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