_S. R._ 1610, Oct. 31 (Buck). ‘A booke called, Histriomastix or the
player whipte.’ _Thomas Thorpe_ (Arber, iii. 447).
1610. Histrio-Mastix. Or, the Player whipt. _For Thomas Thorp._
_Editions_ by R. Simpson (1878, _S. of S._ ii. 1) and J. S. Farmer
(1912, _T. F. T._).--_Dissertation_: F. Hoppe, _Histriomastix-Studien_
(1906, Breslau diss.).
Fleay, ii. 69, gives the whole play to Marston, but the sounder view
of Simpson that Marston, whose style in places is unmistakable, was
only the reviser of an earlier play, is revived in the elaborate and
mainly satisfactory study of Small, 67. The passages assigned by Small
to Marston are ii. 63–9, 128–9, 247–79; iii. 179–v. 191; v. 234; vi.
259–95. I should be inclined to add v. 244–67, but to omit ii. 128–9;
iii. 218–64; iv. 159–201; v. 61–102; v. 147–180; vi. 259–95, which may
just as well belong to the original play. No doubt vi. 259–95 is an
addition, constituting an alternative ending for a court performance
before Elizabeth; but this may just as well have been a contemporary
as a Marstonian addition, and in fact there is no court performance at
the end of the century available for it, while the attempt to find one
led Fleay to the impossible theory that it was given by Derby’s men.
As its whole substance is a satire on professional players, it must
have been both produced and revived by amateurs or boys; and the same
conclusion is pointed to by the enormous number of characters. The
original matter is so full of the technical learning of the schools
as to suggest an academic audience; I think it was a University or
possibly an Inns of Court, not a choirboy, play. The theme is the
cyclical progression of a state through the stages Peace, Plenty,
Pride, Envy, War, Poverty, and Peace again. It is illustrated by the
fortunes of a company of players, who wax insolent in prosperity, and
when war comes, are pressed for soldiers. Their poet Posthaste is
clearly Munday and not, as Simpson and others have vainly imagined,
Shakespeare. With him is contrasted the scholar-poet, Chrisoganus, a
philosopher with whom the players will have nothing to do. He seems to
belong to the order of ideas connected with the scientific school of
Thomas Harriott. Small thinks that the date was 1596, when there was
scarcity of food, a persecution of players, and a pressing of men for
service against Spain; and that the author might be Chapman. Certainly
Chapman was an early admirer of Harriott. But I disagree as to the
date. The style seems to me to be that of Peele or some imitator,
the attitude to the players an academic reflection of the attacks of
Greene, and the political atmosphere that of the years following the
Armada, when the relief of peace was certainly not unbroken by fears of
renewed Spanish attempts. Impressment was not a device of 1596 alone.
The only notice of it known to me in which players are known to have
especially suffered is in an undated letter of Philip Gawdy, assigned
by his editor to 1602 (Gawdy, 121), ‘All the playe howses wer besett
in one daye and very many pressed from thence, so that in all ther
ar pressed ffowre thowsand besydes fyve hundred voluntaryes, and all
for flaunders’. This is too late for the _proto-Histriomastix_, and
probably also for the revival, but men were being pressed for foreign
service as early as 1585, and again in 1588 and possibly in 1589 and
1591 (Cheyney, i. 158, 197, 219, 255; _Procl._ 805, 809). As to the
revival, Small puts it definitely in August 1599, when a scare of a
Spanish invasion, which had lasted for a month, came to a crisis in
London on Aug. 7 (Stowe, _Annales_, 788; Chamberlain, 59; _Sydney
Papers_, ii. 113; _Hist. MSS._ xv, app. v, 66), and he thinks that the
words ‘The Spaniards are come!’ (v. 234) are an insertion of this date.
They are not ‘extra-metrical’, as Fleay says, for the passage is not
in metre. There had, however, been earlier scares, e.g. in Oct. 1595
(_Sydney Papers_, i. 355; cf. Arber, iii. 55, 56) and in Oct. 1597
(_Edmondes Papers_, 303). The date of 1599 would agree well enough with
the career of Marston, and with that of the Paul’s boys, to whom the
revival was probably due, although I do not agree with Small that it
was their court play of 1 Jan. 1601, because I see no evidence that the
court ending belongs to the revision. I take it that _Histriomastix_
was one of the ‘musty fopperies of antiquity’ with which we learn
from _Jack Drum’s Entertainment_, v. 112, that the Paul’s boys began.
The revision leaves Posthaste untouched, save for the characteristic
Marstonian sneer of ‘goosequillian’ (iii. 187). Munday of course was
still good sport in 1599. But Chrisoganus is turned from a scientific
into a ‘translating’ scholar (ii. 63). I agree with Small that
Marston has given him Jonsonian traits, and that he intended to be
complimentary rather than the reverse. I do not know that it is
necessary to suppose that Jonson misunderstood this and took offence,
for the real offence was given by _Jack Drum’s Entertainment_ in the
next year. But certainly some of the ‘fustian’ words put in the mouth
of Clove in _Every Man Out of His Humour_, III. i. 177 sqq., later in
1599 come from _Histriomastix_, and their origin is pointed by the
phrase ‘as you may read in Plato’s Histriomastix’. One of the fragments
of plays recited by the players contains the lines (ii. 269):
Come Cressida, my Cresset light,
Thy face doth shine both day and night;
Behold behold thy garter blue
Thy knight his valiant elbow wears,
That when he shakes his furious Speare
The foe in shivering fearful sort
May lay him down in death to snort.
I am not convinced with Small that this belongs to the revision, even
though it seems discontinuous with the following fragment of a Prodigal
Child play. But in any case the hit at Shakespeare, if there really
is one, remains unexplained. There is nothing else which points to
so early a date as 1599 for his _Troilus and Cressida_. I note the
following parallel from S. Rowlands, _The Letting of Humors Blood in
the Head-Veine_ (1600), Sat. iv:
Be thou the Lady Cressit-light to mee,
Sir Trollelolle I will proue to thee.
_The Honest Lawyer > 1615_
_S. R._ 1615, Aug. 14. (Taverner). ‘A play called The Honest Lawyer.’
_Richard Redmer_ (Arber, iii. 571). [Assigned by Redmer, apparently at
once, to Richard Woodriffe.]
1616. The Honest Lawyer. Acted by the Queenes Maiesties Seruants.
Written by S. S. _George Purslowe for Richard Woodroffe._
[Epilogue.]
_Edition_ by J. S. Farmer (1914, _S. F._).
A conceivable author is Samuel Sheppard (q.v.), but the absence of
extant early work by him makes a definite attribution hazardous.
_How a Man may Choose a Good Wife from a Bad c. 1602_
1602. A pleasant conceited Comedie, Wherein is shewed how a man may
chuse a good Wife from a bad. As it hath bene sundry times Acted by the
Earle of Worcesters Seruants. _For Mathew Law._
1605; 1608; 1614; 1621; 1630; 1634.
_Editions_: 1824 (for Charles Baldwin), in _O. E. D._ (1825, i) and
Dodsley^4 (1876–9, ix), and by A. E. H. Swaen (1912, _Materialien_,
xxxv) and J. S. Farmer (1912, _T. F. T._).--_Dissertations_: C. R.
Baskervill, _Sources and Analogues of H._ (1909, _M. L. A._ xxiv. 711);
J. Q. Adams, _Thomas Heywood and H._ (1912, _E. S._ xlv. 30).
The B.M. copy of 1602 (C. 34, b. 53) has the note ‘Written by Ioshua
Cooke’ in ink on the title-page. Presumably the author of _Greene’s Tu
Quoque_ (q.v.) is meant, with which Swaen, xiii, declares that the play
shows ‘absolutely no similarity or point of agreement’. Fleay, i. 289,
suggested an ascription to Heywood on the ground of parallelisms with
_The Wise Woman of Hogsdon_, and this case is elaborately and plausibly
argued by Swaen and Adams. The date must be before Worcester’s begin to
appear in Henslowe’s diary, 17 Aug. 1602. Fleay’s attempt to twist its
mentions of a certain ‘Thomas’ in the text (l. 790) into references to
Heywood himself and Thomas Blackwood, the actor, is mere childishness.
_Impatient Poverty (?)_
_S. R._ 1560, June 10. ‘ ... nyce wanton; impaciens poverte ...’ _John
King_ (Arber, i. 128).
1560. A Newe Interlude of Impacyente pouerte newlye Imprynted. _John
King._ [B.M. C. 34, i. 26, from Irish sale of 1906 (cf. _Jahrbuch_,
xliii. 310). Engraved t.p.; on tablet at foot ‘T. R.’ Thomas Petit’s
mark after colophon. The t.p. has also ‘Foure men may well and easelye
playe thys Interlude’, with an arrangement of the parts.]
N.D. An new enterlude of Impacient pouerte newly Imprynted. [In Mostyn
sale (1919). The t.p. has three woodcut figures. There is no imprint,
but as the woodcuts are also found in W. Copland’s print of _Youth_ and
as King’s copy of _Lusty Juventus_ also passed to Copland (1548–69), he
was probably the printer.]
_S. R._ 1582, Jan. 15. Transfer from Sampson Awdeley to John Charlwood
(Arber, ii. 405).
_Editions_ by J. S. Farmer (1907, _T. F. T._) and R. B. McKerrow (1911,
_Materialien_, xxxiii).
The play has come to light since the issue of _The Mediaeval Stage_,
and I therefore include it here, although it is pre-Elizabethan. The
characters are Peace, Envy, Impatient Poverty (afterwards Prosperity),
Conscience, Abundance, Misrule, ‘Collhasarde’, and a Summoner.
The drama is a moral, non-controversial, and not even necessarily
Protestant in tone. It sets out the mutability of the world and the
defects of poverty and prosperity. The scene is a ‘place’, and there
are allusions to Newgate and Tyburn. If the T. R. of the title-page
is the same whose name is at the end of _Nice Wanton_, the play is
probably not later than the reign of Edward VI; but the Summoner and
allusions to penance and courts spiritual suggest an even earlier date.
The final address to the ‘Soueraynes’ contains the following stanza:
Let vs pray al to that lorde of great magnificence
To send amonge vs peace rest and vnyte
And Jesu preserue our soueraigne Quene of preclare preeminence
With al her noble consanguynyte
And to sende them grace so the yssue to obtayne
After them to rule this most chrysten realme.
The form of the companion stanzas suggests that the two last lines
originally rhymed, and that a line has dropped out before them.
Possibly an ending originally meant for Henry VIII and Jane Seymour
has been altered with a view to making it appropriate to Elizabeth.
The play is offered with other pre-Elizabethan plays by the company in
_Sir Thomas More_, IV. i. 42, and was also in the obsolete library of
Captain Cox (_Robert Laneham’s Letter_, ed. Furnivall, 30).
_Jack Drum’s Entertainment. 1600_
_S. R._ 1600, Sept. 8. ‘A booke Called Jack Drum’s enterteynmente. A
commedy as yt bathe ben diuerse tymes Acted by the Children of Paules.’
_Felix Norton_ (Arber, iii. 172).
1600, Oct. 23. Transfer from Norton to Richard Oliff (Arber, iii. 175).
1601. Iacke Drums Entertainment: Or the Comedie of Pasquill and
Katherine. As it hath bene sundry times plaide by the Children of
Powles. _For Richard Olive._ [Introduction, i.e. Induction.]
1616.... Newly Corrected. _W. Stansby for Philip Knight._
1618.... The Actors 12 men, and 4 women. _For Nathaniel Fosbrooke._
_Editions_ by R. Simpson (1878, _S. of S._ ii. 125) and J. S. Farmer
(1912, _T. F. T._).
All critics have recognized the style as Marston’s and some of the
vocabulary is vomited in _Poetaster_; cf. Small, 93. The date is fixed
to 1600 by allusions to hopes of ‘peace with Spaine’, ‘Kemps morice’,
and ‘womens yeare’ (i. 37, 45, 166). There is little doubt that the
critical Brabant Senior is Jonson, and that the play is that in which
he told Drummond that Marston staged him. The cuckolding of Brabant
Senior is based upon a story narrated by Jonson to Drummond (Laing, 21)
as one in which he had played the active, not the passive, part. If he
had imparted the same story to Marston, he not unnaturally resented
the use made of it. The minor identifications suggested by Fleay, ii.
74, have nothing to commend them, except possibly that of Sir Edward
Fortune with Edward Alleyn, who was building the Fortune in 1600. Were
not this a Paul’s play, one might infer from the closing line,
Our _Fortune_ laughes, and all content abounds,
that it was given at the Fortune. Can the Admiral’s have shared it
with Paul’s, as the Chamberlain’s shared _Satiromastix_? In iv. 37–48
Brabant Senior criticizes three ‘moderne wits’ whom he calls ‘all apes
and guls’ and ‘vile imitating spirits’. They are Mellidus, Musus, and
Decius. I take them to be Marston, Middleton, and Dekker, all writers
for Paul’s; others take Decius for Drayton, to whom Sir John Davies
applied the name, and Musus, by a confusion with Musaeus, for Chapman
or Daniel. For v. 102–14, which bears on the history of the company,
cf. ch. xii (Paul’s).
_The Life and Death of Jack Straw > 1593_
_S. R._ 1593, Oct. 23. ‘An enterlude of the lyfe and deathe of Jack
Strawe.’ _John Danter_ (Arber, ii. 639).
1593. [Colophon, 1594]. The Life and Death of Iacke Straw, A notable
Rebell in England: Who was kild in Smithfield by the Lord Maior of
London. _John Danter, sold by William Barley._
1604. _For Thomas Pavier._
_Editions_ in Dodsley^4 (1874, v), and by H. Schütt (1901) and J. S.
Farmer (1911, _T. F. T._).
Fleay, ii. 153, Schütt, and Robertson, 121, all incline to suggest the
authorship, whole or in part, of Peele. Schütt would date _c._
1588, but the theme is that of T. Nelson’s pageant of 1590–1, for which
year a member of Walworth’s company, the Fishmongers, was Lord Mayor.
The text of the play is very short, with only four acts.
_Jacob and Esau > 1558_
_S. R._ 1557–8. ‘An enterlude vpon the history of Jacobe and Esawe out
of the xxvii chapeter of the fyrste boke of Moyses Called genyses.’
_Henry Sutton_ (Arber, i. 77).
1568. A newe mery and wittie Comedie or Enterlude, newely imprinted,
treating vpon the Historie of Iacob and Esau, taken out of the xxvij.
Chap. of the first booke of Moses, entituled Genesis. _Henrie
Bynneman._
_Editions_ in Dodsley^4 (1874, ii), and by J. S. Farmer (1908, _T. F.
T._).
The play must necessarily, from the date of the S. R. entry, be
pre-Elizabethan, and should have been included in Appendix X of _The
Mediaeval Stage_. C. C. Stopes, _Hunnis_, 265, and in _Athenaeum_ (28
April 1900), claims the authorship for Hunnis; W. Bang has suggested
Udall, which seems plausible. The parts of Mido and Abra point to
boy-actors.
_1 Jeronimo c. 1604_
1605. The First Part of Ieronimo. With the Warres of Portugall, and the
life and death of Don Andræa. _For Thomas Pavier._ [Dumbshows.]
_Editions_ by W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ i), in Dodsley^4 (1874, iv),
and by F. S. Boas (1901, _Works of Kyd_).--_Dissertations_: J. E.
Routh, _T. Kyd’s Rime Schemes and the Authorship of Soliman and Perseda
and 1 J._ (1905, _M. L. N._ xx. 49); A. L. Elmquist, _Zur Frage nach
dem Verfasser von 1 J._ (1909, _E. S._ xl. 309); A. Seeberger (1909,
_Archiv für Stenographie_, iv. 306); K. Wiehl, _Thomas Kyd und die
Autorschaft von ... 1 J._ (1912, _E. S._ xliv. 343); B. Neuendorff,
_Zur Datierung des 1 J._ (1914, _Jahrbuch_, l. 88).
The ascription by Fleay, ii. 27, and Sarrazin to Kyd is rejected on
stylistic grounds by R. Fischer, _Zur Kunstentwicklung der Englischen
Tragödie_, 100, with whom Boas and other writers concur. A reference
to the jubilee of 1600 (I. i. 25) points to a date at the beginning
of the seventeenth century. If so, the play cannot be that revived
by Strange’s for Henslowe in Feb. 1592 and given, sometimes under the
title of _Don Horatio_, and sometimes under that of the _Comedy of
Jeronimo_, during a run of, and several times on the night before, the
_Spanish Tragedy_ (Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 150, 154). It is, moreover,
not a comedy. It may, however, be a later version of the same theme,
motived by another revival of the _Spanish Tragedy_ by the Admiral’s
in 1601–2. If so, it was probably itself due, not to the Admiral’s,
but to the Chamberlain’s, and a piracy of their property by the Revels
boys explains the jest at ‘Ieronimo _in decimo sexto_’ in the induction
to the 1604 version of Marston’s _Malcontent_. It must be uncertain
whether _1 Jeronimo_ was the ‘Komödie vom König in Spanien und dem
Vice-Roy in Portugall’ given at Dresden in 1626 (Herz, 66, 76).
_The Troublesome Reign of King John 1587< >91_
1591. The Troublesome Raigne of Iohn King of England, with the
discouerie of King Richard Cordelions Base sonne (vulgarly named, The
Bastard Fawconbridge): also the death of King Iohn at Swinstead Abbey.
As it was (sundry times) publikely acted by the Queenes Maiesties
Players, in the honourable Citie of London. _For Sampson Clarke._
There is a Second part with separate signatures and title-page. The
Second part of the troublesome Raigne of King Iohn, conteining the
death of Arthur Plantaginet, the landing of Lewes, and the poysning of
King Iohn at Swinstead Abbey. As ... London ... 1591. [The text of each
part is preceded by lines ‘To the Gentlemen Readers’, and a head-piece,
which has the initials W. D.]
1611. The First and Second Part ... As they were (sundry times) lately
acted by the Queenes Maiesties Players. Written by W. Sh. _Valentine
Simmes for John Helme._ [The signatures are continuous through both
parts.]
1622.... as they were (sundry times) lately acted. Written by W.
Shakespeare. _Augustine Mathewes for Thomas Dewes._
_Editions_ by G. Steevens (1760, _T. P._ ii), J. Nichols (1779,
_Six Old Plays_, ii), W. C. Hazlitt (1875, _Sh. Libr._ v), F. G.
Fleay, _King John_ (1878), F. J. Furnivall (1888, _Sh. Q_), J. S.
Farmer (1911, _T. F. T._), F. J. Furnivall and J. Munro (1913, _Sh.
Classics_).--_Dissertations_: E. Rose, _Shakespeare as an Adapter_
(_Macmillan’s Magazine_, Nov. 1878); G. C. Moore Smith, _Sh.’s K.
J. and the T. R._ (1901, _Furnivall Miscellany_, 335); H. D. Sykes,
_Sidelights on Shakespeare_, 99 (1919).
The authorship was assigned by Malone to Marlowe, by Pope to
Shakespeare and W. Rowley, by Fleay, ii. 53, and _King John_, 34, to
Greene, Peele, and Lodge, working on a Marlowian plot. Furnivall and
Munro accept none of these theories, and the latter suggests a common
authorship with the early _Leir_. Sykes argues strongly for Peele. The
lines prefixed to Part I begin
You that with friendly grace of smoothed brow
Have entertained the Scythian Tamburlaine.
They do not claim to be a prologue, and may have been added on
publication. The play is not therefore necessarily later than
_Tamburlaine_ (_c._ 1587). But the tone is that of the Armada period.
Shakespeare used the play, with which, from the booksellers’ point of
view, his _King John_ seems to have been treated as identical.
_Judith c. 1595_ (?)
[_MS._] _National Library of Wales, Peniarth_ (formerly _Hengwrt_),
_MS._ 508.
G. A. Jones, _A Play of Judith_ (1917, _M. L. N._ xxxii. 1) describes
the MS. which contains the Latin text of the _Judithae Constantia_
of Cornelius Schonaeus, of which a reprint was issued in London in
1595, together with an incomplete English translation in unrhymed
verse written as prose, perhaps as a school exercise, in a late
sixteenth-century or early seventeenth-century hand.
_A Knack to Know an Honest Man. 1594_
_S. R._ 1595, Nov. 26. ‘A booke intituled The most Rare and plesaunt
historie of A knack to knowe an honest man.’ _Cuthbert Burby_ (Arber,
iii. 54).
1596. A Pleasant Conceited Comedie, called, A knacke to know an honest
Man. As it hath beene sundrie times plaied about the Citie of London.
_For Cuthbert Burby._
_Editions_ by H. De Vocht (1910, _M. S. R._) and J. S. Farmer (1912,
_T. F. T._).
The play was produced by the Admiral’s on 22 Oct. 1594, and
twenty-one performances were given between that date and 3 Nov. 1596
(Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 171). The text is confused and probably
surreptitious.
_A Knack to Know a Knave. 1592_
_S. R._ 1594, Jan. 7. ‘A commedie entitled “a Knack to knowe a knave”
newlye sett fourth as it hath sundrye tymes been plaid by Ned. Allen
and his Companie with Kemps applauded Merymentes of the menn of
Goteham.’ _Richard Jones_ (Arber, ii. 643).
1594. A most pleasant and merie new Comedie, Intituled, A Knacke to
knowe a knave. Newlie set foorth, as it hath sundrie tymes bene played
by Ed. Allen and his Companie. With Kemps applauded Merrimentes of
the men of Goteham, in receiuing the King into Goteham. _Richard
Jones._
_Editions_ by J. P. Collier (1851, _Five Old Plays_), in Dodsley^4
(1874, vi), and by J. S. Farmer (1911, _T. F. T._).
Strange’s men produced ‘the Knacke to Knowe a Knave’ on 10 June 1592,
and played it seven times to 24 Jan. 1593. Henslowe usually enters it
as ‘the cnacke’. Fleay, 100, suggests that the _Osric_, revived by
the Admiral’s men on 3 and 7 Feb. 1597, may also be this play. Both
Fleay, ii. 310, and Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 156, suggest that Kempe’s
‘merriments’ are to be found in sc. 12, and that of the rest the
romantic part may be Peele’s and the moral part Wilson’s. Gayley (_R.
E. C._ i. 422) would like to find in the play the comedy written by
Greene and the ‘young Juvenall’, Nashe. The character Cuthbert Cutpurse
the Conicatcher is from the pamphlet (cf. s.v. Greene) entered in S. R.
on 21 April 1592, and the story of Titus Andronicus is alluded to in
F_{2}^v:
As Titus was vnto the Roman Senators,
When he had made a conquest on the Goths.
_Leire > 1594_
_S. R._ 1594, May 14. ‘A booke entituled, The moste famous Chronicle
historye of Leire kinge of England and his Three Daughters.’ _Adam
Islip_ (Arber, ii. 649). [Islip’s name is crossed out, and Edward
White’s substituted.]
1605, May 8. ‘A booke called “the Tragecall historie of kinge Leir and
his Three Daughters &c”, As it was latelie Acted.’ _Simon Stafford_
(Arber, iii. 289). [Assigned the same day by Stafford with the consent
of William Leake to John Wright, ‘provided that Simon Stafford shall
haue the printinge of this booke’.]
1605. The True Chronicle History of King Leir, and his three daughters,
Gonorill, Ragan, and Cordelia. As it hath bene diuers and sundry times
lately acted. _Simon Stafford for John Wright._
_S. R._ 1624, June 29. Transfer of ‘Leire and his daughters’ from Mrs.
White to E. Alde (Arber, iv. 120).
_Editions_ by J. Nichols (1779, _S. O. P._ ii), W. C. Hazlitt (1875,
_Sh. Libr._ ii. 2), W. W. Greg (1907, _M. S. R._), S. Lee (1909, _Sh.
Classics_), J. S. Farmer (1910, _T. F. T._), R. Fischer (1914, _Quellen
zu König Lear_).--_Dissertations_: W. Perrett, _The Story of King Lear_
(1904, _Palaestra_, xxxv); R. A. Law, _The Date of King Lear_ (1906,
_M. L. A._ xxi. 462); H. D. Sykes, _Sidelights on Shakespeare_, 126
(1919).
The Queen’s and Sussex’s revived ‘kinge leare’ for Henslowe on 6 and
8 April 1594, shortly before the first S. R. entry (Greg, _Henslowe_,
ii. 162). As the play is not named in the Sussex’s repertory of 1593–4,
there is a presumption that it belonged to the Queen’s. The authorship
is quite obscure. Fleay, 90, assigns it to Lodge and Peele; Fleay, 97,
to Lodge and Greene; Fleay, ii. 51, to Lodge and Kyd. Robertson, 176,
thinks the claim for Lodge indecisive, and surmises the presence of
Greene. Sykes argues for Peele. Lee hints at Rankins. The publishing
history is also difficult. The entries of 1605 appear to ignore
White’s copyright, although this was still alive in his son’s widow
in 1624. Lee suggests that the Stafford-Wright enterprise was due to
negotiation between Wright and White, whose apprentice he had been. The
play was clearly regarded as distinct from that of Shakespeare, which
was entered to N. Butter and J. Busby on 22 Nov. 1607, and it, though
based on its predecessor, is far more than a revision of it. It seems
a little improbable that _Leire_ should have been revived as late as
1605, and the ‘Tragecall’ and ‘lately acted’ of the title-page, taken
by themselves, would point to an attempt by Stafford to palm off the
old play as Shakespeare’s. But although 1605 is not an impossible date
for Shakespeare’s production, 1606 is on other grounds more probable.
_Liberality and Prodigality. 1601_
1602. A Pleasant Comedie, Shewing the contention betweene Liberalitie
and Prodigalitie. As it was playd before her Maiestie. _Simon Stafford
for George Vincent._ [Prologue and Epilogue.]