‘Draw the Curtaines’ (s.d.),
which disclose Fabel on a couch, with a ‘necromanticke chaire’ by him;
_Devil’s Charter_, I. iv. 325, ‘Alexander in his study’; IV. i. 1704,
1847; v. 2421, 2437; V. iv. 2965; vi. 3016, ‘Alexander vnbraced betwixt
two Cardinalls in his study looking vpon a booke, whilst a groome
draweth the Curtaine.... They place him in a chayre vpon the stage, a
groome setteth a Table before him’.... (3068), ‘Alexander draweth the
Curtaine of his studie where hee discouereth the diuill sitting in his
pontificals’; _Hen. VIII_, II. ii. 63, after action in anteroom, ‘Exit
Lord Chamberlaine, and the King drawes the Curtaine and sits reading
pensiuely’; _Catiline_, I. i. 15, ‘Discouers Catiline in his study’;
_Duchess of Malfi_, V. ii. 221 (a ‘cabinet’); cf. _Massacre at Paris_
(Fortune), 434, ‘He knocketh, and enter the King of Nauarre and Prince
of Condy, with their scholmaisters’ (clearly a discovery, rather than
an entry).

[358] _2 Maid’s Tragedy_, 1725, ‘Enter the Tirant agen at a farder
dore, which opened, bringes hym to the Toombe wher the Lady lies
buried; the Toombe here discovered ritchly set forthe’; (1891)
‘Gouianus kneeles at the Toomb wondrous passionatly’.... (1926), ‘On
a sodayne in a kinde of Noyse like a Wynde, the dores clattering, the
Toombstone flies open, and a great light appeares in the midst of the
Toombe’.

[359] _W. T._ V. iii; _D. of Malfi_, III. iv. 1, ‘Two Pilgrimes to the
Shrine of our Lady of Loretto’.

[360] _E. M. O._ IV. iii-v; cf. _Roaring Girl_ (Fortune) (ed. Pearson,
p. 50), ‘The three shops open in a ranke: the first a Poticaries shop,
the next a Fether shop; the third a Sempsters shop’; _Two Lamentable
Tragedies_ (? Fortune), I. i, ‘Sit in his shop’ (Merry’s); I. iii,
‘Then Merry must passe to Beeches shoppe, who must sit in his shop, and
Winchester his boy stand by: Beech reading’; II. i, ‘The boy sitting
at his maisters dore’.... ‘When the boy goeth into the shoppe Merrie
striketh six blowes on his head and with the seaventh leaues the hammer
sticking in his head’.... ‘Enter one in his shirt and a maide, and
comming to Beeches shop findes the boy murthered’; IV. iv, ‘Rachell
sits in the shop’ (Merry’s); _Bartholomew Fair_ (Hope), II-V, which
need booths for the pig-woman, gingerbread woman, and hobby-horse man.

[361] _Revenger’s Tragedy_ (Dodsley^4), i, p. 26, ‘Enter ... Antonio
... discovering the body of her dead to certain Lords and Hippolito;
pp. 58, 90 (scenes of assignation and murder in a room with ‘yon silver
ceiling’, a ‘darken’d blushless angle’, ‘this unsunned lodge’, ‘that
sad room’); _D. of Malfi_, IV. i. 55, ‘Here is discover’d, behind a
travers, the artificiall figures of Antonio and his children, appearing
as if they were dead’; ii. 262, ‘Shewes the children strangled’; cf.
_White Devil_ (Queen’s), V. iv. 71, ‘They are behind the travers. Ile
discover Their superstitious howling’, with s.d. ‘Cornelia, the Moore
and 3 other Ladies discovered, winding Marcello’s coarse’; _Brazen Age_
(Queen’s), III, ‘Two fiery Buls are discouered, the Fleece hanging
over them, and the Dragon sleeping beneath them: Medea with strange
fiery-workes, hangs above in the Aire in the strange habite of a
Coniuresse’.

[362] Cf. p. 25. I am not clear whether _Volpone_, V. 2801, ‘Volpone
peepes from behinde a trauerse’ is below or above, but in either event
the traverse in this case must have been a comparatively low screen and
free from attachment at the top, as Volpone says (2761), ‘I’le get up,
Behind the cortine, on a stoole, and harken; Sometime, peepe ouer’.

[363] _M. Ado_, I. iii. 63; _M. Wives_, III. iii. 97, ‘Falstaffe stands
behind the aras’ (Q_{1}); _Ham._ II. ii. 163; III. iv. 22; _D. of
Malfi_, I. ii. 65; _Philaster_, II. ii. 61, ‘Exit behind the hangings’
... (148), ‘Enter Galatea from behind the hangings’.

[364] _Cy._ II. ii. 1, ‘Enter Imogen, in her Bed, and a Lady’ ... (11)
‘Iachimo from the Trunke’, who says (47) ‘To th’ Truncke againe, and
shut the spring of it’ and (51) ‘Exit’; cf. II. iii. 42, ‘Attend you
here the doore of our stern daughter?’; cf. _Rape of Lucrece_ (Red
Bull), p. 222 (ed. Pearson), ‘Lucrece discovered in her bed’.

[365] _Ham._ III. iv; cf. p. 116. Most of the scenes are in some
indefinite place in the castle, called in II. ii. 161 ‘here in the
lobby’ (Q_{2}, F_{1}) or ‘here in the gallery’ (Q_{1}). Possibly the
audience for the play scene (III. ii) were in the alcove, as there is
nothing to suggest that they were above; or they may have been to right
and left, and the players in the alcove; it is guesswork.

[366] _Oth._ V. ii. 1, ‘Enter Othello with a light’ (Q_{1}), ‘Enter
Othello and Desdemona in her bed’ (F_{1}). It is difficult to say
whether _Maid’s Tragedy_, V. i. 2 (continuous scene), where Evadne’s
entry and colloquy with a gentleman of the bedchamber is followed by
s.d. ‘King abed’, implies a ‘discovery’ or not.

[367] _D. Charter_, I. v. 547, ‘Enter _Lucretia_ alone in her night
gowne untired, bringing in a chaire, which she planteth upon the Stage’
... (579) ‘Enter Gismond di Viselli untrussed in his Night-cap, tying
his points’ ... (625) ‘Gismond sitteth downe in a Chaire, Lucretia on
a stoole [ready on the stage for a spectator?] beside him’ ... (673)
‘She ... convaieth away the chaire’. Barbarossa comes into ‘this parler
here’ (700), finds the murdered body, and they ‘locke up the dores
there’ and ‘bring in the body’ (777), which is therefore evidently not
behind a curtain.

[368] _D. Charter_, IV. iii. 2005, ‘Enter Lucretia richly attired with
a Phyal in her hand’ ... ‘Enter two Pages with a Table, two looking
glasses, a box with Combes and instruments, a rich bowle’. She paints
and is poisoned, and a Physician bids ‘beare in her body’ (2146).

[369] _D. Charter_, IV. v. 2441, ‘Exit _Alexander_ into his study’ ...
‘Enter _Astor_ and _Philippo_ in their wast-cotes with rackets’ ...
‘Enter two Barbers with linen’ ... ‘After the barbers had trimmed and
rubbed their bodies a little, _Astor_ caleth’ ... ‘They lay them selves
upon a bed and the barbers depart’ ... ‘_Bernardo_ knocketh at the
study’. They are murdered and Bernardo bidden to ‘beare them in’ (2589).

[370] Cf. p. 66.

[371] Albright, 142; Graves, 17; Reynolds (1911), 55; Thorndike, 81.

[372] Cf. ch. xxii.

[373] In _The Faithful Friends_ (possibly a Jacobean King’s play), iv.
282, Rufinus says, ‘Lead to the chamber called Elysium’; then comes
s.d. ‘Exit Young Tullius, Phyladelphia and Rufinus. Then a rich Bed
is thrust out and they enter again’, and Tullius says ‘This is the
lodging called Elysium’. Later examples are Sir W. Berkeley, _The Lost
Lady_ (1638), V. i, ‘Enter the Moor on her bed, Hermione, Phillida, and
Irene. The bed thrust out’; Suckling, _Aglaura_ (1646), V, ‘A bed put
out. Thersames and Aglaura in it.... Draw in the Bed’; Davenport, _City
Night Cap_ (1661, Cockpit), II. i, ‘A bed thrust out. Lodovico sleeping
in his clothes; Dorothea in bed’.

[374] _Silver Age_, IV, ‘Enter Semele drawne out in her bed’; _Hector
of Germany_, I. i, ‘a bed thrust out, the Palsgrave lying sick on
it, the King of Bohemia, the Duke of Savoy, the Marquis Brandenburg
entering with him’; _Chaste Maid in Cheapside_, III. ii. 1, ‘A bed
thrust out upon the stage; Allwit’s wife in it’. This appears from
‘call him up’ (102) to be on the upper stage. _Golden Age_, I, ‘Enter
Sibilla lying in child-bed, with her child lying by her, and her Nurse,
&c.’ has the Cymbeline formula, but presumably the staging was as for
Danae.

[375] _Golden Age_, IV, ‘Enter foure old Beldams’, and say ‘The ‘larme
bell rings’; it is Acrisius; they will ‘clap close to the gate and let
him in’. He bids them watch ‘your percullist entrance’, says ‘Danae is
descended’, speaks of ‘the walkes within this barricadoed mure’. She
returns ‘unto her chamber’ and he ‘Exit’. The beldams will ‘take our
lodgings before the Princesse chamber’ and ‘Exit’. Then ‘Enter Iupiter
like a Pedler, the Clowne his man, with packs at their backes’. They
are evidently outside the gate. ‘He rings the bell’ and persuades the
beldams to let him ‘into the Porters lodge’. They will ‘shut the gate
for feare the King come and if he ring clap the Pedlers into some of
yon old rotten corners’. Then ‘Enter Danae’, whom Jupiter courts. She
says ‘Yon is my doore’ and ‘Exit’. The beldams will ‘see the Pedlers
pack’t out of the gate’, but in the end let them ‘take a nap upon
some bench or other’, and bid them good-night. Jupiter ‘puts off his
disguise’ and ‘Exit’. Then ‘Enter the foure old Beldams, drawing out
Danae’s bed: she in it. They place foure tapers at the foure corners’.
Jupiter returns ‘crown’d with his imperiall robes’, says ‘Yon is the
doore’, calls Danae by name, ‘lyes upon her bed’ and ‘puts out the
lights and makes unready’. Presently ‘The bed is drawne in, and enter
the Clowne new wak’t’, followed by ‘Enter Iupiter and Danae in her
night-gowne’. He puts on his cloak, and ‘Enter the foure Beldams in
hast’, say ‘the gate is open’, and dismiss the pedlars.

[376] _M. Ado_, III. iv. Presumably the action is at the window, as
there is a ‘new tire within’ (13) and Hero withdraws when guests arrive
(95). It is of course the same window which is required by Don John’s
plot, although it is not again in action (cf. II. ii. 43; iii. 89; III.
ii. 116, iii. 156; IV. i. 85, 311).

[377] _Volpone_, II. v-vii. In the piazza, under the same window, is
II. i-iii, where ‘Celia at the windo’ throws downe her handkerchiefe’
(1149).

[378] _M. W._ II. ii; III. v, in both of which persons ‘below’ are
bidden ‘come up’; possibly V. i; cf. IV. v, 13, 22, 131, where persons
below speak of the chamber as above.

[379] _E. M. O._ V. iv-vi, at the Mitre; _M. Devil of Edmonton_, I.
i; _Miseries of Enforced Marriage_, III. i; and for other theatres,
_Massacre at Paris_ (Fortune), 257 ‘Enter the Admirall in his bed’, 301
‘Enter into the Admirals house, and he in his bed’, with 310 ‘Throw him
downe’; _Two Lamentable Tragedies_ (Fortune), parts of I. iii, ‘Then
being in the upper Rome Merry strickes him in the head fifteene times’,
II. i, iii; _1 If You Know Not Me_ (? Queen’s), p. 240 (ed. Pearson),
‘Enter Elizabeth, Gage, and Clarencia aboue’. Elizabeth bids Gage
‘Looke to the pathway that doth come from the court’, perhaps from a
window at the back (cf. p. 96), and he describes a coming horseman.

[380] _Yorkshire Tragedy_, scc. iii, v, vii, while the intermediate
episodes, scc. iv, vi, are below. It is all really one scene.

[381] _Sejanus_ (F_{1}), i. 355–469 (cf. 287), an episode breaking the
flow of the main action, a hall scene, of the act; it must be apart
from the hall, not perhaps necessarily above.

[382] _E. M. O._ V. ii, preceded and followed by scene near the court
gate at the foot of stairs leading to the great chamber; V. i has ‘Is
this the way? good truth here be fine hangings’ and ‘courtiers drop
out’, presumably through the arras and up the stairs. Then a presenter
says, ‘Here they come’, and the courtiers enter, presumably above.

[383] _A. and C._ IV. xv. 1, ‘Enter Cleopatra, and her Maides aloft’,
with (8) ‘Look out o’ the other side your monument’ ... (37) ‘They
heave Anthony aloft to Cleopatra’; V. ii; cf. 360, ‘bear her women from
the monument’.

[384] _Pericles_, III. i (prol. 58, ‘In your imagination hold This
stage the ship’); V. i (prol. 21, ‘In your supposing once more put your
sight Of heavy Pericles; think this his bark’). The other scenes (_1
Contention_, sc. xii; _A. and C._ II. vii; _Tp._ I. i) have nothing
directly indicating action ‘above’.

[385] _Ham._ I. i, iv, v; cf. I. ii. 213, ‘upon the platform where we
watch’d’. There would be hardly room ‘above’ for the Ghost to waft
Hamlet to ‘a more removed ground’ (I. iv. 61), and the effect of I. v.
148, where ‘Ghost cries under the Stage’, would be less. On the other
hand, in _White Devil_ (Queen’s), IV. iv. 39 the s.d. ‘A Cardinal on
the Tarras’ is explained by Flamineo’s words, ‘Behold! my lord of
Arragon appeares, On the church battlements’.

[386] _J. C._ III. i; _Cor._ II. ii, ‘Enter two Officers, to lay
Cushions, as it were, in the Capitol’; _Sejanus_ (F_{1}), iii. 1–6;
v. 19–22; _Catiline_, IV. ii, V. iv, vi; also _Rape of Lucrece_ (Red
Bull), pp. 168–73 (ed. Pearson). There is a complete absence of s.ds.
for ‘above’; cf. p. 58. But in _J. C._ III. i and _Catiline_, V. vi,
at least, action in the senate house is continuous with action in the
street or forum without, and both places must have been shown, and
somehow differentiated.

[387] _Bonduca_, V. i, ‘Enter Caratach upon a rock, and Hengo by him,
sleeping’; V. iii, ‘Enter Caratach and Hengo on the Rock’. Hengo is let
down by a belt to fetch up food. It is ‘a steep rock i th’ woods’ (V.
ii); cf. the rock scene in _Brazen Age_, V (cf. p. 109).

[388] Cf. p. 153. _Duchess of Malfi_, III. ii, with (173) ‘call up our
officers’ is a possible exception.

[389] _E. M. O._ II. i (where personages standing ‘under this Tarras’
watch action under a window); _Devil’s Charter_, III. ii, ‘Alexander
out of a Casement’; _M. Devil of Edmonton_, V. ii. 59, ‘D’yee see yon
bay window?’ _Miseries of Enforced Marriage_ (Dodsley^4), iv, p. 540
(‘Here’s the sign of the Wolf, and the bay-window’); _T. N. K._ II. i,
ii; _Catiline_, III. v; _Philaster_, II. iv; _Second Maiden’s Tragedy_,
V. i. 2004, ‘Leonella above in a gallery with her love Bellarius’ ...
(2021) ‘Descendet Leonela’; _Duchess of Malfi_, V. v; _Hen. VIII_, V.
ii. 19, ‘Enter the King, and Buts, at a Windowe above’, with ‘Let ’em
alone, and draw the curtaine close’ (34); _Pericles_, II. ii (where
Simonides and Thaisa ‘withdraw into the gallerie’, to watch a tilting
supposed behind, as in the sixteenth-century _Soliman and Perseda_; cf.
p. 96). So, too, in _T. N. K._ V. iii, the fight between Palamon and
Arcite takes place within; Emilia will not see it, and it is reported
to her on the main stage.

[390] _D. an Ass_, II. vi. 37, ‘This Scene is acted at two windo’s
as out of two contiguous buildings’ ... (77) ‘Playes with her paps,
kisseth her hands, &c.’ ... vii. 1 ‘Her husband appeares at her back’
... (8) ‘Hee speaks out of his wives window’ ... (23) ‘The Divell
speakes below’ ... (28) ‘Fitz-dottrel enters with his wife as come
downe’.

[391] _M. Devil of Edmonton_, V. i, ii; _Catiline_, V. vi (where
apparently three houses are visited after leaving the senate house);
cf. the cases of shops on p. 110, n. 10.

[392] _Ham._ V. i. 60.

[393] _Bonduca_, V. iii.

[394] _Three English Brothers_, ad fin. A court scene in _Sir T. Wyatt_
ends (ed. Hazlitt, p. 10) with s.d. ‘pass round the stage’, which takes
the personages to the Tower. Similarly in _1 If You Know Not Me_ (ed.
Pearson, p. 246) a scene at Hatfield ends ‘And now to London, lords,
lead on the way’, with s.d. ‘Sennet about the Stage in order. The Maior
of London meets them’, and in _2 If You Know Not Me_ (p. 342) troops
start from Tilbury, and ‘As they march about the stage, Sir Francis
Drake and Sir Martin Furbisher meet them’.

[395] W. Archer in _Quarterly Review_, ccviii. 471; Albright, 77;
Lawrence, i. 19; cf. my analogous conjecture of ‘wings’ on p. 100.

[396] _David and Bethsabe_, 25, ‘He [Prologus] drawes a curtaine, and
discouers Bethsabe with her maid bathing ouer a spring: she sings, and
David sits aboue vewing her’.

[397] Lawrence, i. 159 (_Proscenium Doors: an Elizabethan Heritage_).

[398] Cf. vol. ii, p. 534.

[399] At the Globe the windows appear to have been bay windows; cf. p.
116, n. 7. Lawrence, ii. 25 (_Windows on the Pre-Restoration Stage_),
cites T. M. _Black Book_ (1604), ‘And marching forward to the third
garden-house, there we knocked up the ghost of mistress Silverpin,
who suddenly risse out of two white sheets, and acted out of her
tiring-house window’. It appears from Tate Wilkinson’s _Memoirs_
(Lawrence, i. 177) that the proscenium balconies were common ground to
actors and audience in the eighteenth century.

[400] _Family of Love_, I. iii. 101.

[401] The theory is best represented by C. Brodmeier, _Die
Shakespeare-Bühne nach den alten Bühnenanweisungen_ (1904); V.
Albright, _The Shakespearian Stage_ (1909).

[402] Thorndike, 106.

[403] Cf. pp. 41, 126, 154.

[404] Palace of Tiberius (Acts I, II, III), Senate house (III, V),
Gardens of Eudemus (II), Houses of Agrippina (II, IV), Sejanus (V),
Regulus (V).

[405] Houses of Volpone (I, II, III, V), Corvino (II), Would Be (V),
Law court (IV, V).

[406] Houses of Catiline (I, IV), Fulvia (II), Cicero (III, IV, V),
Lecca (III), Brutus (IV), Spinther (V. vi), Cornificius (V. vi), Caesar
(V. vi), Senate house (IV, V), Milvian Bridge (IV).

[407] _Alchemist_, _III._ v. 58, ‘He speakes through the keyhole,
the other knocking’. _Hen. VIII_, V. ii, iii (continuous scene) also
requires a council-chamber door upon the stage, at which Cranmer is
stopped after he has entered through the stage-door.

[408] Daborne gave Tourneur ‘an act of y^e Arreignment of London to
write’ (_Henslowe Papers_, 72).

[409] Cf. ch. xxii.

[410] _M. N. D._ III. ii. 463 (F_{1}), ‘They sleep all the Act’; i.
e. all the act-interval (cf. p. 131). So in _Catiline_ the storm with
which Act III ends is still on at the beginning of Act IV, and in
_Alchemist_ Mammon and Lovewit are seen approaching at the ends of Acts
I and IV respectively, but in both cases the actual arrival is at the
beginning of the next act.

[411] F. A. Foster, _Dumb Show in Elizabethan Drama before 1620_ (_E.
S._ xliv. 8).

[412] Jonson has a ‘Chorus--of musicians’ between the acts of
_Sejanus_, and the presenter of _Two Lamentable Tragedies_ bids
the audience ‘Delight your eares with pleasing harmonie’ after the
harrowing end of Act II. Some other examples given in Lawrence, i. 75
(_Music and Song in the Elizabethan Drama_), seem to me no more than
incidental music such as may occur at any point of a play. Malone
(_Var._ iii. 111) describes a copy of the Q_{2} of _R. J._ in which
the act endings and directions for inter-act music had been marked in
manuscript; but this might be of late date.

[413] _Malcontent_, ind. 89.

[414] _Henslowe Papers_, 127.

[415] _Catiline_, I. i.

[416] _Second Maidens Tragedy_, 1719, ‘Exit’ the Tyrant, four lines
from the end of a court scene, and 1724 ‘Enter the Tirant agen at a
farder dore, which opened, bringes hym to the Toombe’ (cf. p. 110,
n. 8). So in _Woman Killed with Kindness_ (Queen’s), IV. ii, iii
(continuous scene), Mrs. Frankford and her lover retire from a hall
scene to sup in her chamber, and the servants are bidden to lock
the house doors. In IV. iv Frankford enters with a friend, and says
(8) ‘This is the key that opes my outward gate; This the hall-door;
this the withdrawing chamber; But this ... It leads to my polluted
bedchamber’. Then (17) ‘now to my gate’, where they light a lanthorn,
and (23) ‘this is the last door’, and in IV. v Frankford emerges as
from the bedchamber. Probably sc. iv is supposed to begin before the
house. They go behind at (17), emerge through another door, and the
scene is then in the hall, whence Frankford passes at (23) through the
central aperture behind again.

[417] _Wily Beguiled_, prol. The Prologus asks a player the name of the
play, and is told ‘Sir you may look vpon the Title’. He complains that
it is ‘_Spectrum_ once again’. Then a Juggler enters, will show him a
trick, and says ‘With a cast of cleane conveyance, come aloft _Jack_
for thy masters advantage (hees gone I warrant ye)’ and there is the
s.d. ‘_Spectrum_ is conveied away: and _Wily beguiled_, stands in the
place of it’.

[418] Most of the examples in Lawrence, i. 43 (_Title and Locality
Boards on the Pre-Restoration Stage_) belong to Court or to private
theatres; on the latter cf. p. 154, _infra_. But the prologue to _1 Sir
John Oldcastle_ begins ‘The doubtful Title (Gentlemen) prefixt Upon
the Argument we have in hand May breede suspence’. The lost Frankfort
engraving of English comedians (cf. vol. ii, p. 520) is said to have
shown boards.

[419] Cunningham, _Jonson_, iii. 509; Dekker, _G. H. B._ (ed.
McKerrow), 40, ‘And first observe your doors of entrance, and your
exit; not much unlike the players at the theatres; keeping your
decorums, even in fantasticality. As for example: if you prove to be a
northern gentleman, I would wish you to pass through the north door,
more often especially than any of the other; and so, according to your
countries, take note of your entrances’.

[420] _1 Contention_, sc. xxii, ‘Richard kils him under the signe
of the Castle in St. Albones’; _Comedy of Errors_ (the Phoenix, the
Porpentine), _Shoemaker’s Holiday_ (the Last), _Edw. IV_ (the Pelican),
_E. M. O._ (the Mitre), _Miseries of Enforced Marriage_ (the Mitre, the
Wolf); _Bartholomew Fair_ (the Pig’s Head); &c.

[421] _Wounds of Civil War_, III. iv, ‘Enter Marius solus from the
Numidian mountaines, feeding on rootes’; _3 Hen. VI_, IV. ii, ‘Enter
Warwick and Oxford in England’, &c.; cf. ch. xxii.

[422] _Warning for Fair Women_, ind. 86, ‘My scene is London, native
and your own’; _Alchemist_, prol. 5, ‘Our scene is London’; cf. the
Gower speeches in _Pericles_.

[423] _Dr. Faustus_, 13, 799, 918, 1111.

[424] I cite Greg’s Q_{2}, but Q_{1} agrees. Jonson’s own
scene-division is of course determined by the introduction of new
speakers (cf. p. 200) and does not precisely follow the textual
indications.

[425] _Henslowe Papers_, 116.

[426] _2 If You Know Not Me_ (ed. Pearson), p. 295.

[427] Cf. App. I, and Neuendorff, 149, who quotes J. Corey, _Generous
Enemies_ (1672), prol.:

Coarse hangings then, instead of scenes, were worn.
And Kidderminster did the stage adorn.

Graves, 78, suggests pictorial ‘painted cloths’ for
backgrounds.

[428] ‘Scenes’ were used in the public performances of Nabbes’s
_Microcosmus_ (1637), Suckling’s _Aglaura_ (_1637_), and Habington’s
_Queen of Arragon_ (_1640_); cf. Lawrence, ii. 121 (_The Origin of
the English Picture-Stage_); W. G. Keith, _The Designs for the First
Movable Scenery on the English Stage_ (_Burlington Magazine_, xxv. 29,
85).

[429] For Paul’s, _C. and C. Errant_ (after each act), ‘Here they
knockt up the Consort’; _Faery Pastorall_; _Trick to Catch the Old One_
(after I and II), ‘music’; _What You Will_, II. ii. 235 ‘So ends our
chat;--sound music for the act’; for Blackfriars, _Gentleman Usher_,
III. i. 1, ‘after the song’; _Sophonisba_ (after I), ‘the cornets and
organs playing loud full music for the act’, (II) ‘Organ mixt with
recorders, for this act’, (III) ‘Organs, viols and voices play for this
act’, (IV) ‘A base lute and a treble violl play for the act’, with
which should be read the note at the end of Q_{1}, ‘let me intreat my
reader not to taxe me for the fashion of the entrances and musique of
this tragedy, for know it is printed only as it was presented by youths
and after the fashion of the private stage’; _K. B. P._ (after I),
‘Boy danceth. Musicke. Finis Actus primi’, (II) ‘Musicke. Finis Actus
secundi’, (III) ‘Finis Actus tertii. Musicke. Actus quartus, scoena
prima. Boy daunceth’, (IV) Ralph’s May Day speech; cf. _infra_ and vol.
ii, p. 557. I do not find any similar recognition of the scene as a
structural element in the play to be introduced by music; in _1 Antonio
and Mellida_, III. ii. 120, the s.d. ‘and so the Scene begins’ only
introduces a new scene in the sense of a regrouping of speakers (cf. p.
200).

[430] For Paul’s, _Histriomastix_, III. i. 1, ‘Enter Pride,
Vaine-Glory, Hypocrisie, and Contempt: Pride casts a mist, wherein
Mavortius and his company [who ended II] vanish off the Stage, and
Pride and her attendants remaine’, (after III) ‘They all awake, and
begin the following Acte’, (after V) ‘Allarmes in severall places, that
brake him off thus: after a retreat sounded, the Musicke playes and
Poverty enters’; 2 ANTONIO AND MELLIDA, III. i. 1, ‘A dumb show. The
cornets sounding for the Act’, (after IV) ‘The cornets sound for the
act. The dumb show’; _What You Will_, III. i. 1, ‘Enter Francisco ...
They clothe Francisco whilst Bidet creeps in and observes them. Much of
this done whilst the Act is playing’; _Phoenix_ (after II), ‘Towards
the close of the musick the justices three men prepare for a robberie’;
for Blackfriars, _Malcontent_, II. i. 1, ‘Enter Mendoza with a sconce,
to observe Ferneze’s entrance, who, whilst the act is playing, enters
unbraced, two Pages before him with lights; is met by Maquerelle and
conveyed in; the Pages are sent away’; _Fawn_, V. i. 1, ‘Whilst the Act
is a-playing, Hercules and Tiberio enters; Tiberio climbs the tree,
and is received above by Dulcimel, Philocalia, and a Priest; Hercules
stays beneath’. The phrase ‘whilst the act is playing’ is a natural
development from ‘for the act’, i. e. ‘in preparation for the act’,
used also for the elaborate music which at private houses replaced the
three preliminary trumpet ‘soundings’ of the public houses; cf. _What
You Will_, ind. 1 (s.d.), ‘Before the music sounds for the Act’, and
_1 Antonio and Mellida_, ind. 1, ‘The music will sound straight for
entrance’. But it leads to a vagueness of thought in which the interval
itself is regarded as the ‘act’; cf. the _M. N. D._ s.d. of F_{1},
quoted p. 124, n. 3, with Middleton, _The Changeling_ (1653), III. i.
1, ‘In the act-time De Flores hides a naked rapier behind a door’,
and Cotgrave, _Dict._ (1611), ‘Acte ... also, an Act, or Pause in a
Comedie, or Tragedie’.

[431] For Paul’s, _Histriomastix_, i. 163, ‘Enter Fourcher, Voucher,
Velure, Lyon-Rash ... two and two at severall doores’; v. 103, ‘Enter
... on one side ... on the other’; v. 192, ‘Enter ... at one end of
the stage: at the other end enter ...’; vi. 41, ‘Enter Mavortius
and Philarchus at severall doores’; vi. 241, ‘Enter ... at the one
doore. At the other ...’; _1 Antonio and Mellida_, iv. 220 (marsh
scene), ‘Enter ... at one door; ... at another door’; _2 Antonio and
Mellida_, v. 1, ‘Enter at one door ... at the other door’; _Maid’s
Metamorphosis_, II. ii. 1 (wood scene), ‘Enter at one door ... at the
other doore, ... in the midst’; III. ii. 1 (wood scene), ‘Enter ... at
three severall doores’; _Faery Pastoral_, III. vi, ‘Mercury entering
by the midde doore wafted them back by the doore they came in’; IV.
viii, ‘They enterd at severall doores, Learchus at the midde doore’;
_Puritan_, I. iv. 1 (prison scene), ‘Enter ... at one dore, and ...
at the other’, &c.; for Blackfriars, _Sir G. Goosecap_, IV. ii. 140,
‘Enter Jack and Will on the other side’; _Malcontent_, V. ii. 1, ‘Enter
from opposite sides’; _E. Ho!_, I. i. 1, ‘Enter ... at severall dores
... At the middle dore, enter ...’; _Sophonisba_, prol., ‘Enter at one
door ... at the other door’; _May Day_, II. i. 1, ‘Enter ... several
ways’; _Your Five Gallants_, I. ii. 27, ‘Enter ... at the farther
door’, &c.

[432] For Paul’s, _2 Antonio and Mellida_, IV. ii. 87, ‘They strike the
stage with their daggers, and the grave openeth’; V. i. 1, ‘Balurdo
from under the Stage’; _Aphrodysial_ (quoted Reynolds, i. 26), ‘A Trap
door in the middle of the stage’; _Bussy d’Ambois_, II. ii. 177, ‘The
Vault opens’ ... ‘ascendit Frier and D’Ambois’ ... ‘Descendit Fryar’
(cf. III. i; IV. ii; V. i, iii, iv); for Blackfriars, _Poetaster_
(F_{1}) prol. 1, ‘Envie. Arising in the midst of the stage’; _Case is
Altered_, III. ii, ‘Digs a hole in the ground’; _Sophonisba_, III. i.
201, ‘She descends after Sophonisba’ ... (207) ‘Descends through the
vault’; V. i. 41, ‘Out of the altar the ghost of Asdrubal ariseth’.

[433] _Widow’s Tears_ (Blackfriars), III. ii. 82, ‘Hymen descends,
and six Sylvans enter beneath, with torches’; this is in a mask, and
Cupid may have descended from a pageant. When a ‘state’ or throne is
used (e.g. _Satiromastix_, 2309, ‘Soft musicke, Chaire is set under a
Canopie’), there is no indication that it descends. In _Satiromastix_,
2147, we get ‘O thou standst well, thou lean’st against a poast’, but
this is obviously inadequate evidence for a heavens supported by posts
at Paul’s.

[434] _C. and C. Errant_, V. ix, ‘He tooke the Bolle from behind the
Arras’; _Faery Pastoral_, V. iv (wood scene), ‘He tooke from behind
the Arras a Peck of goodly Acornes pilld’; _What You Will_, ind. 97,
‘Let’s place ourselves within the curtains, for good faith the stage
is so very little, we shall wrong the general eye else very much’;
_Northward Ho!_, IV. i, ‘Lie you in ambush, behind the hangings, and
perhaps you shall hear the piece of a comedy’. In _C. and C. Errant_,
V. viii. 1, the two actors left on the stage at the end of V. vii were
joined by a troop from the inn, and yet others coming ‘easily after
them and stealingly, so as the whole Scene was insensibly and suddenly
brought about in Catastrophe of the Comoedy. And the whole face of the
Scene suddenly altered’. I think that Percy is only trying to describe
the change from a nearly empty to a crowded stage, not a piece of
scene-shifting.

[435] _Cynthia’s Revels_ (Q), ind. 149, ‘Slid the Boy takes me for a
peice of Prospective (I holde my life) or some silke Curtine, come to
hang the Stage here: Sir Cracke I am none of your fresh Pictures, that
use to beautifie the decay’d dead Arras, in a publique Theater’; _K.
B. P._ II. 580, ‘_Wife._ What story is that painted upon the cloth?
the confutation of Saint Paul? _Citizen._ No lambe, that Ralph and
Lucrece’. In _Law Tricks_, III. i, Emilia bids Lurdo ‘Behind the Arras;
scape behind the Arras’. Polymetes enters, praises the ‘verie faire
hangings’ representing Venus and Adonis, makes a pass at Vulcan, and
notices how the arras trembles and groans. Then comes the s.d. (which
has got in error into Bullen’s text, p. 42) ‘Discouer Lurdo behind the
Arras’, and Emilia carries it off by pretending that it is only Lurdo’s
picture.

[436] I think it is possible that _Sophonisba_, with its ‘canopy’ (cf.
p. 149) was also originally written for Paul’s.

[437] _1, 2 Antonio and Mellida_, _Maid’s Metamorphosis_, _Wisdom of
Dr. Dodipoll_, _Jack Drum’s Entertainment_, _Satiromastix_, _Blurt
Master Constable_, _Bussy D’Ambois_, _Westward Ho!_, _Northward Ho!_,
_Fawn_, _Michaelmas Term_, _Phoenix_, _Mad World, My Masters_, _Trick
to Catch the Old One_, _Puritan_, _Woman Hater_.

[438] _Jack Drum’s Ent._ v. 112.

[439] _Histriomastix_, i. 6, ‘now sit wee high (tryumphant in our
sway)’; ii. 1, ‘Enter Plenty upon a Throne’; iii. 11, ‘If you will sit
in throne of State with Pride’; v. 1, ‘Rule, fier-eied Warre!... Envy
... Hath now resigned her spightfull throne to us’; vi. 7, ‘I [Poverty]
scorne a scoffing foole about my Throne’; vi. 271 (s.d.), ‘Astraea’
[in margin, ‘Q. Eliza’] ‘mounts unto the throne’; vi. 296 (original
ending), ‘In the end of the play. Plenty Pride Envy Warre and Poverty
To enter and resigne their severall Scepters to Peace, sitting in
Maiestie’.

[440] _Histriomastix_, i. 163, ‘Enter ... Chrisoganus in his study’ ...
(181) ‘So all goe to Chrisoganus study, where they find him reading’;
ii. 70, ‘Enter Contrimen, to them, Clarke of the Market: hee wrings a
bell, and drawes a curtaine; whereunder is a market set about a Crosse’
... (80) ‘Enter Gulch, Belch, Clowt and Gut. One of them steppes on the
Crosse, and cryes, A Play’ ... (105) ‘Enter Vintner with a quart of
Wine’; v. 192, ‘Enter Lyon-rash to Fourchier sitting in his study at
one end of the stage: At the other end enter Vourcher to Velure in his
shop’.

[441] _Dr. Dodipoll_, I. i. 1, ‘A Curtaine drawne, Earl Lassingbergh
is discovered (like a Painter) painting Lucilia, who sits working on a
piece of cushion worke’. In III. ii a character is spoken of after his
‘Exit’ as ‘going down the staires’, which suggests action ‘above’. But
other indications place the scene before Cassimere’s house.

[442] _C. and C. Errant_, I. i, ‘They entered from Maldon’; I. iv,
‘They entered from Harwich all’.

[443] _C. and C. Errant_, I. ii, ‘They met from Maldon and from
Harwich’, for a scene in Colchester; III. i, ‘They crossd: Denham to
Harwich, Lacy to Maldon’.

[444] Reynolds (_M. P._ xii. 248) gives the note as ‘In the middle and
alofte Oceanus Pallace The Scene being. Next Proteus-Hall’. This seems
barely grammatical and I am not sure that it is complete. A limitation
of Paul’s is suggested by the s.d. (ibid. 258) ‘Chambers (noise supposd
for Powles) For actors’, but apparently ‘a showre of Rose-water and
confits’ was feasible.

[445] _Faery Pastoral_, p. 162, ‘A Scrolle fell into her lap from
above’.

[446] _Jack Drum_, II. 27, ‘The Casement opens, and Katherine
appeares’; 270, ‘Winifride lookes from aboue’; 286, ‘Camelia, from her
window’.

[447] I give s.ds. with slight corrections from Bullen, who
substantially follows 1633. But he has re-divided his scenes; 1633 has
acts only for _1 Antonio and Mellida_ (in spite of s.d. ‘and so the
scene begins’ with a new speaker at III. ii. 120); acts and scenes, by
speakers, for _2 Antonio and Mellida_; and acts and scenes or acts and
first scenes only, not by speakers and very imperfectly, for the rest.

[448] _1 Ant. and Mell._ I. 100, ‘Enter above ... Enter below’ ...
(117) ‘they two stand ... whilst the scene passeth above’ ... (140)
‘Exeunt all on the lower stage’ ... (148) ‘_Rossaline._ Prithee, go
down!’ ... (160) ‘Enter Mellida, Rossaline, and Flavia’; III. ii. 190
‘Enter Antonio and Mellida’ ... (193) ‘_Mellida._ A number mount my
stairs; I’ll straight return. _Exit_’ ... (222) ‘_Feliche._ Slink to my
chamber; look you, that is it’.

[449] _IV._ 220, ‘Enter Piero (&c.) ... Balurdo and his Page, at
another door’.

[450] _2 Ant. and Mell._ I. ii. 194, ‘_Antonio._ See, look, the curtain
stirs’ ... (s.d.) ‘The curtains drawn, and the body of Feliche, stabb’d
thick with wounds, appears hung up’ and ‘_Antonio._ What villain bloods
the window of my love?’

[451] III. ii. 1, ‘Enter ... Maria, her hair loose’ ... (59) ‘_Maria._
Pages, leave the room’ ... (65) ‘Maria draweth the curtain: and the
ghost of Andrugio is displayed, sitting on the bed’ ... (95) ‘Exit
Maria to her bed, Andrugio drawing the curtains’.

[452] V. ii. 50, ‘While the measure is dancing, Andrugio’s ghost is
placed betwixt the music-houses’ ... (115) ‘The curtaine being drawn,
exit Andrugio’.

[453] V. ii. 112, ‘They run all at Piero with their rapiers’. This is
while the ghost is present above, but (152) ‘The curtains are drawn,
Piero departeth’.

[454] III. i. 33, ‘And, lo, the ghost of old Andrugio Forsakes his
coffin’ ... (125) ‘Ghosts ... from above and beneath’ ... (192) ‘From
under the stage a groan’; IV. ii. 87, ‘They strike the stage with their
daggers, and the grave openeth’. The church must have been shown open,
and part of the crowded action of these scenes kept outside; at IV. ii.
114, ‘yon bright stars’ are visible.

[455] _Fawn_, IV. 638, ‘_Dulcimel._ Father, do you see that tree,
that leans just on my chamber window?’ ... (V. 1) ‘whilst the Act is
a-playing, Hercules and Tiberio enters; Tiberio climbs the tree, and is
received above by Dulcimel, Philocalia, and a Priest: Hercules stays
beneath’. After a mask and other action in the presence, (461) ‘Tiberio
and Dulcimel above, are discovered hand in hand’.

[456] _W. You Will_, IV. 373, after a dance, ‘_Celia._ Will you to
dinner?’ ... (V. 1) ‘The curtains are drawn by a Page, and Celia (&c.)
displayed, sitting at dinner’.

[457] II. 1, ‘One knocks: Laverdure draws the curtains, sitting on his
bed, apparelling himself; his trunk of apparel standing by him’ ...
(127) ‘Bidet, I’ll down’; II. ii. 1, ‘Enter a schoolmaster, draws the
curtains behind, with Battus, Nous, Slip, Nathaniel, and Holophernes
Pippo, schoolboys, sitting, with books in their hands’.

[458] I. 110, ‘He sings and is answered; from above a willow garland is
flung down, and the song ceaseth’.

[459] _Satiromastix_, I. ii. 1, ‘Horrace sitting in a study behinde a
curtaine, a candle by him burning, bookes lying confusedly’.

[460] V. ii. 23, where the ‘canopie’, if a Paul’s term, may be the
equivalent of the public theatre alcove (cf. pp. 82, 120). The ‘bower’
in IV. iii holds eight persons, and a recess may have been used.

[461] Shorthose says (V. i. 60) ‘Thou lean’st against a poast’, but
obviously posts supporting a heavens at Paul’s cannot be inferred.

[462] _Westward Ho!_ uses the houses of Justiniano (I. i), Wafer (III.
iii), Ambush (III. iv), the Earl (II. ii; IV. ii), and a Bawd (IV. i),
the shops of Tenterhook (I. ii; III. i) and Honeysuckle (II. i), and
inns at the Steelyard (II. iii), Shoreditch (II. iii), and Brentford
(V). Continuous setting would not construct so many houses for single
scenes. There is action above at the Bawd’s, and interior action below
in several cases; in IV. ii, ‘the Earle drawes a curten and sets forth
a banquet’. The s.ds. of this scene seem inadequate; at a later point
Moll is apparently ‘discovered’, shamming death. _Northward Ho!_ uses
the houses of Mayberry (I. iii; II. ii) and Doll (II. i; III. i), a
garden house at Moorfields (III. ii), Bellamont’s study (IV. i), Bedlam
(IV. iii, iv), a ‘tavern entry’ in London (I. ii), and an inn at Ware
(I. i; V. i). Action above is at the last only, interior action below
in several.

[463] _B. d’Ambois_, II. ii. 177, ‘_Tamyra_. See, see the gulfe is
opening’ ... (183) ‘Ascendit Frier and D’Ambois’ ... (296) ‘Descendit
Fryar’; IV. ii. 63, ‘Ascendit [Behemoth]’ ... (162) ‘Descendit cum
suis’; V. i. 155, ‘Ascendit Frier’ ... (191) ‘_Montsurry._ In, Ile
after, To see what guilty light gives this cave eyes’; V. iv. 1,
‘Intrat umbra Comolet to the Countesse, wrapt in a canapie’ ... (23)
‘D’Amboys at the gulfe’.

[464] The Q of 1641, probably representing a revival by the King’s men,
alters the scenes in Montsurry’s house, eliminating the characteristic
Paul’s ‘canapie’ of V. iv. 1 and placing spectators above in the same
scene. It is also responsible for the proleptic s.d. (cf. ch. xxii) at
I. i. 153 for I. ii. 1, ‘Table, Chesbord and Tapers behind the Arras’.

[465] _Blurt Master Constable_ has (_a_) Camillo’s (I. i; II. i) with a
hall; (_b_) Hippolyto’s (III. i) where (136) ‘Violetta appears above’,
and (175) ‘Enter Truepenny above with a letter’; (_c_) a chapel (III.
ii) with a ‘pit-hole’ dungeon, probably also visible in II. i and III.
i; (_d_) Blurt’s (I. ii) which is ‘twelve score off’; (_e_) Imperia’s,
where is most of the action (II. ii; III. iii; IV. i, ii, iii; V. ii,
iii). Two chambers below are used; into one Lazarillo is shown in III.
iii. 201, and here in IV. ii he is let through a trap into a sewer,
while (38) ‘Enter Frisco above laughing’ and (45) ‘Enter Imperia
above’. At IV. iii. 68 Lazarillo crawls from the sewer into the street.
In IV. i and IV. iii tricks are played upon Curvetto with a cord and a
rope-ladder hanging from a window above.

[466] _Phoenix_ has (_a_) the palace (I. i; V. i) with hall; (_b_)
Falso’s (I. vi; II. iii; III. i); (_c_) the Captain’s (I. ii; II. ii);
(_d_) a tavern (I. iv; IV. iii) with interior action; (_e_) a law court
(IV. i); (_f_) a jeweller’s (III. ii; IV. i, ii, iii) with interior
action. It will be observed that (_f_) is needed both with (_d_) and
(_e_). There is no action above.

[467] _M. Term_ has (_a_) Paul’s (I. i, ii); (_b_) Quomodo’s shop, the
Three Knaves (II. iii; III. iv; IV. i, iii, iv; V. i); (_c_) a tavern
(II. i); (_d_) a law court (V. iii); (_e_) a courtesan’s (III. i;
IV. ii). All have interior action and (_b_) eavesdropping above in a
balcony (II. iii. 108, 378, 423; III. iv). Much action is merely in the
streets.

[468] _A Mad World_ has (_a_) Harebrain’s (I. ii; III. i; IV. iv);
(_b_) Penitent Brothel’s (IV. i), with interior action; (_c_) a
courtesan’s (I. i; II. iii, vi; III. ii; IV. v), with a bed and five
persons at once, perhaps above, in III. ii; (_d_) Sir Bounteous
Progress’s in the country (II. i; II. ii, iv, v, vii; III. iii; IV. ii,
iii; V. i, ii). The action here is rather puzzling, but apparently a
hall, a lodging next it, where are ‘Curtains drawn’ (II. vii. 103), the
stairs, and a ‘closet’ or ‘matted chamber’ (IV. ii. 27; IV. iii. 3) are
all used. If the scenes were shifted, the interposition of a scene of
only 7 lines (II. iii) at London amongst a series of country scenes is
strange.

[469] _A Trick to Catch_ has (_a_) Lucre’s (I. iii, iv; II. i, ii;
IV. ii, iii; V. i); (_b_) Hoard’s (III. ii; IV. iv; V. ii); (_c_) a
courtesan’s (III. i); (_d_) an inn (III. iii); (_e_) Dampit’s (III. iv;
IV. v); and away from London, (_f_) Witgood Hall, with (_g_) an inn (I.
i, ii); (_h_) Cole Harbour (IV. i). Nearly all the action is exterior,
but a window above is used at (_b_) in IV. iv, and at (_e_) there is
interior action both below in III. iv and perhaps above (cf. III. iv.
72), with a bed and eight persons at once in IV. v.

[470] _Puritan_ has (_a_) the Widow’s (I. i; II. i, ii; III. i, ii;
IV. i, ii, iii; V. i, ii), with a garden and rosemary bush; (_b_) a
gentleman’s house (III. iv); (_c_) an apothecary’s (III. iii); (_d_) a
prison (I. iv; III. v). There is interior action below in all; action
above only in (_a_) at V. ii. 1, ‘Enter Sir John Penidub, and Moll
aboue lacing of her clothes’ in a balcony.

[471] _Woman Hater_ has (_a_) the Duke’s palace (I. i, iii; IV. i; V.
ii); (_b_) the Count’s (I. iii); (_c_) Gondarino’s (II. i; III. i, ii);
(_d_) Lazarillo’s lodging (I. i, ii); (_e_) a courtesan’s (II. i; IV.
ii, iii; V. ii); (_f_) a mercer’s shop (III. iv); (_g_) Lucio’s study
(V. i). There is interior action below in (_a_), (_e_), (_f_), and
(_g_), where ‘Enter Lazarello, and two Intelligencers, Lucio being at
his study.... Secretary draws the Curtain’. A window above is used at
(_e_), and there is also action above at (_c_), apparently in a loggia
within sight and ear-shot of the street.

[472] The term is used in _The Faery Pastoral_, _Satiromastix_, and
_Bussy d’Ambois_ (_vide supra_); but also in _Sophonisba_ (_vide
infra_), which is a Blackfriars play.

[473] I take it that it was in this stand that Andrugio’s ghost was
placed ‘betwixt the music-houses’ in _2 Antonio and Mellida_.

[474] The four plays which seem most repugnant to continuous staging,
_Westward Ho!_, _Northward Ho!_, _A Mad World, my Masters_, and _A
Trick to Catch the Old One_, are all datable in 1604–6.

[475] Elizabethan Plays: _Love’s Metamorphosis_, _Liberality and
Prodigality_, _Cynthia’s Revels_, _Poetaster_, _Sir Giles Goosecap_,
_Gentleman Usher_, and probably _All Fools_; Jacobean Plays: _M.
d’Olive_, _May Day_, _Widow’s Tears_, _Conspiracy of Byron_, _Tragedy
of Byron_, _Case is Altered_, _Malcontent_, _Dutch Courtesan_,
_Sophonisba_, _Eastward Ho!_, _Your Five Gallants_, _Philotas_, _Isle
of Gulls_, _Law Tricks_, _Fleir_, _Faithful Shepherdess_, _Knight of
the Burning Pestle_. In addition _Fawn_ and _Trick to Catch an Old
One_, already dealt with under Paul’s, were in the first case produced
at, and in the second transferred to, Blackfriars.

[476] Cf. p. 34.

[477] _Lib. and Prod._ 903, ‘Here Prod. scaleth. Fortune claps a halter
about his neck, he breaketh the halter and falles’; 1245, ‘The Judge
placed, and the Clerkes under him’.

[478] The fountain requires a trap. There is no action above. I cite
the scenes of Q_{1}, which are varied by Jonson in F_{1}.

[479] In the prol. 27, Envy says, ‘The scene is, ha! Rome? Rome? and
Rome?’ (cf. p. 154). The only action above is by Julia in IV. ix. 1,
before the palace, where (F_{1}) ‘Shee appeareth above, as at her
chamber window’, and speaks thence.

[480] _Sir G. G._ has, besides the London and Barnet road (III. i),
the houses of (_a_) Eugenia (I. i-iii; II; IV. i) and (_b_) Momford
(I. iv; II; III. ii; IV. iii; V). Both have action within, none above.
In IV. ii. 140 persons on the street are met by pages coming from
Momford’s ‘on the other side’, but (_b_) is near enough to (_a_) to
enable Clarence in II to overhear from it (as directed in I. iv. 202)
a talk between Momford and Eugenia, probably in her porch, where (ii.
17) ‘Enter Wynnefred, Anabell, with their sowing workes and sing’,
and Momford passes over to Clarence at ii. 216. Two contiguous rooms
in (_b_) are used for V. i, ii (a single scene). One is Clarence’s;
from the other he is overheard. They are probably both visible to the
audience, and are divided by a curtain. At V. ii. 128 ‘He draws the
curtains and sits within them’. Parrott adds other s.ds. for curtains
at 191, 222, 275, which are not in Q_{1}.

[481] _Gent. Usher_ has (_a_) Strozza’s (I. i; IV. i, iii; V. ii),
where only a porch or courtyard is needed, and (_b_) Lasso’s (I. ii;
II; III; IV. ii, iv; V. i, iii, iv), with a hall, overlooked by a
balcony used in V. i. 1 and V. iii. 1, and called ‘this tower’ (V. iii.
5).

[482] The visible houses of _All Fools_ are (_a_) Gostanzo’s, (_b_)
Cornelio’s, and (_c_) the Half Moon tavern, where drawers set tables
(V. ii. 1), but not necessarily inside. Both (_a_) and (_b_) are
required in II. i and IV. i, and (_a_), (_b_), and (_c_) in III. i.

[483] _M. d’Olive_ has (_a_) a hall at Court (II. ii); (_b_)
Hieronyme’s chamber, also at Court (V. ii); (_c_) d’Olive’s chamber
(III. ii; IV. ii); (_d_) Vaumont’s (I; II. i; IV. i; V. i); (_e_) St.
Anne’s (III. i); of which (_b_) and (_d_) are used together in V. i, ii
(a continuous scene), and probably (_c_) and (_e_) in III. i. There is
action within at (_a_), (_c_), and (_d_), and above at (_d_), which has
curtained windows lit by tapers (I. 48), at one of which a page above
‘looks out with a light’, followed by ladies who are bidden ‘come down’
(V. i. 26, 66).

[484] _May Day_ has (_a_) Quintiliano’s, (_b_) Honorio’s, (_c_)
Lorenzo’s, and (_d_) the Emperor’s Head, with an arbour (III. iii.
203). The only interior action is in Honorio’s hall (V). Windows above
are used at Lorenzo’s, with a rope-ladder, over a terrace (III. iii),
and at Quintiliano’s (III. ii). The action, which is rather difficult
to track, consists largely of dodging about the pales of gardens and
backsides (II. i. 180; III. iii. 120, 185; IV. ii. 83, 168). Clearly
(_a_), (_c_), and (_d_) are all used in the latter part of II. i, where
a new scene may begin at 45; and similarly (_b_), (_c_), and (_d_) in
III. iii, and (_b_) and (_c_) in IV. ii.

[485] _Widow’s Tears_ has (_a_) Lysander’s (I. i; II. i; III. i); (_b_)
Eudora’s (I. ii; II. ii, iv; III. ii; IV. i); (_c_) Arsace’s (II. iii);
all of which are required in I. iii; and (_d_), a tomb (IV. ii, iii;
V). There is interior action in a hall of (_b_), watched from a ‘stand’
(I. i. 157; I. iii. 1) without, and the tomb opens and shuts; no action
above.

[486] In the _Conspiracy_ the Paris scenes are all at Court, vaguely
located, and mainly of hall type, except III. iii, which is at an
astrologer’s; the only Brussels scene is I. ii, at Court. The _Tragedy_
is on the same lines, but for V. ii, in the Palace of Justice, with a
‘bar’, V. iii, iv, in and before the Bastille, with a scaffold, and
I. ii and III. i at Dijon, in Byron’s lodging. In II. i. 3 there is
‘Music, and a song above’, for a mask.

[487] _C. Altered_, I. i. 1, ‘Iuniper a Cobler is discouered, sitting
at worke in his shoppe and singing’; IV. v. 1, ‘Enter Iuniper in his
shop singing’.

[488] _C. A._ I. v. 212; II. i; III. ii, iii, v, ‘Enter Iaques with his
gold and a scuttle full of horse-dung’. ‘_Jaques._ None is within. None
ouerlookes my wall’; IV. vii. 62, ‘Onion gets vp into a tree’; V. i.
42. In I. v action passes directly from the door of Farneze to that of
Jaques.

[489] _Malc._ I. i. 11, ‘The discord ... is heard from ... Malevole’s
chamber’ ... (19) ‘Come down, thou rugged cur’ ... (43) ‘Enter Malevole
below’.

[490] _Malc._ V. ii. 163. This transition is both in Q_{1} and Q_{2},
although Q_{2} inserts a passage (164–94) here, as well as another
(10–39) earlier in the scene, which entails a contrary transition from
the palace to the citadel.

[491] _Dutch C._ has (_a_) Mulligrub’s (I. i; II. iii; III. iii) with
action in a ‘parlour’ (III. iii. 53); (_b_) Franceschina’s (I. ii; II.
ii; IV. iii, v; V. i), with action above, probably in a _loggia_ before
Franceschina’s chamber, where she has placed an ambush at V. i. 12,
‘She conceals them behind the curtain’; (_c_) Subboy’s (II. i; III.
i; IV. i, ii, iv; V. ii), with a ring thrown from a window above (II.
i. 56); (_d_) Burnish’s shop (III. ii; V. iii), with an inner and an
outer door, for (III. ii. 1) ‘Enter Master Burnish [&c.] ... Cocledemoy
stands at the other door ... and overhears them’.

[492] _Soph._ I. ii. 32, ‘The Ladies lay the Princess in a fair bed,
and close the curtains, whilst Massinissa enters’ ... (35) ‘The Boys
draw the curtains, discovering Sophonisba, to whom Massinissa speaks’
... (235) ‘The Ladies draw the curtains about Sophonisba; the rest
accompany Massinissa forth’.

[493] _Soph._ III. i. 117, ‘The attendants furnish the altar’....
(162) ‘They lay Vangue in Syphax’ bed and draw the curtains’ ... (167)
_Soph._ ‘Dear Zanthia, close the vault when I am sunk’ ... (170) ‘She
descends’ ... (207) ‘[Syphax] descends through the vault’.

[494] _Soph._ IV. i, ‘Enter Sophonisba and Zanthia, as out of a cave’s
mouth’ ... (44) ‘Through the vaut’s mouth, in his night-gown, torch in
his hand, Syphax enters just behind Sophonisba’.... (126) ‘Erichtho
enters’ ... (192) ‘Infernal music, softly’ ... (202) ‘A treble viol and
a base lute play softly within the canopy’ ... (212) ‘A short song to
soft music above’ ... (215) ‘Enter Erichtho in the shape of Sophonisba,
her face veiled, and hasteth in the bed of Syphax’ ... (216) ‘Syphax
hasteneth within the canopy, as to Sophonisba’s bed’ ... (V. i. 1)
‘Syphax draws the curtains, and discovers Erichtho lying with him’ ...
(24) ‘Erichtho slips into the ground’ ... (29) ‘Syphax kneels at the
altar’ ... (40) ‘Out of the altar the ghost of Asdrubal ariseth’. There
is no obvious break in IV. Erichtho promises to bring Sophonisba with
music, and says ‘I go’ (181), although there is no _Exit_. We must
suppose Syphax to return to his chamber through the vault either here
or after his soliloquy at 192, when the music begins.

[495] _E. Ho!_, I. i. 1, ‘Enter Maister Touchstone and Quick-silver
at severall dores.... At the middle dore, enter Golding, discovering
a gold-smiths shoppe, and walking short turns before it’; II. i. 1,
‘Touchstone, Quick-silver[cf above and below, but Touchstone diff];
Goulding and Mildred sitting on eyther side of the stall’.

[496] At the end of II. ii, which is before Security’s, with Winifred
‘above’ (241), Quick-silver remains on the stage, for II. iii, before
Petronel’s. The tavern is first used in III. iii, after which III. iv,
of one 7–line speech only, returns to Security’s and ends the act.
Billingsgate should be at some little distance from the other houses.

[497] _E. Ho!_, IV. i. 1, ‘Enter Slitgut, with a paire of oxe hornes,
discovering Cuckolds-Haven above’.

[498] Clearly IV. i. 346–64 (ed. Schelling) has been misplaced in the
Q_{q}; it is a final speech by Slitgut, with his _Exit_, but without
his name prefixed, and should come after 296. The new scene begins with
297.

[499] _E. Ho!_, IV. i. 92, ‘Enter the Drawer in the Taverne before
[i.e. in III. iii], with Wynnyfrid’; he will shelter her at ‘a house
of my friends heere in S. Kath’rines’ ... (297) ‘Enter Drawer, with
Wynifrid new attird’, who says ‘you have brought me nere enough your
taverne’ and ‘my husband stale thither last night’. Security enters
(310) with ‘I wil once more to this unhappy taverne’.

[500] _Y. F. Gallants_ has (_a_) Frippery’s shop (I. i); (_b_)
Katherine’s (I. ii; V. ii); (_c_) Mitre inn (II. iii); (_d_) Primero’s
brothel (II. i; III. iv; V. i); (_e_) Tailby’s lodging (IV. i, ii);
(_f_) Fitzgrave’s lodging (IV. iii); (_g_) Mrs. Newcut’s dining-room
(IV. vii); (_h_) Paul’s (IV. vi). There is action within in all these,
and in V. i, which is before (_d_), spies are concealed ‘overhead’
(124).

[501] In _Isle of Gulls_ the park or forest holds a lodge for the duke
(I. i), a ‘queach of bushes’ (II. ii), Diana’s oak (II. ii; IV. iv),
Adonis’ bower (II. ii; V. i), a bowling green with arbours (II. iii-v),
and the house of Manasses (IV. iii).

[502] _Law Tricks_ has (_a_) the palace (I. i; II; IV. i, ii; V. ii),
within which (p. 64, ed. Bullen) ‘Discover Polymetes in his study’, and
(p. 78) ‘Polymetes in his study’; (_b_) an arrased chamber in Lurdo’s
(III. i), entered by a vault (cf. p. 148, _supra_); (_c_) Countess
Lurdo’s (III. ii); (_d_) the cloister vaults (V. i, ii) where (p. 90)
‘Countesse in the Tombe’. Action passes direct from (_a_) to (_d_) at
p. 89.

[503] _Fleir_ has (_a_) the courtesans’ (I. 26–188; II; III. 1–193; IV.
1–193); (_b_) Alunio’s (IV. 194–287); (_c_) Ferrio’s (V. 1–54); (_d_) a
prison (V. 55–87); (_e_) a law court (V. 178–end); (_f_) possibly Susan
and Nan’s (I. 189–500). Conceivably (_c_), (_d_), (_e_) are in some way
combined: there is action within at (_b_), ‘Enter Signior Alunio the
Apothecarie in his shop with wares about him’ (194), (_d_) ‘Enter Lord
Piso ... in prison’ (55), and (_e_); none above.

[504] The action of _F. Shepherdess_ needs a wood, with rustic cotes
and an altar to Pan (I. ii, iii; V. i, iii), a well (III. i), and a
bower for Clorin (I. i; II. ii; IV. ii, v; V. ii, v), where is hung a
curtain (V. ii. 109).

[505] _K. B. P._ I. 230, ‘Enter Rafe like a Grocer in ’s shop, with
two Prentices Reading Palmerin of England’; at 341 the action shifts
to Merrithought’s, but the episode at Venturewell’s is said to have
been ‘euen in this place’ (422), and clearly the two houses were staged
together. Possibly the conduit head on which Ralph sings his May Day
song (IV. 439) was also part of the permanent setting.

[506] _K. B. P._ II. 71–438; III. 1–524; IV. 76–151.

[507] The certain plays are _Epicoene_, _Woman a Weathercock_,
_Insatiate Countess_, and _Revenge of Bussy_. I have noted two unusual
s.ds.: _W. a W._ III. ii, ‘Enter Scudmore ... Scudmore passeth one
doore, and entereth the other, where Bellafront sits in a Chaire, under
a Taffata Canopie’; _Insatiate C._ III. i, ‘Claridiana and Rogero,
being in a readiness, are received in at one anothers houses by their
maids. Then enter Mendoza, with a Page, to the Lady Lentulus window’.
There is some elaborate action with contiguous rooms in _Epicoene_, IV,
V.

[508] Cf. pp. 98, 117.

[509] I have noted bedchamber scenes as ‘perhaps above’ at Paul’s
in _A Mad World, my Masters_ and _A Trick to Catch the Old One_,
but the evidence is very slight and may be due to careless writing.
In _A Mad World_, III. ii. 181, Harebrain is said to ‘walke below’;
later ‘Harebrain opens the door and listens’. In _A Trick_, III. iv.
72, Dampit is told that his bed waits ‘above’, and IV. v is in his
bedchamber.

[510] Cf. p. 116.

[511] Cf. _Dr. Dodipoll_, _1 Antonio and Mellida_, _The Fawn_, and
_Bussy d’Ambois_ for Paul’s, and _Sir Giles Goosecap_ and _Fleir_ for
Blackfriars. The early Court plays had similar scenes; cf. p. 43.

[512] _C. Revels_, ind. 54, ‘First the Title of his Play is _Cynthias
Revels_, as any man (that hath hope to be sau’d by his Booke) can
witnesse; the Scene _Gargaphia_’; _K. B. P._ ind. 10, ‘Now you call
your play, The London Marchant. Downe with your Title, boy, downe with
your Title’. For _Wily Beguiled_, cf. p. 126.

[513] Duff, xi.

[514] Ch. ix; cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 221.

[515] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 2. ‘Cum priuilegio’ is in the colophons of
Rastell’s 1533 prints of _Johan Johan_, _The Pardoner and the Friar_,
and _The Wether_, and ‘Cum priuilegio regali’ in those of his undated
_Gentleness and Nobility_ and _Beauty and Good Properties of Women_.

[516] _Procl._ 114, 122, 155, 176. The texts of 1529 and 1530 are in
Wilkins, _Concilia_, iii. 737, 740; that of 1538 in Burnet, _Hist. of
Reformation_, vi. 220; cf. Pollard, _Sh. F._ 6, and in _3 Library_, x.
57. I find ‘Cum priuilegio ad imprimendum solum’ in the colophon of
_Acolastus_ (1540) and in both t.p. and colophon of _Troas_ (1559);
also ‘Seen and allowed &c.’ in the t.p. of Q_{2} of _Gorboduc_ (_c._
1570), ‘Perused and Alowed’ at the end of _Gammer Gurton’s Needle_
(1575), and ‘Seen and allowed, according to the order appointed in the
Queenes maiesties Injunctions’ in the t.p. of _The Glass of Government_
(1575). Otherwise these precautions became dead letters, so far as
plays were concerned.

[517] _Procl._ 295 (part only in Wilkins, iv. 1; cf. Pollard, _Sh. F._
7). The ‘daye of the printe’ is in the t.ps. of _Thyestes_ (1560),
_Oedipus_ (1563), _Gordobuc_ (1565), _Four Ps_ (1569), and the colophon
of _Promos and Cassandra_ (1578); the year and month in the t.p.
of _King Darius_ (1565). Earlier printers had given the day in the
colophons of _Mundus et Infans_ (1522), _Johan Johan_ (1533), and _The
Pardoner and the Friar_ (1533).

[518] Dasent, ii. 312; _Procl._ 395 (text in Hazlitt, _E. D. S._ 9; cf.
Pollard, _Sh. F._ 8).

[519] _Procl._ 427 (cf. Pollard, _Sh. F._ 9); _Procl._ 461 (text in
Wilkins, _Concilia_, iv. 128; Arber, i. 52); _Procl._ 488 (text in
Arber, i. 92).

[520] Arber, i. xxviii, xxxii.

[521] Duff, xi.

[522] _1 Eliz._ c. 1 (_Statutes_, iv. 1. 350).

[523] App. D, No. ix.

[524] App. D, No. xii.

[525] App. D, No. xiii.

[526] _Procl._ 638, 656, 659, 687, 688, 702, 740, 752, 775; Arber, i.
430, 452, 453, 461, 464, 474, 502; cf. McKerrow, xiii. A draft Bill by
William Lambarde prepared in 1577–80 for the establishment of a mixed
body of ecclesiastics and lawyers as Governors of the English Print
(Arber, ii. 751) never became law.

[527] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 15; _F. and Q._ 4. Mr. Pollard stresses the
difficulty of obtaining the hands of six Privy Councillors. Perhaps
this is somewhat exaggerated. Six was the ordinary quorum of that body,
which sat several times a week, while many of its members resided in
court, were available for signing documents daily, and did in fact
sign, in sixes, many, such as warrants to the Treasurer of the Chamber,
of no greater moment than licences (cf. ch. ii). The signatures were of
course ministerial, and would be given to a licence on the report of an
expert reader. In any case the _Injunction_ provides alternatives.

[528] Arber, iii. 690; Pollard, _Sh. F._ 23, ‘From 19^o Elizabethe
[1576–7] till the Starre-chamber Decree 28^o Elizabeth [1586], many
were licensed by the Master and Wardens, some few by the Master alone,
and some by the Archbishop and more by the Bishop of London. The like
was in the former parte of the Quene Elizabeth’s time. They were made a
corporacon but by P. and M. Master Kingston, y^e now master, sayth that
before the Decree the master and wardens licensed all, and that when
they had any Divinity booke of muche importance they would take the
advise of some 2 or 3 ministers of this towne’.

[529] The references in the following notes, unless otherwise
specified, are to the vols. and pages of Arber’s _Transcript_.

[530] i. 106; ii. 879.

[531] i. 17, ‘No member or members of this Company shall hereafter
knowingly imprint or cause to be imprinted any book, pamphlet,
portraicture, picture or paper whereunto the law requires a license,
without such license as by the law is directed for the imprinting of
the same (1678)’; 22, ‘By ancient usage of this company, when any book
or copy is duly entred in the register-book of this company, to any
member or members of this company, such person to whom such entry is
made, is, and always hath been reputed and taken to be proprietor of
such book or copy, and ought to have the sole printing thereof (1681)’;
26, ‘It hath been the ancient usage of the members of this company,
for the printer or printers, publisher or publishers of all books,
pamphlets, ballads, and papers, (except what are granted by letters
pattents under the great seal of England) to enter into the publick
register-book of this company, remaining with the clerk of this company
for the time being, in his or their own name or names, all books,
pamphlets, ballads, and papers whatsoever, by him or them to be printed
or published, before the same book, pamphlet, ballad, or paper is begun
to be printed, to the end that the printer or publisher thereof may be
known, to justifie whatsoever shall be therein contained, and have no
excuse for the printing or publishing thereof (1682)’.

[532] Typical examples are i. 75 (1557–8), ‘To master John Wally these
bokes called Welth and helthe, the treatise of the ffrere and the boy,
stans puer ad mensam, another of youghte charyte and humylyte, an a.
b. c. for cheldren in englesshe with syllabes, also a boke called an
hundreth mery tayles ij^s’; 77 (1557–8), ‘To Henry Sutton to prynte
an enterlude vpon the history of Jacobe and Esawe out of the xxvij
chapeter of the fyrste boke of Moyses called Genyses and for his
lycense he geveth to the howse iiij^d’; 128 (1559–60), ‘Recevyd of John
Kynge for his lycense for pryntinge of these copyes Lucas urialis, nyce
wanton, impaciens poverte, the proude wyves pater noster, the squyre
of low degre and syr deggre graunted ye x of June anno 1560 ij^s’. The
last becomes the normal form, but without the precise date.

[533] i. 155, 177, 204, 205, 208, 209, 231, 263, 268, 269, 272, 299,
302, 308, 312, 334, 336, 343, 378, 382, 385, 398, 399, 415. It is
possible that the wardens, intent on finance, did not always transcribe
into their accounts notes of authorizations. Only half a dozen of the
above are ascribed to the archbishop, yet a mention of ‘one Talbot,
servant of the archbishop of Canterbury, a corrector to the printers’
in an examination relative to the Ridolfi plot (Haynes-Murdin, ii. 30)
shows that he had enough work in 1571 to justify the appointment of a
regular deputy.

[534] ii. 35, 301. Collins remained clerk to 1613, when he was
succeeded by Thomas Mountfort, who became a stationer (McKerrow, 196),
and is of course to be distinguished from the prebendary of Paul’s and
High Commissioner of a similar name, who acted as ‘corrector’ (cf. p.
168).

[535] i. 451 _sqq._

[536] ii. 302, 359, 371, 377, 378, 414, &c.

[537] ii. 440, 444.

[538] ii. 334, ‘vnder the hande of Master Recorder’; 341, ‘vnder
thandes of Doctour Redman and the wardens’; 342, ‘master Recorder and
the wardens’; 346, ‘the lord maiour and the wardens’; 357, ‘sub manibus
comitum Leicester et Hunsdon’; 372, ‘master Crowley’; 375, ‘master
Vaughan’; 386, ‘master Secretary Wilson’; 403, ‘master Thomas Norton
[Remembrancer]’; 404, ‘the Lord Chancellor’; 409, ‘master Cotton’;
417, ‘by aucthoritie from the Counsell’; 434, 435, ‘pervsed by master
Crowley’; 447, ‘master Recorder’. For Talbot, cf. _supra_.

[539] ii. 304; cf. ii. 447 (1586), ‘Entred by commaundement from master
Barker in wrytinge vnder his hand. Aucthorised vnder the Archbishop of
Canterbury his hand’. ‘Licenced’, as well as ‘authorised’ or ‘alowed’,
now sometimes (ii. 307, 447) describes the action of a prelate or
corrector.

[540] ii. 366.

[541] ii. 428.

[542] ii. 424, ‘alwaies provided that before he print he shall get the
bishop of London his alowance to yt’; 424, ‘upon condicon he obtaine
the ordinaries hand thereto’; 429, ‘provyded alwaies and he is enioyned
to gett this booke laufully alowed before he print yt’; 431, ‘yt is
granted vnto him that if he gett the card of phantasie lawfullie alowed
vnto him, that then he shall enioye yt as his owne copie’; 431, ‘so
it be or shalbe by laufull aucthoritie lycenced vnto him’; 444, ‘to
be aucthorised accordinge to her maiesties Iniunctions’. The wardens’
hands are not cited to any of these conditional entries.

[543] ii. 307, 308, 336, 353, 430, 438, 439.

[544] App. D, No. lxxvii; cf. Strype, _Life of Whitgift_, i. 268;
Pierce, _Introduction to Mar Prelate Tracts_, 74. Confirmations
and special condemnations of offending books are in _Procl._ 802,
812, 1092, 1362, 1383 (texts of two last in G. W. Prothero, _Select
Statutes_, 169, 395).

[545] ii. 459, ‘Master Hartwell certifying it to be tollerated’; 460,
‘authorised or alowed as good vnder thand of Doctour Redman &c.’; 461,
‘certified by Master Hartwell to be alowed leavinge out the ij staues
yat are crossed’; 464, ‘master Crowleys hand is to yt, as laufull to
be printed’; 475, ‘aucthorised by tharchbishop of Canterbury as is
reported by Master Cosin’; 479, ‘which as master Hartwell certifyithe
by his hande to the written copie, my Lordes grace of Canterbury is
content shall passe without anie thinge added to yt before it be
pervsed’; 487, ‘sett downe as worthie to be printed vnder thand of
Master Gravet’; 489, ‘Master Crowleys hand is to yt testyfying it to be
alowable to ye print’; 491, ‘vnder the Bishop of London, Master Abraham
Fraunce, and the wardens hands’; 493, ‘Master Hartwells hand beinge at
the wrytten copie testifyinge his pervsinge of the same’; 493, ‘alowed
vnder D^r Stallers hand as profitable to be printed’, &c.

[546] Lambe notes (iii. 690) in 1636 that on 30 June 1588, ‘the
archbishop gave power to Doctor Cosin, Doctor Stallard, Doctor Wood,
master Hartwell, master Gravett, master Crowley, master Cotton, and
master Hutchinson, or any one of them, to license books to be printed:
Or any 2 of those following master Judson, master Trippe, master Cole
and master Dickens’. It will be observed that most of the first group
of these had already acted as ‘correctors’, together with William
Redman and Richard Vaughan, chaplains respectively to Archbishop
Grindal and Bishop Aylmer. William Hutchinson and George Dickens were
also chaplains to Aylmer. Hutchinson was in the High Commission of
1601. Richard Cosin was Dean of the Arches and a High Commissioner.
Abraham Hartwell was secretary and Cole chaplain (Arber, ii. 494) to
Archbishop Whitgift. Hutchinson, William Gravett, William Cotton,
and George Dickins were or became prebendaries of St. Paul’s. Thomas
Stallard was rector of All Hallows’ and St. Mary’s at Hill; Henry Tripp
of St. Faith’s and St. Stephen’s, Walbrook. Most of this information
is from Hennessy. Crowley was presumably Robert Crowley, vicar of St.
Giles, Cripplegate, and himself a stationer, although his activity as
a Puritan preacher and pamphleteer makes his appointment an odd one
for Whitgift. Moreover, he died on 18 June 1588. There may have been
two Robert Crowleys, or the archbishop’s list may have been drawn up
earlier than Lambe dates it.

[547] Amongst the correctors who appear later in the Register are
Richard Bancroft, John Buckeridge, and Michael Murgatroyd, secretaries
or chaplains to Whitgift, Samuel Harsnett, William Barlow, Thomas
Mountford, John Flower, and Zacharias Pasfield, prebendaries of St.
Paul’s, William Dix, Peter Lyly, chaplain of the Savoy and brother of
the dramatist, Lewis Wager, rector of St. James’s, Garlickhithe, and
dramatist, John Wilson, and Gervas Nidd. Mountford and Dix were in the
High Commission of 1601. I have not troubled to trace the full careers
of these men in Hennessy and elsewhere. Thomas Morley (Arber, iii. 93)
and William Clowes (ii. 80) seem to have been applied to as specialists
on musical and medical books respectively.

[548] ii. 463, 464, 508, 509, ‘Alowed by the Bishop of London vnder
his hand and entred by warrant of Master [warden] Denhams hand to the
copie’.

[549] A typical entry is now

‘xiii^{to} die Augusti [1590].
Richard Jones. Entred vnto him for his Copye The twooe commicall
discourses of Tomberlein the Cithian shepparde vnder the handes of
Master Abraham Hartewell and the Wardens. vj^d.’

[550] iii. 677. A number of satirical books were condemned by name
to be burnt, and direction given to the master and wardens, ‘That no
Satyres or Epigrams be printed hereafter; That noe Englishe historyes
be printed excepte they bee allowed by some of her maiesties privie
Counsell; That noe playes be printed excepte they bee allowed by suche
as haue aucthoritie; That all Nasshes bookes and Doctor Harvyes bookes
be taken wheresoeuer they maye be found and that none of theire bookes
be euer printed hereafter; That thoughe any booke of the nature of
theise heretofore expressed shalbe broughte vnto yow vnder the hands of
the Lord Archebisshop of Canterburye or the Lord Bishop of London yet
the said booke shall not be printed vntill the master or wardens haue
acquainted the said Lord Archbishop or the Lord Bishop with the same to
knowe whether it be theire hand or no’.

[551] _Hunting of Cupid_ (R. Jones, 26 July 1591), ‘provyded alwayes
that yf yt be hurtfull to any other copye before lycenced, then this
to be voyde’; _Merchant of Venice_ (J. Robertes, 22 July 1598),
‘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’; _Blind Beggar of Alexandria_ (W. Jones, 15 Aug.
1598), ‘vppon condition that yt belonge to noe other man’; _Spanish
Tragedy_ (transfer from A. Jeffes to W. White, 13 Aug. 1599), ‘saluo
iure cuiuscunque’; _Cloth Breeches and Velvet Hose_ (J. Robertes,
27 May 1600), ‘prouided that he is not to putt it in prynte without
further and better aucthority’; _A Larum for London_ (J. Robertes,
29 May 1600), ‘prouided that yt be not printed without further
aucthoritie’; _Antonio and Mellida_ (M. Lownes and T. Fisher, 24 Oct.
1601), ‘prouided that he gett laufull licence for yt’; _Satiromastix_
(J. Barnes, 11 Nov. 1601), ‘vppon condicon that yt be lycensed to be
printed’; _Troilus and Cressida_ (J. Robertes, 7 Feb. 1603), ‘to print
when he hath gotten sufficient aucthoritie for yt’; _When You See Me,
You Know Me_ (N. Butter, 12 Feb. 1605), ‘yf he gett good alowance for
the enterlude of King Henry the 8^{th} 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’; _Westward Hoe_ (H. Rocket, 2 March 1605),
‘prouided yat he get further authoritie before yt be printed’ (entry
crossed out, and marked ‘vacat’); _Dutch Courtesan_ (J. Hodgets, 26
June 1605), ‘provyded that he gett sufficient aucthoritie before yt be
prynted’ (with later note, ‘This is alowed to be printed by aucthoritie
from Master Hartwell’); _Sir Giles Goosecap_ (E. Blount, 10 Jan.
1606), ‘prouided that yt be printed accordinge to the copie wherevnto
Master Wilsons hand ys at’; _Fawn_ (W. Cotton, 12 March 1606),
‘provided that he shall not put the same in prynte before he gett
alowed lawfull aucthoritie’; _Fleire_ (J. Trundle and J. Busby, 13 May
1606), ‘provided that they are not to printe yt tell they bringe good
aucthoritie and licence for the doinge thereof’ (with note to transfer
of Trundle’s share to Busby and A. Johnson on 21 Nov. 1606, ‘This booke
is aucthorised by Sir George Bucke Master Hartwell and the wardens’).

[552] Buck’s hand first appears to _Claudius Tiberius Nero_ (10 Mar.
1607), and thereafter to all London (but not University) plays up to
his madness in 1622, except _Cupid’s Whirligig_ (29 June 1607), which
has Tilney’s, _Yorkshire Tragedy_ (2 May 1608), which has Wilson’s,
some of those between 4 Oct. 1608 and 10 March 1609, which have
Segar’s, who is described as Buck’s deputy, and _Honest Lawyer_ (14
Aug. 1615), which has Taverner’s.

[553] i. 45, 69, 93, 100, &c.; ii. 821, 843. In 1558–9, only, the
heading is ‘Fynes for defautes for Pryntynge withoute lycense’.

[554] See the case of Jeffes and White in 1593 given in ch. xxiii, s.v.
Kyd, _Spanish Tragedy_.

[555] i. 93, 100; ii. 853 (21 Jan. 1583), ‘This daye, Ric. Jones is
awarded to paie x^s for a fine for printinge a thinge of the fall of
the gallories at Paris Garden without licence and against commandement
of the Wardens. And the said Jones and Bartlet to be committed to
prison viz Bartlet for printing it and Jones for sufferinge it to be
printed in his house’.

[556] ii. 824, 826, 832, 837, 849, 851.

[557] ii. 850.

[558] The testimony only relates strictly to the period 1576–86, which
is nearly coincident with the slack ecclesiastical rule of Archbishop
Grindal (1576–83). Parker (1559–75) may have been stricter, as Whitgift
(1583–1604) certainly was.

[559] i. 95, ‘Master Waye had lycense to take the lawe of James Gonnell
for a sarten dett due vnto hym’; 101, ‘Owyn Rogers for ... kepynge of a
forren with out lycense ys fyned’.

[560] ii. 62.

[561] i. 322.

[562] v. lxxvi, ‘we do will and commande yowe that from hence forthe
yowe suffer neither booke ballett nor any other matter to be published
... until the same be first seene and allowed either by us of her
M^{tes} pryvie Counsell or by thee [_sic_] Commissioners for cawses
ecclesyastical there at London’.

[563] The fee seems at first to have been 4_d._ for ‘entraunce’ (i.
94), with a further sum for books above a certain size at the rate of
‘euery iij leves a pannye’ (i. 97); plays ran from 4_d._ to 12_d._ But
from about 1582 plays and most other books are charged a uniform fee of
6_d._, and only ballads and other trifles escape with 4_d._ Payments
were sometimes in arrear; often there is no note of fee to a title;
and in some of these cases the words ‘neuer printed’ have been added.
On the other hand, the receipt of fees is sometimes recorded, and the
title remains unentered; at the end of the entries for 1585–6 (ii. 448)
is a memorandum that one of the wardens ‘brought in about iiij^s moore
which he had receved for copies yat were not brought to be entred into
the book this yere’. A similar item is in the wardens’ accounts for
1592–3 (i. 559). Fees were charged for entries of transferred as well
as of new copies.

[564] Various formulae are used, such as ‘assigned vnto him’ (ii. 310,
351), ‘turned ouer to him’ (ii. 369), ‘putt ouer vnto him’ (ii. 431),
‘sold and sett ouer vnto him’ (ii. 350), ‘which he affyrmeth yat he
bought of’ (ii. 351), ‘by assent of’ (ii. 415), ‘by thappointment of’
(ii. 667), ‘by the consent of’ (ii. 608), ‘which he bought of’ (ii.
325), &c. A transfer of ‘plaiebookes’ from Sampson Awdeley to John
Charlewood on 15 Jan. 1582 (ii. 405) included, besides two plays,
_Youth_ and _Impatient Poverty_, which had been formerly registered,
four others, _Weather_, _Four Ps_, _Love_, and _Hickscorner_, which
had been printed before the Register came into existence. I suppose
that Charlwood secured copyright in these, but was there any copyright
before the entry of 1582?

[565] ii. 377. ‘Tollerated vnto him but not vnder the wardens handes’,
472, ‘beinge broughte to enter by John Woulf without the wardens handes
to the copy’. Even in the seventeenth century ballads are sometimes
entered without any citation of hands, and in 1643 it was the clerk
and not the wardens whom Parliament authorized to license ‘small
pamphletts, portratures, pictures, and the like’ (v. liv).

[566] ii. 365, ‘Translated by a French copie whereat was the bishop of
Londons hand and master Harrisons’; 440, ‘by commaundement from master
warden Newbery vnder his own handwrytinge on the backside of ye wrytten
copie’; 443, ‘vnder his hand to the printed copie’; 449, ‘by warrant
of master warden Bisshops hand to the former copie printed anno 1584’;
449, ‘by warrant of master warden Bishops hand to the wrytten copie’;
457, ‘by warrant of the wardens handes to thold copie’; 521, ‘with
master Hartwelles hand to the Italyan Booke’; 534, ‘alowed vnder master
Hartwelles hand, entred by warrant of the subscription of the wardens’,
&c.

[567] ii. 434, ‘entred vpon a special knowen token sent from master
warden Newbery’; 437, ‘allowed by tharchbishop of Canterbury, by
testymonie of the Lord Chenie’; 460, ‘by the wardens appointment at the
hall’; 504, ‘by warrant of a letter from Sir Ffrauncis Walsingham to
the master and wardens of the Cumpanye’; 523, ‘alowed by a letter or
note vnder master Hartwelles hand’; 524, ‘reported by master Fortescue
to be alowed by the archbishop of Canterbury’; 633, ‘The note vnder
master Justice Ffenners hand is layd vp in the wardens cupbord’;
iii. 160, ‘John Hardie reporteth that the wardens are consentinge to
thentrance thereof’, &c.

[568] An inventory of 1560 (i. 143) records ‘The nombre of all suche
Copyes as was lefte in the Cubberde in our Counsell Chambre at the
Compte ... as apereth in the whyte boke for that yere ... xliiij. Item
in ballettes ... vij^e iiij^x and xvj’. From 1576 to 1579 ‘and a copie’
is often added to the notes of fees. The wardens accounts from 1574
to 1596 (i. 470, 581) regularly recite that they had ‘deliuered into
the hall certen copies which haue been printed this yeare, as by a
particular booke thereof made appearithe’.

[569] ii. 452, ‘Receaved of him for printinge 123 ballades which are
filed vp in the hall with his name to euerie ballad’. The order of
1592 about _Dr. Faustus_ (cf. ch. xxiii) suggests preliminary entry of
claims in a Hall book distinct from the Clerk’s book.

[570] ii. 414, ‘Graunted by the Assistants’; 449, ‘entred in full
court’; 462, ‘entred in plena curia’; 465, ‘intratur in curia’; 477,
‘by the whole consent of thassistantes’; 535, ‘aucthorysed to him at
the hall soe that yt doe not belonge to any other of the Cumpanye’;
535, ‘This is allowed by the consent of the whole table’; 663, ‘in open
court’; 344, ‘memorandum that this lycence is revoked and cancelled’;
457, ‘This copie is forbydden by the Archbishop of Canterbury’, with
marginal note ‘Expunctum in plena curia’; 514, ‘so yat he first gett yt
to be laufully and orderly alowed as tollerable to be printed and doo
shewe thaucthoritie thereof at a Court to be holden’; 576, ‘Cancelled
out of the book, for the vndecentnes of it in diuerse verses’; iii. 82,
‘Entred ... in full court ... vppon condicon that yt be no other mans
copie, and that ... he procure it to be aucthorised and then doo shew
it at the hall to the master and wardens so aucthorised’.

[571] The register indicates that even at the time of entry the fee
sometimes remained unpaid. But probably it had to be paid before the
stationer could actually publish with full security of copyright.

[572] Cf. p. 173.

[573] I note twenty-two cases (1586–1616) in which the earliest print
known falls in a calendar year later than the next after that of
entry: _Spanish Tragedy_, 1592–4 (N.D. probably earlier); _Soliman
and Perseda_, 1592–9 (N.D. probably earlier); _James IV_, 1594–8;
_Famous Victories_, 1594–8; _David and Bethsabe_, 1594–9; _King Leire_,
1594–1605 (re-entry 1605); _Four Prentices_, 1594–1615 (one or more
earlier editions probable); _Jew of Malta_, 1594–1633 (re-entry 1632);
_Woman in the Moon_, 1595–7; _George a Greene_, 1595–9; _Merchant of
Venice_, 1598–1600 (conditional entry); _Alarum for London_, 1600–2
(conditional entry); _Patient Grissell_, 1600–3 (stayed by Admiral’s);
_Stukeley_, 1600–5; _Dr. Faustus_, 1601–4; _Englishmen for my Money_,
1601–16; _Troilus and Cressida_, 1603–9 (re-entry 1609); _Westward
Ho!_, 1605–7 (conditional entry cancelled); _Antony and Cleopatra_,
1608–23, (re-entry 1623); _2 Honest Whore_, 1608–30 (re-entry 1630);
_Epicoene_, 1610–20 (earlier edition probable); _Ignoramus_, 1615–30
(re-entry 1630). The glutting of the book-market in 1594 accounts for
some of the delays.

[574] ii. 829 (1599), 833 (1601), 835 (1602), 837 (1603).

[575] I find no entries of _Enough is as Good as a Feast_ (N.D.),
_Thyestes_ (1560), _Hercules Furens_ (1561), _Trial of Treasure_
(1567), _God’s Promises_ (1577), perhaps reprints; of _Orestes_ (1567);
or of _Abraham’s Sacrifice_ (1577) or _Conflict of Conscience_ (1581),
perhaps entered in 1571–5. The method of exhaustions suggests that
Copland’s _Robin Hood_ (N.D.) is the ‘newe playe called ---- ’ which he
entered on 30 Oct. 1560, and that Colwell’s _Disobedient Child_ (N.D.)
is the unnamed ‘interlude for boyes to handle and to passe tyme at
christenmas’, which he entered in 1569–70.

[576] His plays were _Sir Thomas Wyat_ (1607), _Every Woman in her
Humour_ (1609), _Two Maids of Moreclack_ (1609), _Roaring Girl_ (1611),
_White Devil_ (1612), and _Insatiate Countess_ (1613).

[577] In _Nice Wanton_ a prayer for a king has been altered by
sacrificing a rhyme into one for a queen. The prayer of _Impatient
Poverty_ seems also to have been for Mary and clumsily adapted for
Elizabeth. Wager’s _Enough is as Good as a Feast_ may be Elizabethan
or pre-Elizabethan. _Jacob and Esau_ (1568), entered in 1557–8, is
pre-Elizabethan.

[578] Reprints of 1559–85 include Heywood’s _Weather_ and _Four
Ps_, printed in England before the establishment of the Stationers’
Register, and Bale’s _Three Laws_ and _God’s Promises_, printed,
probably abroad, in 1538. John Walley, who seems to have printed
1545–86, failed to date his books. I cannot therefore say whether his
reprints of the pre-Register _Love_ and _Hickscorner_, or the prints
of _Youth_ and _Wealth and Health_ (if it is his), which he entered in
1557–8, are Elizabethan or not.

[579] Cf. App. L.

[580] Cf. App. B. I classify as follows: (a) COMPANIES OF MEN: (i)
Morals (3), _Delight_, _Beauty and Housewifery_, _Love and Fortune_;
(ii) Classical (7), _Tully_, _A Greek Maid_, _Four Sons of Fabius_,
_Sarpedon_, _Telomo_, _Phillida and Corin_, _Rape of the Second Helen_;
(iii) Romantic (17), _Lady Barbara_, _Cloridon and Radiamanta_, _Predor
and Lucia_, _Mamillia_, _Herpetulus the Blue Knight and Perobia_,
_Philemon and Philecia_, _Painter’s Daughter_, _Solitary Knight_,
_Irish Knight_, _Cynocephali_, _Three Sisters of Mantua_, _Knight in
the Burning Rock_, _Duke of Milan and Marquess of Mantua_, _Portio
and Demorantes_, _Soldan and Duke_, _Ferrar_, _Felix and Philiomena_;
(iv) Farce (1), _The Collier_; (v) Realistic (2), _Cruelty of a
Stepmother_, _Murderous Michael_; (vi) Antic Play (1); (vii) Episodes
(2), _Five Plays in One_, _Three Plays in One_; (b) COMPANIES OF
BOYS: (i) Morals (6), _Truth, Faithfulness and Mercy_, ‘_Vanity_’,
_Error_, _Marriage of Mind and Measure_, _Loyalty and Beauty_, _Game
of Cards_; (ii) Classical (12), _Iphigenia_, _Ajax and Ulysses_,
_Narcissus_, _Alcmaeon_, _Quintus Fabius_, _Siege of Thebes_, _Perseus
and Andromeda_, ‘_Xerxes_’, _Mutius Scaevola_, _Scipio Africanus_,
_Pompey_, _Agamemnon and Ulysses_; (iii) Romantic (4), _Paris and
Vienna_, _Titus and Gisippus_, _Alucius_, _Ariodante and Genevora_;
(c) UNKNOWN COMPANIES: (i) Morals (5), _As Plain as Can Be_, _Painful
Pilgrimage_, _Wit and Will_, _Prodigality_, ‘_Fortune_’; (ii) Classical
(2), _Orestes_, _Theagenes and Chariclea_; (iii) Romantic (1), _King of
Scots_; (iv) Farces (2), _Jack and Jill_, _Six Fools_. The moral and
romantic elements meet also in the list of pieces played by companies
of men at Bristol from 1575 to 1579: _The Red Knight_, _Myngo_, _What
Mischief Worketh in the Mind of Man_, _The Queen of Ethiopia_, _The
Court of Comfort_, _Quid pro Quo_ (Murray, ii. 213).

[581] _Love and Fortune_ was printed in the next period.

[582] _Mary Magdalen_; _Conflict of Conscience_. ‘Compiled’ goes back
to Bale, Heywood, and Skelton. Earlier still, _Everyman_ is not so much
a play as ‘a treatyse ... in maner of a morall playe’.

[583] The prologue of _Mary Magdalen_ has ‘we haue vsed this feate at
the uniuersitie’.

[584] Wynkyn de Worde calls _Mundus et Infans_ a ‘propre newe
interlude’, and the advertising title-page is well established from the
time of Rastell’s press.

[585] _Conflict of Conscience_; cf. _Damon and Pythias_, the prologue
of which, though it had been a Court play, ‘is somewhat altered for
the proper use of them that hereafter shall haue occasion to plaie it,
either in Priuate, or open Audience’. The castings, for four, five,
or six players, occur in _King Darius_, _Like Will to Like_, _Longer
Thou Livest_, _Mary Magdalen_, _New Custom_, _Tide Tarrieth for No
Man_, _Trial of Treasure_, _Conflict of Conscience_. I find a later
example from the public stage in _Fair Maid of the Exchange_, which
has ‘Eleauen may easily acte this comedie’, and a division of parts
accordingly. There are pre-Elizabethan precedents, while _Jack Juggler_
is ‘for Chyldren to playe’, the songs in _Ralph Roister Doister_ are
for ‘those which shall vse this Comedie or Enterlude’, and _The Four
Elements_ has directions for reducing the time of playing at need from
an hour and a half to three-quarters of an hour, and the note ‘Also yf
ye lyst ye may brynge in a dysgysynge’. Similarly _Robin Hood_ is ‘for
to be played in Maye games’. That books were in fact bought to act from
is shown by entries in the accounts of Holy Trinity, Bungay, for 1558
of 4_d._ for ‘the interlude and game booke’ and 2_s._ for ‘writing the
partes’ (_M. S._ ii. 343). A book costing only 4_d._ must clearly have
been a print.

[586] There are prayers in _All for Money_, _Apius and Virginia_,
_Common Conditions_, _Damon and Pythias_, _Disobedient Child_ (headed
‘The Players ... kneele downe’), _King Darius_, _Like Will to Like_,
_Longer Thou Livest_, _New Custom_, _Trial of Treasure_ (epilogue
headed ‘Praie for all estates’). _Mary Magdalen_ and _Tide Tarrieth
for No Man_ substitute a mere expression of piety. I do not agree with
Fleay, 57, that such prayers are evidence of Court performance. The
reverence and epilogue to the Queen in the belated moral of _Liberality
and Prodigality_ (1602), 1314, is different in tone. _The Pedlar’s
Prophecy_, also belated as regards date of print, adds to the usual
prayer for Queen and council ‘And that honorable T. N. &c. of N.
chiefly: Whom as our good Lord and maister, found we haue’. No doubt
any strolling company purchasing the play would fill up the blanks to
meet their own case. Probably both the Queen and estates and the ‘lord’
of a company were prayed for, whether present or absent, so long as the
custom lasted; cf. ch. x, p. 311; ch. xviii, p. 550.

[587] Cf. e. g. _Mary Magdalen_ (which refers on the title-page to
those who ‘heare or read the same’), 56, 1479, 1743; _Like Will to
Like_, sig. C, ‘He ... speaketh the rest as stammering as may be’, C
ij, ‘Haunce sitteth in the chaire, and snorteth as though he were fast
a sleep’, E ij^v, ‘Nichol Newfangle lieth on the ground groning’, &c.,
&c.

[588] _Three Ladies of London_ (1584), _Three Lords and Three Ladies of
London_ (1590), _Pedlar’s Prophecy_ (1595), _Contention of Liberality
and Prodigality_ (1602). _Lingua_ (1607) is a piece of academic
archaism. I cannot believe that the manuscript fragment of _Love
Feigned and Unfeigned_ belongs to the seventeenth century. Of course
there are moral elements in other plays, such as _Histriomastix_,
especially in dumb-shows and inductions.

[589] There is little evidence as to the price at which prints were
sold; what there is points to 6_d._ for a quarto. A ‘testerne’ is
given in the epistle as the price of _Troilus and Cressida_, and in
Middleton, _Mayor of Quinborough_, v. i, come thieves who ‘only take
the name of country comedians to abuse simple people with a printed
play or two, which they bought at Canterbury for sixpence’. The
statement that the First Folio cost £1 only rests on Steevens’s report
of a manuscript note in a copy not now known; cf. McKerrow in _Sh.
England_, ii. 229.

[590] Cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Shakespeare.

[591] Cf. App. L. In the above allocation _Leir_ and _Satiromastix_, to
each of which two companies have equal claims, are counted twice.

[592] Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 148, gives a full list; cf. ch. xiii, s.vv.
Queen’s, Sussex’s, Strange’s, Admiral’s, Pembroke’s, Worcester’s.

[593] Cf. App. M. Can Moseley have been trying in some way to secure
plays of which he possessed manuscripts from being _acted_ without his
consent? On 30 Aug. 1660 (_Variorum_, iii. 249; Herbert, 90) he wrote
to Sir Henry Herbert, denying that he had ever agreed with the managers
of the Cockpit and Whitefriars that they ‘should act any playes that
doe belong to mee, without my knowledge and consent had and procured’.

[594] Printed from _Addl. MS._ 27632, f. 43, by F. J. Furnivall in _7
N. Q._ (1890), ix. 382. Harington died in 1612. An earlier leaf (30)
has the date ‘29^{th} of Jan. 1609’. The latest datable play in the
collection is _The Turk_ (1610, S. R. 10 Mar. 1609). There are four out
of six plays printed in 1609, as well as _The Faithful Shepherdess_
(N.D.), of which on this evidence we can reasonably put the date of
publication in 1609 or 1610.

[595] Cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Heywood.

[596] _M. S. C._ i. 364; _Variorum_, iii. 159. The King’s men played
_The Malcontent_, probably after its first issue in 1604, as a retort
for the appropriation of _Jeronimo_ by its owners, the Queen’s Revels.
The earliest extant print of _1 Jeronimo_ is 1605, but the play, which
is not in S. R., may have been printed earlier. The Chapel boys seem
to have revived one at least of Lyly’s old Paul’s plays in 1601. The
Chamberlain’s adopted _Titus Andronicus_, which had been Sussex’s, and
Shakespeare revised for them _Taming of A Shrew_ and _The Contention_,
which had been Pembroke’s, and based plays which were new from the
literary, and in the case of the last also from the publisher’s,
standpoint on the _Troublesome Reign of John_ and the _Famous Victories
of Henry V_, which had been the Queen’s, and upon _King Leir_. But of
course Sussex’s, Pembroke’s, and the Queen’s had broken.

[597] Henslowe, i. 119.

[598] A single printer, Thomas Creede, entered or printed ten plays
between 1594 and 1599, all of which he probably acquired in 1594,
although he could not get them all in circulation at once. These
include four (_T. T. of Rich. III_, _Selimus_, _Famous Victories_,
_Clyomon and Clamydes_) from the Queen’s; it is therefore probable that
some of those on whose t.ps. no company is named (_Looking Glass_,
_Locrine_, _Pedlar’s Prophecy_, _James IV_, _Alphonsus_) were from the
same source. The tenth, _Menaechmi_, was not an acting play.

[599] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 44; cf. ch. ix.

[600] The Folio editors of Shakespeare condemn the Quartos, or some
of them, as ‘stolne, and surreptitious copies’; ‘piratical’, although
freely used by Mr. Pollard and others, is not a very happy term, since
no piracy of copyright is involved. The authorized Q_{2} of _Roxana_
(1632) claims to be ‘a plagiarii unguibus vindicata’.

[601] Introduction, xxxvi of his edition.

[602] R. B. McKerrow in _Bibl. Soc. Trans._ xii. 294; J. D. Wilson,
_The Copy for Hamlet 1603 and the Hamlet Transcript 1593_ (1918).

[603] C. Dewischeit, _Shakespeare und die Stenographie_
(_Sh.-Jahrbuch_, xxxiv. 170); cf. Lee, 113, quoting Sir G. Buck’s
_Third Universitie of England_ (1612; cf. ch. iii), ‘They which know it
[brachygraphy] can readily take a Sermon, Oration, Play, or any long
speech, as they are spoke, dictated, acted, and uttered in the instant’.

[604] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 48; _F. and Q._ 64. More recently A. W.
Pollard and J. D. Wilson have developed a theory (_T. L. S._ Jan.–Aug.
1919) that the ‘bad quartos’ rest upon pre-Shakespearian texts partly
revised by Shakespeare, of which shortened transcripts had been made
for a travelling company in 1593, and which had been roughly adapted
by an actor-reporter so as to bring them into line with the later
Shakespearian texts current at the time of publication. Full discussion
of this theory belongs to a study of Shakespeare. The detailed
application of it in J. D. Wilson, _The Copy for Hamlet 1603 and the
Hamlet Transcript 1593_ (1918), does not convince me that Shakespeare
had touched the play in 1593, although I think that the reporter was in
a position to make some slight use of a pre-Shakespearian _Hamlet_. And
although travelling companies were doubtless smaller than the largest
London companies (cf. chh. xi and xiii, s.v. Pembroke’s), there is no
external evidence that special ‘books’ were prepared for travelling.
For another criticism of the theory, cf. W. J. Lawrence in _T. L.
S._ for 21 Aug. 1919. Causes other than travelling might explain the
shortening of play texts: prolixity, even in an experienced dramatist
(cf. t.p. of _Duchess of Malfi_), the approach of winter afternoons, an
increased popular demand for jigs.

[605] Cf. G. Wither, _Schollers Purgatory_ (_c._ 1625), 28, ‘Yea, by
the lawes and Orders of their Corporation, they can and do setle upon
the particuler members thereof a perpetuall interest in such Bookes
as are Registred by them at their Hall, in their several Names: and
are secured in taking the ful benefit of those books, better then any
Author can be by vertue of the Kings Grant, notwithstanding their first
Coppies were purloyned from the true owner, or imprinted without his
leave’.

[606] Pollard, _F. and Q._ 10. Mr. Pollard seems to suggest (_F. and
Q._ 3) that copyright in a printed book did not hold as against the
author. He cites the case of Nashe’s _Pierce Pennilesse_, but there
seems no special reason to assume that in this case, or in those of
_Gorboduc_ and _Hamlet_, the authorized second editions were not made
possible by an arrangement, very likely involving blackmail, with the
pirate.

[607] Letter in Grosart, _Poems of Sidney_ (1877), i. xxiii. Pollard,
_F. and Q._ 8, says that on other occasions Sidney’s friends approached
the Lord Treasurer and the Star Chamber.

[608] Pollard, _F. and Q._ 7, 11. I am not sure that the appearance
of Bacon’s name can be regarded as a recognition of the principle of
author’s copyright. He may have been already in the High Commission; he
was certainly in that of 1601.

[609] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 49, 51, speaks of Burby as ‘regaining the
copyright’ by his publications, and as, moreover, saving his sixpences
‘as a license was only required for new books’. But surely there was
no copyright, as neither Danter nor Burby paid for an entry. I take
it that when, on 22 Jan. 1607, _R. J._ and _L. L. L._ were entered to
Nicholas Ling, ‘by direccõn of a Court and with consent of Master Burby
in wrytinge’, the entry of the transfer secured the copyright for the
first time.

[610] Arber, iii. 37. The ink shows that there are two distinct entries.

[611] Fleay, _L. and W._ 40; Furness, _Much Ado_, ix.

[612] Pollard, _F. and Q._ 66; _Sh. F._ 44.

[613] Roberts did not print the 1603 _Hamlet_, although he did that
of 1604; but it must have been covered by his entry of 1602, and this
makes it a little difficult to regard him (or Blount in 1609) as the
‘agent’ of the Chamberlain’s.

[614] Pollard, _F. and Q._ 66; _Sh. F._ 45.

[615] There are analogies in _Taming of the Shrew_, _2, 3 Henry VI_,
and _King John_, which were not entered in S. R. with the other
unprinted plays in 1623, and were probably regarded as covered by
copyright in the plays on which they were based, although, as a matter
of fact, the _Troublesome Reign_ was itself not entered.

[616] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 53.

[617] They had risks to run. The Star Chamber fined and imprisoned
William Buckner, late chaplain to the archbishop, for licensing
Prynne’s _Histriomastix_ in 1633 (Rushworth, _Historical Collections_,
ii. 234).

[618] _M. S. C._ i. 364; _Variorum_, iii. 159.

[619] Moseley’s _Epistle_ to F_{1} (1647) of Beaumont and Fletcher
says, ‘When these _Comedies_ and _Tragedies_ were presented on the
Stage, the _Actours_ omitted some _Scenes_ and Passages (with the
_Authour’s_ consent) as occasion led them; and when private friends
desir’d a Copy, they then (and justly too) transcribed what they Acted’.

[620] See _Epistles_ to Armin, _Two Maids of Moreclack_; Chapman,
_Widow’s Tears_; Heywood, _Rape of Lucrece_, _Golden Age_; Marston,
_Malcontent_; Middleton, _Family of Love_.

[621] Jonson, _E. M. O._ (1600), ‘As it was first composed by the
Author B. I. Containing more than hath been publikely spoken or acted’;
Barnes, _Devil’s Charter_ (1607), ‘As it was plaide.... But more
exactly reuewed, corrected, and augmented since by the Author, for the
more pleasure and profit of the Reader’; Webster, _Duchess of Malfi_
(1623), ‘with diuerse things Printed, that the length of the Play would
not beare in the Presentment’.

[622] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 57; _F. and Q._ 117.

[623] The editors of the Shakespeare F_{1} claim that they are
replacing ‘stolne, and surreptitious copies’ by plays ‘absolute in
their numbers, as he conceiued them’, and that ‘wee haue scarse
receiued from him a blot in his papers’; and those of the Beaumont
and Fletcher F_{1} say they ‘had the Originalls from such as received
them from the Authors themselves’ and lament ‘into how many hands the
Originalls were dispersed’. The same name ‘original’ was used for the
authoritative copy of a civic miracle-play; cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, ii.
143.

[624] The manuscripts of _Sir John Barnevelt_ (_Addl. MS._ 18653),
_Believe As You List_ (_Egerton MS._ 2828), _The Honest Man’s Fortune_
(_Dyce MS._ 9), _The Faithful Friends_ (_Dyce MS._ 10), and _The
Sisters_ (_Sion College MS._) appear to be play-house copies, with
licensing corrections, and in some cases the licences endorsed, and
some of them may be in the authors’ autographs; cf. Pollard, _Sh.
F._ 59; Mönkemeyer, 72. Several of the copies in _Egerton MS._ 1994,
described by F. S. Boas in _3 Library_ (July 1917), including that of
_1 Richard II_, are of a similar type.

[625] Sir Henry Herbert noted in his office-book in 1633 (_Variorum_,
iii. 208), ‘The Master ought to have copies of their new playes
left with him, that he may be able to shew what he hath allowed or
disallowed’, but it was clearly not the current practice. In 1640
(_Variorum_, iii. 241) he suppressed an unlicensed play, and noted,
‘The play I cald for, and, forbiddinge the playinge of it, keepe the
booke’, which suggests that only one copy existed.

[626] Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 155, prints it; cf. _1 Antonio and
Mellida_, ind. 1, ‘Enter ... with parts in their hands’; _Wily
Beguiled_, prol. 1, ‘Where are these paltrie Plaiers? stil poaring in
their papers and neuer perfect?’ By derivation, the words assigned
to an actor became his ‘part’; cf. Dekker, _News from Hell_ (1606,
_Works_, ii. 144), ‘with pittifull action, like a Plaier, when hees out
of his part’.

[627] In 1623 Herbert re-allowed _The Winter’s Tale_, ‘thogh the
allowed booke was missinge’, and in 1625 _The Honest Man’s Fortune_,
‘the originall being lost’ (_Variorum_, iii. 229).

[628] Cf. App. N.

[629] The handing over of ‘papers’ is referred to in several letters to
Henslowe; cf. _Henslowe Papers_, 56, 69, 75, 76, 81, 82.

[630] He sends Henslowe an instalment ‘fayr written’, and on another
occasion says, ‘I send you the foule sheet and y^e fayr I was wrighting
as your man can testify’ (_Henslowe Papers_, 72, 78).

[631] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 62.

[632] _Birth of Hercules_, 3, ‘Notae marginales inseruiant dirigendae
histrion[ic]ae’; Nashe, _Summer’s Last Will and Testament_, 1813, ‘You
might haue writ in the margent of your play-booke, Let there be a fewe
rushes laide in the place where _Back-winter_ shall tumble, for feare
of raying his cloathes: or set downe, Enter _Back-winter_, with his boy
bringing a brush after him, to take off the dust if need require. But
you will ne’re haue any wardrobe wit while you live. I pray you holde
the booke well, that we be not _non plus_ in the latter end of the
play.’

[633] ‘Exit’ and ‘Exeunt’ soon became the traditional directions for
leaving the stage, but I find ‘Exite omnes’ in Peele, _Edw. I_, 1263.

[634] Mönkemeyer, 73.

[635] _T. N. K._ I. iii. 69, ‘2 Hearses ready with Palamon: and Arcite:
the 3 Queenes. Theseus: and his Lordes ready’, i.e. ready for I. iv,
which begins 42 lines later; and again I. iv. 29, ‘3 Hearses ready’,
for I. v, beginning 24 lines later. So too _Bussy D’Ambois_ (1641, not
1607 ed.), I. i. 153, ‘Table, Chesbord and Tapers behind the Arras’,
ready for I. ii.

[636] _A Shrew_, ind. i, ‘San.’ for speaker; _The Shrew_ (F_{1}), ind.
i. 88, ‘Sincklo’ for speaker; _3 Hen. VI_ (F_{1}), I. ii. 48, ‘Enter
Gabriel’; III. i. 1, ‘Enter Sinklo, and Humfrey’; _R. J._ (Q_{2}), IV.
v. 102, ‘Enter Will Kemp’; _M. N. D._ (F_{1}), V. i. 128, ‘Tawyer with
a Trumpet before them’; _1 Hen. IV_ (Q_{1}), I. ii. 182 (text, not
s.d.), ‘Falstaffe, Haruey, Rossill, and Gadshil, shall rob those men
that we haue already waylaid’ (cf. II. ii); _2 Hen. IV_ (Q_{1}), V. iv.
1, ‘Enter Sincklo and three or foure officers’; _M. Ado_ (F_{1}), II.
iii. 38, ‘Enter Prince, Leonato, Claudio and Iacke Wilson’; _M. Ado_ (Q
and F), IV. ii, ‘Cowley’ and ‘Kemp’ for speakers; _T.N.K._ v. 3, ‘T.
Tucke: Curtis’, IV. ii. 75, ‘Enter Messenger, Curtis’; _1 Antonio and
Mellida_, IV. i. 30, ‘Enter Andrugio, Lucio, Cole, and Norwood’; for
other examples, cf. pp. 227, 271, 285, 295, 330, and vol. iv, p. 43.
The indications of speakers by the letters E. and G. in _All’s Well_,
II. i; III. i, ii, vi, may have a similar origin. The names of actors
are entered in the ‘plots’ after those of the characters represented
(cf. _Henslowe Papers_, 127).

[637] _Alphonsus_, prol. 1, ‘after you haue sounded thrise’; 1938,
‘Exit Venus. Or, if you can conueniently, let a chaire come down from
the top of the stage’; _James IV_, 1463, ‘Enter certaine Huntsmen,
if you please, singing’; 1931, ‘Enter, from the widdowes house, a
seruice, musical songs of marriages, or a maske, or what prettie
triumph you list’; _Three Lords and Three Ladies of London_, sig. C,
‘Here Simp[licitie] sings first, and Wit after, dialoguewise, both to
musicke if ye will’; _Locrine_, I. i. 1, ‘Let there come foorth a Lion
running after a Beare or any other beast’; _Death of R. Hood_, III. ii,
‘Enter or aboue [Hubert, Chester]’; _2 Hen. VI_, IV. ii. 33, ‘Enter
Cade [etc.] with infinite numbers’; IV. ix. 9, ‘Enter Multitudes with
Halters about their Neckes’; _T. A._ I. i. 70, ‘as many as can be’;
_Edw. I_, 50, ‘Enter ... and others as many as may be’; _Sir T. More_,
sc. ix. 954, ‘Enter ... so many Aldermen as may’; _What You Will_, v.
193, ‘Enter as many Pages with torches as you can’.

[638] Mönkemeyer, 63, 91.

[639] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 79.

[640] e.g. _R. J._ (Q_{1}), III. i. 94, ‘Tibalt vnder Romeos arme
thrusts Mercutio in and flyes’; III. ii. 32, ‘Enter Nurse wringing her
hands, with the ladder of cordes in her lap’; IV. v. 95, ‘They all but
the Nurse goe foorth, casting Rosemary on her and shutting the Curtens’.

[641] Cf. ch. xxi, pp. 133, 136.

[642] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 71; Van Dam and Stoffel, _William Shakespeare,
Prosody and Text_, 274; _Chapters on English Printing, Prosody, and
Pronunciation_.

[643] R. B. McKerrow, introd. xiv, to Barnes, _Devil’s Charter_.

[644] Pollard, _Sh. F._ 74; cf. his introd. to _A New Shakespeare
Quarto_ (1916).

[645] Epistles to Heywood, _Rape of Lucrece_; Marston, _Malcontent_,
_Fawn_; Middleton, _Family of Love_. In _Father Hubburd’s Tales_
Middleton says, ‘I never wished this book a better fortune than to
fall into the hands of a truespelling printer’. Heywood, in an Epistle
to _Apology for Actors_ (1612), praises the honest workmanship of
his printer, Nicholas Okes, as against that of W. Jaggard, who would
not let him issue _errata_ of ‘the infinite faults escaped in my
booke of _Britaines Troy_, by the negligence of the Printer, as the
misquotations, mistaking of sillables, misplacing halfe lines, coining
of strange and neuer heard of words’.

[646] ‘Proofs’ and ‘revises’ had come into use before 1619, for
Jaggard, criticized by Ralph Brooke for his ill printing of Brooke’s
_Catalogue of Nobility_ (1619), issued a new edition as _A Discoverie
of Errors in the First Edition of the Catalogue of Nobility_ (1622),
regretting that his workmen had not given Brooke leave to print his own
faulty English, and saying, ‘In the time of this his vnhappy sicknesse,
though hee came not in person to ouer-looke the Presse, yet the Proofe,
and Reuiewes duly attended him, and he perused them (as is well to be
iustifyed) in the maner he did before’; cf. p. 261.

[647] Cf. pp. 106, 107, 117, 127.

[648] e.g. _Cynthia’s Revels_ (F_{1}), ‘The Scene Gargaphie’;
_Philaster_ (F_{2}), ‘The scene being in Cicilie’; _Coxcomb_ (F_{2}),
‘The Scene; England, France’ (but in fact there are no scenes in
France!).

[649] _The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom_ has no acts, but nine scenes.
The latish _Jacob and Esau_, _Respublica_, _Misogonus_, _Conflict of
Conscience_ have acts and scenes.

[650] _Ralph Roister Doister_, _Gammer Gurton’s Needle_, _Gorboduc_,
_Gismund of Salerne_, _Misfortunes of Arthur_, _Jocasta_, _Supposes_,
_Bugbears_, _Two Italian Gentlemen_, _Glass of Government_, _Promos
and Cassandra_, _Arraignment of Paris_; so, too, as a rule, University
plays. _Dido_ and _Love and Fortune_, like the later private theatre
plays, show acts only.

[651] _Devil’s Charter_, _Duchess of Malfi_, _Philotas_, _Sir Giles
Goosecap_, _The Turk_, _Liberality and Prodigality_, Percy’s plays,
_The Woman Hater_, _Monsieur Thomas_, _2 Antonio and Mellida_.

[652] Acts and scenes are marked in _Tamburlaine_ and _Locrine_; acts,
or one or more of them only, sometimes with the first scene, in _Jack
Straw_, _Battle of Alcazar_, _Wounds of Civil War_, _King Leire_,
_Alphonsus_, _James IV_, _Soliman and Perseda_, _Spanish Tragedy_,
_John a Kent and John a Cumber_; a few scenes without acts in _Death
of Robin Hood_. These exceptions may indicate neo-classic sympathies
in the earlier group of scholar playwrights; some later plays, e.g. of
Beaumont and Fletcher, have partial divisions. The acts in _Spanish
Tragedy_ and _Jack Straw_ are four only; _Histriomastix_, a private
theatre play, has six. Where there are no formal divisions, they are
sometimes replaced by passages of induction or dumb-shows.

[653] Cf. ch. xxi.

[654] Pollard, _F. and Q._ 124; _Sh. F._ 79.

[655] Creizenach, 248.

[656] _Melville’s Diary_ (Bannatyne Club), 22.

[657] R. Hudson, _Memorials of a Warwickshire Parish_, 141.

[658] Lodge, _Defence of Plays_, 7.

[659] Collier, _Memoirs of Alleyn_, 133.

[660] _Plays Confuted_, 167

[661] _School of Abuse_, 40.

[662] Lodge, _Defence of Plays_, 28.

[663] _Plays Confuted_, 165.

[664] _Repentance_ (Grosart, xii. 177).

[665] Grosart, xii. 134.

[666] Ibid. viii. 128.

[667] Ibid. vii. 7.

[668] App. M; cf. E. Köppel (_Archiv_, cii. 357); W. Bang (_E. S._
xxviii. 229).

[669] Grosart, vi. 86, 119.

[670] Grosart, vi. 31.

[671] Sig. A 3^v. _Farewell to Folly_ was entered on S. R. on 11
June 1587 (Arber, ii. 471), but the first extant edition of 1591 was
probably the first published, and the use of the term ‘Martinize’ in
the preface dates it as at least post-1589 (cf. Simpson, ii. 349).

[672] Grosart, xi. 75.

[673] _Strange News_ (Nashe, i. 271); cf. _Pierce Penniless; his
Supplication to the Devil_ (Nashe, i. 198) and _Have With You to
Saffron Walden_ (Nashe, iii. 130). The passage about ‘make-plays’ is in
an Epistle only found in some copies of _The Lamb of God_ (Nashe, v.
180).

[674] This allusion is not in the extant 1592 editions of the pamphlet
(Grosart, xi. 206, 258).

[675] Ed. Grosart, i. 167.

[676] Ed. McKerrow, i. 247.

[677] Ed. Gosart, ii. 222, 322.

[678] Ed. McKerrow, iii. 131.

[679] Arber, ii. 620.

[680] App. C, No. xlviii.

Transcriber’s Notes:

1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
corrected silently.

2. Original spelling has been retained where appropriate.

3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have been
retained as in the original.

4.Superscripts are represented using the caret character, e.g. D^r.
or X^{xx}. Subscripts are shown as X{x}.

5. Italics are shown as _xxx_.

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