Chettle for Part 2 before the diary entries stopped.
(xliii) [Unnamed play].
‘for a prologe & a epyloge for the corte’, 29 Dec. 1602.
(_b_) _Plays for Worcester’s, 1602–3_
(xliv) [Unnamed play. Collier’s _Robin Goodfellow_ is forged].
A tragedy, Aug. 1602, but perhaps not finished, unless identical, as
suggested by Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 229), with the anonymous _Byron_.
(xlv) _1 Lady Jane_, or _The Overthrow of Rebels_.
With Dekker (q.v.), Heywood, Smith, and Webster, Oct. 1602.
(xlvi) _Christmas Comes but Once a Year._
With Dekker, Heywood, and Webster, Nov. 1602.
(xlvii) [Unnamed play. Collier’s _Like Quits Like_ is forged].
With Heywood, Jan. 1603, but apparently not finished, or possibly
identical, as suggested by Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 235), with (xlviii).
(xlviii) _Shore._
With Day, May 1603, but not finished before the diary ended.
THOMAS CHURCHYARD (1520?-1604).
The best account of Churchyard is that by H. W. Adnitt in _Shropshire
Arch. Soc. Trans._ iii (1880), 1, with a bibliography of his numerous
poems. For his share in the devices of the Bristol entertainment
(_1574_) and the Suffolk and Norfolk progress (_1578_), of both of
which he published descriptions, cf. ch. xxiv. He was also engaged
by the Shrewsbury corporation to prepare a show for an expected but
abandoned royal visit in 1575 (_Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 255). His _A
Handful of Gladsome Verses given to the Queenes Maiesty at Woodstocke
this Prograce_ (1592) is reprinted in H. Huth and W. C. Hazlitt,
_Fugitive Tracts_ (1875), i. It is not mimetic. His own account of
his work in _Churchyard’s Challenge_ (1593) suggests that he took a
considerable part in Elizabethan pageantry. He says that he wrote:
‘The deuises of warre and a play at Awsterley. Her Highnes being
at Sir Thomas Greshams’,
and
‘The deuises and speeches that men and boyes shewed within many
prograces’.
And amongst ‘Workes ... gotten from me of some such noble friends as I
am loath to offend’ he includes:
‘A book of a sumptuous shew in Shrouetide, by Sir Walter Rawley,
Sir Robart Carey, M. Chidley, and M. Arthur Gorge, in which book
was the whole seruice of my L. of Lester mencioned that he and
his traine did in Flaunders, and the gentlemen Pencioners proued
to be a great peece of honor to the Court: all which book was in
as good verse as euer I made: an honorable knight, dwelling in
the Black-Friers, can witness the same, because I read it vnto
him.’
The natural date for this ‘shew’ is Shrovetide 1587. I do not know why
Nichols, _Eliz._ ii. 279, dates the Osterley device 1579. Elizabeth was
often there, but I find no evidence of a visit in 1579. Lowndes speaks
of the work as in print, but I doubt whether he has any authority
beyond Churchyard’s own notice, which does not prove publication.
ANTHONY CHUTE (_ob. c._ 1595).
Nashe in his _Have With You to Saffron Walden_ (1596, _Works_, iii.
107), attacking Chute as a friend of Gabriel Harvey, says, ‘he hath
kneaded and daub’d vp a Commedie, called The transformation of the
King of _Trinidadoes_ two Daughters, Madame _Panachaea_ and the Nymphe
_Tobacco_; and, to approue his Heraldrie, scutchend out the honorable
Armes of the smoakie Societie’. I hesitate to take this literally.
GEORGE CLIFFORD (1558–1605).
George Clifford was born 8 Aug. 1558, succeeded as third Earl of
Cumberland 8 Jan. 1570, and died 30 Oct. 1605. A recent biography
is G. C. Williamson, _George, Third Earl of Cumberland_ (1920). He
married Margaret Russell, daughter of Francis, second Earl of Bedford,
on 24 June 1577. His daughter, Anne Clifford, who left an interesting
autobiography, married firstly Richard, third Earl of Dorset, and
secondly Philip, fourth Earl of Pembroke. Cumberland was prominent in
Elizabethan naval adventure and shone in the tilt. He is recorded as
appearing on 17 Nov. 1587 (Gawdy, 25) and 26 Aug. 1588 (_Sp. P._ iv.
419). On 17 Nov. 1590 he succeeded Sir Henry Lee (q.v.) as Knight of
the Crown. Thereafter he was the regular challenger for the Queen’s
Day tilt, often with the assistance of the Earl of Essex. On 17 Nov.
1592 they came together armed into the privy chamber, and issued a
challenge to maintain against all comers on the following 26 Feb. ‘that
ther M. is most worthyest and most fayrest Amadis de Gaule’ (Gawdy,
67). Cumberland’s tiltyard speeches, as Knight of Pendragon Castle, in
1591 (misdated 1592) and 1593 are printed by Williamson, 108, 121, from
manuscripts at Appleby Castle.
His appearance as Knight of the Crown on 17 Nov. 1595 is noted in
Peele’s (q.v.) _Anglorum Feriae_. In F. Davison’s _Poetical Rhapsody_
(1602, ed. Bullen, ii. 128) is an ode _Of Cynthia_, with the note ‘This
Song was sung before her sacred Maiestie at a shew on horse-backe,
wherwith the right Honorable the Earle of Cumberland presented her
Highnesse on Maie day last’. This is reprinted by R. W. Bond (_Lyly_,
i. 414) with alternative ascriptions to Lyly and to Sir John Davies.
But Cumberland himself wrote verses. I do not know why Bullen and
Bond assume that the show was on 1 May 1600. The _Cumberland MSS._
at Bolton, Yorkshire, once contained a prose speech, now lost, in
the character of a melancholy knight, headed ‘A Copie of my Lord of
Combrlandes Speeche to y^e Queene, upon y^e 17 day of November, 1600’.
This was printed by T. D. Whitaker, _History of Craven_ (1805, ed.
Morant, 1878, p. 355), and reprinted by Nichols, _Eliz._ iii. 522, and
by Bond, _Lyly_, i. 415, with a conjectural attribution to Lyly. In
1601 Cumberland conveyed to Sir John Davies a suggestion from Sir R.
Cecil that he should write a ‘speech for introduction of the barriers’
(_Hatfield MSS._ xi. 544), and in letters of 1602 he promised Cecil to
appear at the tilt on Queen’s Day, but later tried to excuse himself
on the ground that a damaged arm would not let him carry a staff
(_Hatfield MSS._ xii. 438, 459, 574). Anne Clifford records ‘speeches
and delicate presents’ at Grafton when James and Anne visited the Earl
there on 27 June 1603 (Wiffen, ii. 71).
JO. COOKE (_c._ 1612).
Beyond his play, practically nothing is known of Cooke. It is not even
clear whether ‘Jo.’ stands for John, or for Joshua; the latter is
suggested by the manuscript ascription on a copy of the anonymous _How
a Man may Choose a Good Wife from a Bad_ (q.v.). Can Cooke be identical
with the I. Cocke who contributed to Stephens’s _Characters_ in 1615
(cf. App. C, No. lx)? Collier, iii. 408, conjectures that he was a
brother John named, probably as dead, in the will (3 Jan. 1614) of
Alexander Cooke the actor (cf. ch. xv). There is an entry in S. R. on
22 May 1604 of a lost ‘Fyftie epigrams written by J. Cooke Gent’, and a
‘I. Cooke’ wrote commendatory verses to Drayton’s _Legend of Cromwell_
(1607).
_Greenes Tu Quoque or The City Gallant. 1611_
1614. Greene’s Tu quoque, or, The Cittie Gallant. As it hath beene
diuers times acted by the Queenes Maiesties Seruants. Written by Io.
Cooke, Gent. _For John Trundle._ [Epistle to the Reader, signed ‘Thomas
Heywood’, and a couplet ‘Upon the Death of Thomas Greene’, signed ‘W.
R.’]
1622. _For Thomas Dewe._
N.D. _M. Flesher._
_Editions_ in Dodsley^{1–4} (1744–1875) and by W. Scott (1810, _A. B.
D._ ii) and J. S. Farmer (1913, _S. F. T._).
Heywood writes ‘to gratulate the love and memory of my worthy friend
the author, and my entirely beloved fellow the actor’, both of whom
were evidently dead. Satire of Coryat’s _Crudities_ gives a date
between its publication in 1611 and the performances of the play by the
Queen’s men at Court on 27 Dec. 1611 and 2 Feb. 1612 (cf. App. B). In
Aug. 1612 died Thomas Greene, who had evidently played Bubble at the
Red Bull (ed. Dodsley, p. 240):
_Geraldine._ Why, then, we’ll go to the Red Bull: they say
Green’s a good clown.
_Bubble._ Green! Green’s an ass.
_Scattergood._ Wherefore do you say so?
_Bubble._ Indeed I ha’ no reason; for they say he is as
like me as ever he can look.
Chetwood’s assertion of a 1599 print is negligible. The Queen of
Bohemia’s men revived the play at Court on 6 Jan. 1625 (_Variorum_,
iii. 228).
AQUILA CRUSO (_c._ 1610).
Author of the academic _Euribates Pseudomagus_ (cf. App. K).
ROBERT DABORNE (?-1628).
Daborne claimed to be of ‘generous’ descent, and it has been
conjectured that he belonged to a family at Guildford, Surrey. Nothing
is known of him until he appears with Rosseter and others as a patentee
for the Queen’s Revels in 1610. Presumably he wrote for this company,
and when they amalgamated with the Lady Elizabeth’s in 1613 came into
relations with Henslowe, who acted as paymaster for the combination.
The Dulwich collection contains between thirty and forty letters,
bonds, and receipts bearing upon these relations. A few are undated;
the rest extend from 17 April 1613 to 4 July 1615. Most of them were
printed by Malone (_Variorum_, iii. 336), Collier (_Alleyn Papers_,
56), and Swaen (_Anglia_, xx. 155), and all, with a stray fragment from
_Egerton MS._ 2623, f. 24, are in Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 65, 126.
There and in _Henslowe_, ii. 141, Dr. Greg attempts an arrangement
of them and of the plays to which they relate, which seems to me
substantially sound. They show Daborne, during the twelve months from
April 1613, to which they mainly belong, writing regularly for the Lady
Elizabeth’s, but prepared at any moment to sell a play to the King’s
if he can get a better bargain. Lawsuits and general poverty made him
constantly desirous of obtaining small advances from Henslowe, and on
one occasion he was in the Clink. In the course of the year he was at
work on at least five plays (_vide infra_), alone or in co-operation
now with Tourneur, now with Field, Massinger, and Fletcher. Modern
conjectures have assigned him some share in plays of the Beaumont
and Fletcher series which there is no external evidence to connect
with his name. However this may be, it is clear that, unless his
activity in 1613–14 was abnormal, he must have written much of which
we know nothing. He is still traceable in connexion with the stage up
to 1616, giving a joint bond with Massinger in Aug. 1615, receiving
an acquittance of debts through his wife Francisce from Henslowe on
his death-bed in Jan. 1616 (_Henslowe_, ii. 20), and witnessing the
agreement between Alleyn and Meade and Prince Charles’s men on the
following 20 March. But he must have taken orders by 1618, when he
published a sermon, and he became Chancellor of Waterford in 1619,
Prebendary of Lismore in 1620, and Dean of Lismore in 1621. On 23 March
1628 he ‘died amphibious by the ministry’ according to _The Time Poets_
(_Choice Drollery_, 1656, sig. B).
_Collection_
1898–9. A. E. H. Swaen in _Anglia_, xx. 153; xxi. 373.
_Dissertation_: R. Boyle, _D.’s Share in the Beaumont and Fletcher
Plays_ (1899, _E. S._ xxvi. 352).
_A Christian Turned Turk. 1609 < > 12_
_S. R._ 1612, Feb. 1 (Buck). ‘A booke called A Christian turned Turke,
or the tragicall lyffes and deathes of the 2 famous pyrates Ward and
Danseker, as it hath bene publiquely acted written by Robert Daborn
gent.’ _William Barrenger_ (Arber, iii. 476).
1612. A Christian turn’d Turke: or, The Tragicall Liues and Deaths
of the two Famous Pyrates, Ward and Dansiker. As it hath beene
publickly Acted. Written by Robert Daborn, Gentleman. _For William
Barrenger._ [Epistle by Daborne to the Reader, Prologue and
Epilogue.]
This may, as Fleay, i. 83, says, be a Queen’s Revels play, but he gives
no definite proof, and if it is the ‘unwilling error’ apologized for in
the epilogue to _Mucedorus_ (1610), it is more likely to proceed from
the King’s men. It appears to be indebted to pamphlets on the career
of its heroes, printed in 1609. The Epistle explains the publishing
of ‘this oppressed and much martird Tragedy, not that I promise to my
selfe any reputation hereby, or affect to see my name in Print, vsherd
with new praises, for feare the Reader should call in question their
iudgements that giue applause in the action; for had this wind moued
me, I had preuented others shame in subscribing some of my former
labors, or let them gone out in the diuels name alone; which since
impudence will not suffer, I am content they passe together; it is then
to publish my innocence concerning the wrong of worthy personages,
together with doing some right to the much-suffering Actors that hath
caused my name to cast it selfe in the common rack of censure’. I do
not know why the play should have been ‘martir’d’, but incidentally
Daborne seems to be claiming a share in Dekker’s _If It be not Good,
the Devil is in It_ (1612).
_The Poor Man’s Comfort, c. 1617_ (?)
[_MS._] _Egerton MS._ 1994, f. 268.
[Scribal signature ‘By P. Massam’ at end.]
_S. R._ 1655, June 20. ‘A booke called The Poore Mans comfort, a
Tragicomedie written by Robert Dawborne, M^r of Arts.’ _John Sweeting_
(Eyre, i. 486).
1655. The Poor-Mans Comfort. A Tragi-Comedy, As it was diuers times
Acted at the Cockpit in Drury Lane with great applause. Written by
Robert Dauborne Master of Arts. _For Rob: Pollard and John Sweeting._
[Prologue, signed ‘Per E. M.’]
The stage-direction to l. 186 is ‘Enter 2 Lords, Sands, Ellis’. Perhaps
we have here the names of two actors, Ellis Worth, who was with Anne’s
men at the Cockpit in 1617–19, and Gregory Sanderson, who joined
the same company before May, 1619. But there is also a James Sands,
traceable as a boy of the King’s in 1605. The performances named on the
title-page are not necessarily the original ones and the play may have
been produced by the Queen’s at the Red Bull, but 1617 is as likely a
date as another, and when a courtier says of a poor man’s suit (l. 877)
that it is ‘some suit from porters hall, belike not worth begging’,
there may conceivably be an allusion to attempts to preserve the
Porter’s Hall theatre from destruction in the latter year. In any case,
Daborne is not likely to have written the play after he took orders.
_Doubtful and Lost Plays_
The Henslowe correspondence appears to show Daborne as engaged between
17 April 1613 and 2 April 1614 on the following plays:
(_a_) _Machiavel and the Devil_ (17 April-_c._ 25 June 1613), possibly,
according to Fleay and Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 152, based on the old
_Machiavel_ revived by Strange’s men in 1592.
(_b_) _The Arraignment of London_, probably identical with _The Bellman
of London_ (5 June–9 Dec. 1613), with Cyril Tourneur, possibly, as
Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 75, suggests, based on Dekker’s tract, _The
Bellman of London_ (1608).
(_c_) An unnamed play with Field, Massinger, and Fletcher, the subject
of undated correspondence (_Henslowe Papers_, 65 and possibly 70, 84)
and possibly also of dated letters of July 1613 (_H. P._ 74).
(_d_) _The Owl_ (9 Dec. 1613–28 March 1614). A comedy of this name
is in Archer’s list of 1656, but Greg, _Masques_, xcv, thinks that
Jonson’s _Mask of Owls_ may be meant.
(_e_) _The She Saint_ (2 April 1614).
Daborne has been suggested as a contributor to the _Cupid’s Revenge_,
_Faithful Friends_, _Honest Man’s Fortune_, _Thierry and Theodoret_,
and later plays of the Beaumont (q.v.) and Fletcher series, and
attempts have been made to identify more than one of these with (_c_)
above.
SAMUEL DANIEL (_c._ 1563–1619).
Daniel was born in Somerset, probably near Taunton, about 1563. His
father is said to have been John Daniel, a musician; he certainly had
a brother John, of the same profession. In 1579 he entered Magdalen
Hall, Oxford, but took no degree. He visited France about January 1585
and sent an account of political affairs from the Rue St. Jacques to
Walsingham in the following March (_S. P. F._ xix. 388). His first
work was a translation of the _Imprese_ of Paulus Jovius (1585). In
1586 he served Sir Edward Stafford, the English ambassador in Paris,
and as a young man visited Italy. He was domesticated at Wilton, and
under the patronage of Mary, Lady Pembroke, wrote his sonnets to Delia,
the publication of which, partial in 1591 and complete in 1592, gave
him a considerable reputation as a poet. The attempt of Fleay, i. 86,
to identify Delia with Elizabeth Carey, daughter of Sir George Carey,
afterwards Lord Hunsdon, breaks down. Nashe in _The Terrors of the
Night_ (1594, ed. McKerrow, i. 342) calls her a ‘second Delia’, and
obviously the first was not, as Fleay suggests, Queen Elizabeth, but
the heroine of the sonnets. Delia dwelt on an Avon, but the fact that
in 1602 Lord Hunsdon took the waters at Bath does not give him a seat
on the Avon there. Lady Pembroke’s _Octavia_ (q.v.) inspired Daniel’s
book-drama _Cleopatra_ (1594). Other poems, notably _The History of
the Civil Wars_ (1595), followed. Tradition makes Daniel poet laureate
after Spenser’s death in 1599. There was probably no such post, but it
is clear from verses prefixed to a single copy (B.M.C. 21, 2, 17) of
the _Works_ of 1601, which are clearly addressed to Elizabeth, and not,
as Grosart, i. 2, says, Anne, that he had some allowance at Court:
I, who by that most blessed hand sustain’d,
In quietnes, do eate the bread of rest.
(Grosart, i. 9.)
Possibly, however, this grant was a little later than 1599. Daniel
acted as tutor to Anne Clifford, daughter of the Earl of Cumberland,
at Skipton Castle, probably by 1599, when he published his _Poetical
Essays_, which include an _Epistle_ to Lady Cumberland. It might have
been either Herbert or Clifford influence which brought him into favour
with Lady Bedford and led to his selection as poet for the first
Queen’s mask at the Christmas of 1603. No doubt this preference aroused
jealousies, and to about this date one may reasonably assign Jonson’s
verse-letter to Lady Rutland (_The Forest_, xii) in which he speaks of
his devotion to Lady Bedford:
though she have a better verser got,
(Or Poet, in the court-account), than I,
And who doth me, though I not him envy.
In 1619 Jonson told Drummond that he had answered Daniel’s _Defence
of Ryme_ (?1603), that ‘Samuel Daniel was a good honest man, had no
children; but no poet’, and that ‘Daniel was at jealousies with him’
(Laing, 1, 2, 10). All this suggests to me a rivalry at the Jacobean,
rather than the Elizabethan Court, and I concur in the criticisms of
Small, 181, upon the elaborate attempts of Fleay, i. 84, 359, to trace
attacks on Daniel in Jonson’s earlier comedies. Fleay makes Daniel
Fastidious Brisk in _Every Man Out of his Humour_, Hedon in _Cynthia’s
Revels_, and alternatively Hermogenes Tigellius and Tibullus in _The
Poetaster_, as well as Emulo in the _Patient Grissel_ of Dekker and
others. In most of these equations he is followed by others, notably
Penniman, who adds (_Poetaster_, xxxvii) Matheo in _Every Man In his
Humour_ and Gullio in the anonymous _1 Return from Parnassus_. For
all this the only basis is that Brisk, Matheo, and Gullio imitate or
parody Daniel’s poetry. What other poetry, then, would affected young
men at the end of the sixteenth century be likely to imitate? Some
indirect literary criticism on Daniel may be implied, but this does
not constitute the imitators portraits of Daniel. Fleay’s further
identifications of Daniel with Littlewit in _Bartholomew Fair_ and
Dacus in the _Epigrams_ of Sir John Davies are equally unsatisfactory.
To return to biography. In 1604 Daniel, for the first time so far as
is known, became connected with the stage, through his appointment as
licenser for the Queen’s Revels by their patent of 4 Feb. Collier, _New
Facts_, 47, prints, as preserved at Bridgewater House, two undated
letters from Daniel to Sir Thomas Egerton. One, intended to suggest
that Shakespeare was a rival candidate for the post in the Queen’s
Revels, is a forgery, and this makes it impossible to attach much
credit to the other, in which the writer mentions the ‘preferment
of my brother’ and that he himself has ‘bene constrayned to live
with children’. Moreover, the manuscript was not forthcoming in 1861
(Ingleby, 247, 307). Daniel evidently took a part in the management of
the Revels company; the indiscretion of his _Philotas_ did not prevent
him from acting as payee for their plays of 1604–5. But his connexion
with them probably ceased when _Eastward Ho!_ led, later in 1605, to
the withdrawal of Anne’s patronage. The irrepressible Mr. Fleay (i.
110) thinks that they then satirized him as Damoetas in Day’s _Isle
of Gulls_ (1606). Daniel wrote one more mask and two pastorals, all
for Court performances. By 1607 he was Groom of Anne’s Privy Chamber,
and by 1613 Gentleman Extraordinary of the same Chamber. In 1615 his
brother John obtained through his influence a patent for the Children
of the Queen’s Chamber of Bristol (cf. ch. xii). He is said to have had
a wife Justina, who was probably the sister of John Florio, whom he
called ‘brother’ in 1611. The suggestion of Bolton Corney (_3 N. Q._
viii. 4, 40, 52) that this only meant fellow servant of the Queen is
not plausible; this relation would have been expressed by ‘fellow’. He
had a house in Old Street, but kept up his Somerset connexion, and was
buried at Beckington, where he had a farm named Ridge, in Oct. 1619.
_Collections_
1599. The Poeticall Essayes of Sam. Danyel. Newly corrected and
augmented. _P. Short for Simon Waterson._ [Includes _Cleopatra_.]
1601. The Works of Samuel Daniel Newly Augmented. _For Simon Waterson._
[_Cleopatra._]
1602. [Reissue of 1601 with fresh t.p.]
1605. Certaine Small Poems Lately Printed: with the Tragedie of
Philotas. Written by Samuel Daniel. _G. Eld for Simon Waterson._
[_Cleopatra_, _Philotas_.]
1607. Certain Small Workes Heretofore Divulged by Samuel Daniel one of
the Groomes of the Queenes Maiesties priuie Chamber, and now againe by
him corrected and augmented. _I. W. for Simon Waterson._ [Two issues.
_Cleopatra_, _Philotas_, _The Queen’s Arcadia_.]
1611. Certain Small Workes.... _I. L. for Simon Waterson._ [Two issues.
_Cleopatra_, _Philotas_, _The Queen’s Arcadia_.]
1623. The Whole Workes of Samuel Daniel Esquire in Poetrie. _Nicholas
Okes for Simon Waterson._ [_Cleopatra_, _Philotas_, _The Queen’s
Arcadia_, _Hymen’s Triumph_, _The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses_. This
was edited by John Daniel.]
1635. Drammaticke Poems, written by Samuel Danniell Esquire, one of the
Groomes of the most Honorable Privie Chamber to Queene Anne. _T. Cotes
for John Waterson._ [Reissue of 1623 with fresh t.p.]
1718. _For R. G. Gosling, W. Mears, J. Browne._
1885–96. The Complete Works in Verse and Prose of Samuel Daniel. Edited
by A. B. Grosart. 5 vols. [Vol. iii (1885) contains the plays and
masks.]
PLAYS
_Cleopatra > 1593_
_S. R._ 1593, Oct. 19. ‘A booke intituled The Tragedye of Cleopatra.’
_Symond Waterson_ (Arber, ii. 638).
1594. Delia and Rosamond augmented. Cleopatra. By Samuel Daniel. _James
Roberts and Edward Allde for Simon Waterson._ [Two editions. Verse
Epistle to Lady Pembroke.]
1595. _James Roberts and Edward Allde for Simon Waterson._
1598. _Peter Short for Simon Waterson._
Also in _Colls._ 1599–1635.
_Edition_ by M. Lederer (1911, _Materialien_, xxxi).
The play is in the classical manner, with choruses. The Epistle speaks
of the play as motived by Lady Pembroke’s ‘well grac’d _Antony_’;
the Apology to _Philotas_ shows that it was not acted. In 1607 it
is described as ‘newly altered’, and is in fact largely rewritten,
perhaps under the stimulus of the production of Shakespeare’s _Antony
and Cleopatra_. The 1607 text is repeated in 1611, and the Epistle to
Lady Pembroke is rewritten. But the text of 1623 is the earlier version
again.
_Philotas. 1604_
_S. R._ 1604, Nov. 29 (Pasfield). ‘A Booke called the tragedie of
Philotus wrytten by Samuel Daniell.’ _Waterson and Edward Blunt_
(Arber, iii. 277).
1605. [Part of _Coll._ 1605. Verse Epistle to Prince Henry, signed
‘Sam. Dan.’; Apology.]
1607. The Tragedie of Philotas. By Sam. Daniel. _Melch. Bradwood for
Edward Blount._ [Shortened version of Epistle to Henry.]
Also in _Colls._ 1607–35.
The play is in the classical manner, with choruses. From the Apology,
motived by ‘the wrong application and misconceiving’ of it, I extract:
‘Above eight yeares since [1596], meeting with my deare friend
D. Lateware, (whose memory I reverence) in his Lords Chamber
and mine, I told him the purpose I had for _Philotas_: who
sayd that himselfe had written the same argument, and caused
it to be presented in St. John’s Colledge in Oxford; where
as I after heard, it was worthily and with great applause
performed.... And living in the Country, about foure yeares
since, and neere halfe a yeare before the late Tragedy of ours
(whereunto this is now most ignorantly resembled) unfortunately
fell out heere in England [Sept., 1600], I began the same,
and wrote three Acts thereof,--as many to whom I then shewed
it can witnesse,--purposing to have had it presented in Bath
by certaine Gentlemens sonnes, as a private recreation for
the Christmas, before the Shrovetide of that unhappy disorder
[Feb. 1601]. But by reason of some occasion then falling out,
and being called upon by my Printer for a new impression of my
workes, with some additions to the Civill Warres, I intermitted
this other subject. Which now lying by mee, and driven by
necessity to make use of my pen, and the Stage to bee the
mouth of my lines, which before were never heard to speake
but in silence, I thought the representing so true a History,
in the ancient forme of a Tragedy, could not but have had
an unreproveable passage with the time, and the better sort
of men; seeing with what idle fictions, and grosse follies,
the Stage at this day abused mens recreations.... And for any
resemblance, that thorough the ignorance of the History may be
applied to the late Earle of Essex, it can hold in no proportion
but only in his weaknesses, which I would wish all that love
his memory not to revive. And for mine owne part, having beene
perticularly beholding to his bounty, I would to God his errors
and disobedience to his Sovereigne might be so deepe buried
underneath the earth, and in so low a tombe from his other
parts, that hee might never be remembered among the examples
of disloyalty in this Kingdome, or paraleld with Forreine
Conspirators.’
The Apology is fixed by its own data to the autumn of 1604, and the
performance was pretty clearly by the Queen’s Revels in the same year.
Daniel was called before the Privy Council on account of the play, and
used the name of the Earl of Devonshire in his defence. The earl was
displeased and a letter of excuse from Daniel is extant (Grosart, i.
xxii, from _S. P. D. Jac. I, 1603–10_, p. 18) in which, after asserting
that he had satisfied Lord Cranborne [Robert Cecil], he says:
‘First I tolde the Lordes I had written 3 Acts of this tragedie
the Christmas before my L. of Essex troubles, as diuers in the
cittie could witnes. I saide the maister of the Revells had
pervsed it. I said I had read some parte of it to your honour,
and this I said having none els of powre to grace mee now in
Corte & hoping that you out of your knowledg of bookes, or
fauour of letters & mee, might answere that there is nothing
in it disagreeing nor any thing, as I protest there is not,
but out of the vniuersall notions of ambition and envie, the
perpetuall argumentes of books or tragedies. I did not say you
incouraged me vnto the presenting of it; yf I should I had beene
a villayne, for that when I shewd it to your honour I was not
resolud to haue had it acted, nor should it haue bene had not my
necessities ouermaistred mee.’
_The Queen’s Arcadia. 1605_
_S. R._ 1605, Nov. 26 (Pasfield). ‘A book called The Quenes Arcadia.
Presented by the university of Oxon in Christchurch.’ _Waterson_
(Arber, iii. 305).
1606. The Queenes Arcadia. A Pastorall Trage-comedie presented to
her Maiestie and her Ladies, by the Vniuersitie of Oxford in Christs
Church, In August last. _G. Eld for Simon Waterson._ [Dedicatory verses
to the Queen.]
See _Collections_.
The performance was by Christ Church men on 30 Aug. 1605 during the
royal visit to Oxford (cf. ch. iv). The original title appears to have
been _Arcadia Reformed_. Chamberlain told Winwood (ii. 140) that the
other plays were dull, but Daniel’s ‘made amends for all; being indeed
very excelent, and some parts exactly acted’.
_Hymen’s Triumph. 1614_
[_MS._] _Drummond MS._ in Edinburgh Univ. Library. [Sonnet to Lady
Roxborough, signed ‘Samuel Danyel’. The manuscript given to the library
by William Drummond of Hawthornden, a kinsman of Lady Roxborough, in
1627, is fully described by W. W. Greg in _M. L. Q._ vi. 59. It is
partly holograph, and represents an earlier state of the text than
the quarto of 1615. A letter of 1621 from Drummond to Sir Robert Ker,
afterwards Earl of Ancrum, amongst the _Lothian MSS._ (_Hist. MSS._ i.
116), expresses an intention of printing what appears to have been the
same manuscript.]
_S. R._ 1615, Jan. 13 (Buck). ‘A play called Hymens triumphes.’
_Francis Constable_ (iii. 561), [The clerk first wrote ‘Hymens
pastoralls’.]
1615. Hymens Triumph. A Pastorall Tragicomaedie. Presented at the
Queenes Court in the Strand at her Maiesties magnificent intertainement
of the Kings most excellent Maiestie, being at the Nuptials of the Lord
Roxborough. By Samuel Daniel. _For Francis Constable._ [Dedicatory
verses to the Queen, signed ‘Sam. Daniel’, and Prologue.]
See _Collections_.
Robert Ker, Lord Roxborough, was married to Jean Drummond, daughter
of Patrick, third Lord Drummond, and long a lady of Anne’s household.
The wedding was originally fixed for 6 Jan. 1614, and the Queen meant
to celebrate it with ‘a masque of maids, if they may be found’ (Birch,
i. 279). It was, however, put off until Candlemas, doubtless to avoid
competition with Somerset’s wedding, and appears from the dedication
also to have served for a house-warming, to which Anne invited James
on the completion of some alterations to Somerset House. Finett
(_Philoxenis_, 16), who describes the complications caused by an
invitation to the French ambassador, gives the date as 2 Feb., which is
in itself the more probable; but John Chamberlain gives 3 Feb., unless
there is an error in the dating of the two letters to Carleton, cited
by Greg from _Addl. MS._ 4173, ff. 368, 371, as of 3 and 10 Feb. In
the first he writes, ‘This day the Lord of Roxburgh marries M^{rs}.
Jane Drummond at Somerset House, whither the King is invited to lie
this night; & shall be entertained with shews & devices, specially a
Pastoral, that shall be represented in a little square paved Court’;
and in the second, ‘This day sevennight the Lord of Roxburgh married
M^{rs}. Jane Drummond at Somerset House or Queen’s Court (as it must
now be called). The King tarried there till Saturday after dinner. The
Entertainment was great, & cost the Queen, as she says, above 3000£.
The Pastoral made by Samuel Daniel was solemn & dull; but perhaps
better to be read than represented.’ Gawdy, 175, also mentions the
‘pastoral’. There is nothing to show who were the performers.
_Doubtful Play_
Daniel has been suggested as the author of the anonymous _Maid’s
Metamorphosis_.
MASKS
_The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses. 8 Jan. 1604_
1604. The true discription of a Royall Masque. Presented at Hampton
Court, vpon Sunday night, being the eight of Ianuary, 1604. And
Personated by the Queenes most Excellent Majestie, attended by Eleuen
Ladies of Honour. _Edward Allde._
1604. The Vision of the 12. Goddesses, presented in a Maske the 8 of
Ianuary, at Hampton Court: By the Queenes most Excellent Maiestie, and
her Ladies. _T. C. for Simon Waterson._ [A preface to Lucy, Countess
of Bedford, is signed by Daniel, who states that the publication was
motived by ‘the unmannerly presumption of an indiscreet Printer, who
without warrant hath divulged the late shewe ... and the same very
disorderly set forth’. Lady Bedford had ‘preferred’ Daniel to the Queen
‘in this imployment’.]
See _Collections_.
_Editions_ by Nichols, _James_, i. 305 (1828), E. Law (1880), and H. A.
Evans (1897, _English Masques_).
The maskers, in various colours and with appropriate emblems, were
twelve Goddesses, and were attended by torchbearers (cf. Carleton,
_infra_); the presenters, ‘for the introducing this show’, Night,
Sleep, Iris, Sibylla, and the Graces; the cornets, Satyrs.
The locality was the Hall at Hampton Court. At the lower end was a
mountain, from which the maskers descended, and in which the cornets
played; at the upper end the cave of Sleep and, on the left (Carleton),
a temple of Peace, in the cupola of which was ‘the consort music’,
while viols and lutes were ‘on one side of the hall’.
The maskers presented their emblems, which Sibylla laid upon the altar
of the temple. They danced ‘their own measures’, then took out the
lords for ‘certain measures, galliards, and corantoes’, and after a
‘short departing dance’ reascended the mountain.
This was a Queen’s mask, danced, according to manuscript notes in a
copy of the Allde edition (B.M. 161, a. 41) thought by Mr. Law to
be ‘in a hand very like Lord Worcester’s’ (_vide infra_), and
possibly identical with the ‘original MS. of this mask’ from which the
same names are given in Collier, i. 347, by the Queen (Pallas), the
Countesses of Suffolk (Juno), Hertford (Diana), Bedford (Vesta), Derby
(Proserpine), and Nottingham (Concordia), and the Ladies Rich (Venus),
Hatton (Macaria), Walsingham (Astraea), Susan Vere (Flora), Dorothy
Hastings (Ceres), and Elizabeth Howard (Tethys).
Anticipations of masks at Court during the winter of 1603–4 are to
be found in letters to Lord Shrewsbury from Arabella Stuart on 18
Dec. (Bradley, ii. 193), ‘The Queene intendeth to make a Mask this
Christmas, to which end my Lady of Suffolk and my Lady Walsingham hath
warrants to take of the late Queenes best apparell out of the Tower at
theyr discretion. Certain Noblemen (whom I may not yet name to you,
because some of them have made me of theyr counsell) intend another.
Certain gentlemen of good sort another’; from Cecil on 23 Dec. (Lodge,
iii. 81), ‘masks and much more’; and from Sir Thomas Edmondes on 23
Dec. (Lodge, iii. 83):
‘Both the King’s and Queen’s Majesty have a humour to have some
masks this Christmas time, and therefore, for that purpose, both
the young lords and chief gentlemen of one part, and the Queen
and her ladies of the other part, do severally undertake the
accomplishment and furnishing thereof; and, because there is
use of invention therein, special choice is made of Mr. Sanford
to direct the order and course for the ladies’;
also in the letters of Carleton to Chamberlain on 27 Nov. (Birch, i.
24; _Hardwicke Papers_, i. 383), ‘many plays and shows are bespoken, to
give entertainment to our ambassadors’, and 22 Dec. (_S. P. D. Jac. I_,
v. 20; Law, 9):
‘We shall have a merry Christmas at Hampton Court, for both
male and female maskes are all ready bespoken, whereof the Duke
[of Lennox] is _rector chori_ of th’ one side and the La:
Bedford of the other.’
I suppose Mr. Sanford to be Henry Sanford, who, like Daniel, had been
of the Wilton household (cf. Aubrey, i. 311) and may well have lent him
his aid.
The masks of lords on 1 Jan. and of Scots on 6 Jan. are not preserved.
The latter is perhaps most memorable because Ben Jonson and his friend
Sir John Roe were thrust out from it by the Lord Chamberlain (cf. ch.
vi). Arabella Stuart briefly told Shrewsbury on 10 Jan. that there were
three masks (Bradley, ii. 199). _Wilbraham’s Journal_ (_Camden
Misc._ x), 66, records:
‘manie plaies and daunces with swordes: one mask by English
and Scottish lords: another by the Queen’s Maiestie and eleven
more ladies of her chamber presenting giftes as goddesses.
These maskes, especialli the laste, costes 2000 or 3000^l, the
aparells: rare musick, fine songes: and in jewels most riche
20000^l, the lest to my judgment: and her Maiestie 100,000^l.
After Christmas was running at the ring by the King and 8 or
9 lordes for the honour of those goddesses and then they all
feasted together privatelie.’
But the fullest description was given by Carleton to Chamberlain on 15
Jan. (_S. P. D. Jac. I_, vi. 21, printed by Law, 33, 45; Sullivan, 192).
‘On New yeares night we had a play of Robin goode-fellow
and a maske brought in by a magicien of China. There was a
heaven built at the lower end of the hall, owt of which our
magicien came downe and after he had made a long sleepy speech
to the King of the nature of the cuntry from whence he came
comparing it with owrs for strength and plenty, he sayde he had
broughte in cloudes certain Indian and China Knights to see
the magnificency of this court. And theruppon a trauers was
drawne and the maskers seen sitting in a voulty place with theyr
torchbearers and other lights which was no vnpleasing spectacle.
The maskers were brought in by two boyes and two musitiens who
began with a song and whilst that went forward they presented
themselves to the King. The first gave the King an Impresa in
a shield with a sonet in a paper to exprese his deuice and
presented a jewell of 40,000£ valew which the King is to buy of
Peter Van Lore, but that is more than euery man knew and it made
a faire shew to the French Ambassadors eye whose master would
have bin well pleased with such a maskers present but not at
that prise. The rest in theyr order deliuered theyr scutchins
with letters and there was no great stay at any of them saue
only at one who was putt to the interpretacion of his deuise. It
was a faire horse colt in a faire greene field which he meant
to be a colt of Busephalus race and had this virtu of his sire
that none could mount him but one as great at lest as Alexander.
The King made himself merry with threatening to send this colt
to the stable and he could not breake loose till he promised to
dance as well as Bankes his horse. The first measure was full
of changes and seemed confused but was well gone through with
all, and for the ordinary measures they tooke out the Queen,
the ladies of Derby, Harford, Suffolke, Bedford, Susan Vere,
Suthwell th’ elder and Rich. In the corantoes they ran over
some other of the young ladies, and so ended as they began with
a song; and that done, the magicien dissolved his enchantment,
and made the maskers appear in theyr likenes to be th’ Erle of
Pembroke, the Duke, Mons^r. d’Aubigny, yong Somerset, Philip
Harbert the young Bucephal, James Hayes, Richard Preston,
and Sir Henry Godier. Theyr attire was rich but somewhat too
heavy and cumbersome for dancers which putt them besides ther
galliardes. They had loose robes of crimsen sattin embrodered
with gold and bordered with brood siluer laces, dublets and
bases of cloth of siluer; buskins, swordes and hatts alike and
in theyr hats ech of them an Indian bird for a fether with
some jewells. The twelfe-day the French Ambassador was feasted
publikely; and at night there was a play in the Queens presence
with a masquerado of certaine Scotchmen who came in with a sword
dance not vnlike a matachin, and performed it clenly.... The
Sunday following was the great day of the Queenes maske.’
This Carleton describes at length; I only note points which supplement
Daniel’s description.
‘The Hale was so much lessened by the workes that were in it,
so as none could be admitted but men of apparance, the one end
was made into a rock and in several places the waightes placed;
in attire like savages. Through the midst from the top came a
winding stayre of breadth for three to march; and so descended
the maskers by three and three; which being all seene on the
stayres at once was the best presentacion I have at any time
seene. Theyre attire was alike, loose mantles and petticotes but
of different colors, the stuffs embrodered sattins and cloth
of gold and silver, for which they were beholding to Queen
Elizabeth’s wardrobe.... Only Pallas had a trick by herself for
her clothes were not so much below the knee, but that we might
see a woman had both feete and legs which I never knew before.’
He describes the torchbearers as pages in white satin loose gowns,
although Daniel says they were ‘in the like several colours’ to the
maskers. The temple was ‘on the left side of the hall towards the upper
end’. For the ‘common measures’ the lords taken out were Pembroke,
Lennox, Suffolk, Henry Howard, Southampton, Devonshire, Sidney,
Nottingham, Monteagle, Northumberland, Knollys, and Worcester.
‘For galliardes and corantoes they went by discretion, and the
yong Prince was tost from hand to hand like a tennis bal. The
Lady Bedford and Lady Susan tooke owt the two ambassadors; and
they bestirred themselfe very liuely: speceally the Spaniard for
the Spanish galliard shewed himself a lusty old reueller.... But
of all for goode grace and goode footmanship Pallas bare the
bell away.’
The dancers unmasked about midnight, and then came a banquet in the
presence-chamber, ‘which was dispatched with the accustomed confusion’.
Carleton also mentions the trouble between the Spanish and French
ambassadors, which is also referred to in a letter of O. Renzo to G.
A. Frederico (_S. P. D. Jac. I_, vi. 37; cf. Sullivan, 195), and is
the subject of several dispatches by and to the Comte de Beaumont
(_King’s MSS._ cxxiv, ff. 328, 359^v, 363, 373, 381, 383^v, 389; cf.
Reyher, 519, Sullivan, 193–5). was the object of the Court not to
invite both ambassadors together, as this would entail an awkward
decision as to precedence. Beaumont was asked first, to the mask on 1
Jan. He hesitated to accept, expressing a fear that it was intended to
ask De Taxis to the Queen’s mask on Twelfth Night, ‘dernier jour des
festes de Noël selon la facon d’Angleterre et le plus honnorable de
tout pour la cérémonie qui s’y obserue de tout temps publiquement’.
After some negotiation he extracted a promise from James that, if the
Spaniard was present at all, it would be in a private capacity, and he
then dropped the point, and accepted his own invitation, threatening to
kill De Taxis in the presence if he dared to dispute precedence with
him. On 5 Jan. he learnt that Anne had refused to dance if De Taxis was
not present, and that the promise would be broken. He protested, and
his protest was met by an invitation for the Twelfth Night to which he
had attached such importance. But the Queen’s mask was put off until
8 Jan., a Scottish mask substituted on 6 Jan., and on 8 Jan. De Taxis
was present, revelling it in red, while Anne paid him the compliment of
wearing a red favour on her costume.
Reyher, 519, cites references to the Queen’s mask in the accounts of
the Treasurer of the Chamber and of the Office of Works. E. Law (_Hist.
of Hampton Court_, ii. 10) gives, presumably from one of these, ‘making
readie the lower ende with certain roomes of the hall at Hampton Court
for the Queenes Maiestie and ladies against their mask by the space of
three dayes’.
Allde’s edition must have been quickly printed. On 2 Feb. Lord
Worcester wrote to Lord Shrewsbury (Lodge, iii. 87): ‘Whereas your
Lordship saith you were never particularly advertised of the mask, I
have been at sixpence charge with you to send you the book, which will
inform you better than I can, having noted the names of the ladies
applied to each goddess; and for the other, I would likewise have sent
you the ballet, if I could have got it for money, but these books, as
I hear, are all called in, and in truth I will not take upon me to set
that down which wiser than myself do not understand.’
_Tethys’ Festival. 5 June 1610_
1610. Tethys Festiual: or the Queenes Wake. Celebrated at Whitehall,
the fifth day of June 1610. Deuised by Samuel Daniel, one of the
Groomes of her Maiesties most Honourable priuie Chamber. _For John
Budge._ [Annexed with separate title-page to _The Creation of Henry
Prince of Wales_ (q.v.). A Preface to the Reader criticizes, though not
by name, Ben Jonson’s descriptions of his masks.]
_Edition_ in Nichols, _James_ (1828), ii. 346.
The maskers, in sky-blue and cloth of silver, were Tethys and thirteen
Nymphs of as many English Rivers; the antimaskers, in light robes
adorned with flowers, eight Naiads; the presenters Zephyrus and two
Tritons, whom with the Naiads Daniel calls ‘the Ante-maske or first
shew’, and Mercury. Torchbearers were dispensed with, for ‘they would
have pestered the roome, which the season would not well permit’.
The locality was probably the Banqueting Room at Whitehall. The scene
was supplemented by a Tree of Victory on a mount to the right of ‘the
state’. A ‘travers’ representing a cloud served for a curtain, and was
drawn to discover, within a framework borne on pilasters, in front
of which stood Neptune and Nereus on pedestals, a haven, whence the
‘Ante-maske’ issued. They presented on behalf of Tethys a trident to
the King, and a sword and scarf to Henry, and the Naiads danced round
Zephyrus. The scene was then changed, under cover of three circles of
moving lights and glasses, to show five niches, of which the central
one represented a throne for Tethys, with Thames at her feet, and the
others four caverns, each containing three Nymphs.
The maskers marched to the Tree of Victory, at which they offered their
flowers, and under which Tethys reposed between the dances. Of these
they gave two; then took out the Lords for ‘measures, corantos, and
galliardes’; and then gave their ‘retyring daunce’. Apparently as an
innovation, ‘to avoid the confusion which usually attendeth the desolve
of these shewes’, the presenters stayed the dissolve, and Mercury sent
the Duke of York and six young noblemen to conduct the Queen and ladies
back ‘in their owne forme’.
This was a Queen’s mask, and Daniel notes ‘that there were none of
inferior sort mixed among these great personages of state and honour
(as usually there have been); but all was performed by themselves
with a due reservation of their dignity. The maskers were the
Queen (Tethys), the Lady Elizabeth (Thames), Lady Arabella Stuart
(Trent), the Countesses of Arundel (Arun), Derby (Darwent), Essex
(Lee), Dorset (Air), and Montgomery (Severn), Viscountess Haddington
(Rother), and the Ladies Elizabeth Gray (Medway), Elizabeth Guilford
(Dulesse), Katherine Petre (Olwy), Winter (Wye), and Windsor (Usk).
The antimaskers were ‘eight little Ladies’. The Duke of York played
Zephyrus, and two gentlemen ‘of good worth and respect’ the Tritons.
‘The artificiall part’, says Daniel, ‘only speakes Master Inago Jones.’
On 13 Jan. 1610 Chamberlain wrote to Winwood (iii. 117, misdated
‘February’) that ‘the Queen would likewise have a mask against
Candlemas or Shrovetide’. Doubtless it was deferred to the Creation,
for which on 24 May the same writer (Winwood, iii. 175) mentions Anne
as preparing and practising a mask. Winwood’s papers (iii. 179) also
contain a description, unsigned, but believed by their editor to be
written by John Finett, as follows:
‘The next day was graced with a most glorious Maske, which
was double. In the first, came first in the little Duke of
Yorke between two great Sea Slaves, the cheefest of Neptune’s
servants, attended upon by twelve [eight] little Ladies, all
of them the daughters of Earls or Barons. By one of these
men a speech was made unto the King and Prince, expressing
the conceipt of the maske; by the other a sword worth 20,000
crowns at the least was put into the Duke of York’s hands,
who presented the same unto the Prince his brother from the
first of those ladies which were to follow in the next maske.
This done, the Duke returned into his former place in midst
of the stage, and the little ladies performed their dance to
the amazement of all the beholders, considering the tenderness
of their years and the many intricate changes of the dance;
which was so disposed, that which way soever the changes went
the little Duke was still found to be in the midst of these
little dancers. These light skirmishers having done their
_devoir_, in came the Princesses; first the Queen, next the
Lady Elizabeth’s Grace, then the Lady Arbella, the Countesses
of Arundell, Derby, Essex, Dorset, and Montgomery, the Lady
Hadington, the Lady Elizabeth Grey, the Lady Windsor, the Lady
Katherine Peter, the Lady Elizabeth Guilford, and the Lady Mary
[Anne] Wintour. By that time these had done, it was high time
to go to bed, for it was within half an hour of the sun’s, not
setting, but rising. Howbeit, a farther time was to be spent in
viewing and scrambling at one of the most magnificent banquets
that I have seen. The ambassadors of Spaine, of Venice, and of
the Low Countries were present at this and all the rest of these
glorious sights, and in truth so they were.’
Brief notices in Stowe’s _Annales_ (902, paged 907 in error) and in
letters by Carleton to Sir Thomas Edmondes (Birch, i. 114) and by
John Noies to his wife (_Hist. MSS. Various Colls._ iii. 261) add
nothing to Finett’s account. There were no very serious ambassadorial
complications, as the death of Henri IV put an invitation to the
French ambassador out of the question (cf. Sullivan, 59). Correr notes
with satisfaction that, as ambassador from Venice, he had as good
a box as that of the Spanish ambassador, while, to please Spanish
susceptibilities, that of the Dutch ambassador was less good (_V. P._
xi. 507).
The mask was ‘excessively costly’ (_V. P._ xii. 86). Several financial
documents relating to it are on record (Reyher, 507, 521; Devon, 105,
127; Sullivan, 219, 221; _S. P. D. Jac. I_, liii. 4, 74; lix. 12),
including a warrant of 4 March, which recites the Queen’s pleasure that
the Lord Chamberlain and Master of the Horse ‘shall take some paines
to look into the emptions and provisions of all things necessarie’,
another of 25 May for an imprest to Inigo Jones, an embroiderer’s
bill for £55, and a silkman’s for £1,071 5_s._, with an endorsement
by Lord Knyvet, referring the prices to the Privy Council, and
counter-signatures by the Lord Chamberlain and the Master of the Horse.
In this case the dresses of the maskers seem to have been provided
for them. An allusion in a letter of Donne to Sir Henry Goodyere
(_Letters_, i. 240) makes a sportive suggestion for a source of revenue
‘if Mr. Inago Jones be not satisfied for his last masque (because I
hear say it cannot come to much)’.
JOHN DAVIDSON (1549?-1603).
A Regent of St. Leonard’s College, St. Andrew’s, and afterwards
minister of Liberton and a bitter satirist on behalf of the extreme
Kirk party in Scotland.
_The Siege of Edinburgh Castle. 1571_
James Melville writes s.a. 1571: ‘This yeir in the monethe of July,
Mr. Jhone Davidsone an of our Regents maid a play at the mariage of
Mr. Jhone Coluin, quhilk I saw playit in Mr. Knox presence, wherin,
according to Mr. Knox doctrine, the castell of Edinbruche was besiged,
takin, and the Captan, with an or two with him, hangit in effigie.’[656]
This was in intelligent anticipation of events. Edinburgh Castle was
held by Kirkcaldy of Grange for Mary in 1571. On 28 May 1573 it was
taken by the English on behalf of the party of James VI, and Kirkcaldy
was hanged.
Melville also records plays at the ‘Bachelor Act’ of 1573 at St.
Andrews.
SIR JOHN DAVIES (1569–1626).
Davies was a Winchester and Queen’s College, Oxford, man, who
entered the Middle Temple on 3 Feb. 1588, served successively as
Solicitor-General (1603–6) and Attorney-General (1606–19) in Ireland,
and was Speaker of the Irish Parliament in 1613. His principal poems
are _Orchestra_ (1594) and _Nosce Teipsum_ (1599). He was invited by
the Earl of Cumberland (q.v.) to write verses for ‘barriers’ in 1601,
and contributed to the entertainments of Elizabeth by Sir Thomas
Egerton (cf. ch. xxiv) and Sir Robert Cecil (q.v.) in 1602.
_Collections_
_Works_ by A. B. Grosart (1869–76, _Fuller Worthies Library_.
3 vols.).
_Poems_ by A. B. Grosart (1876, _Early English Poets_. 2
vols.).
_Dissertation_: M. Seemann, _Sir J. D., sein Leben und seine Werke_
(1913, _Wiener Beiträge_, xli).
R. DAVIES (_c._ 1610).
Contributor to _Chester’s Triumph_ (cf. ch. xxiv, C).
FRANCIS DAVISON (_c._ 1575–_c._ 1619).
He was son of William Davison, Secretary of State, and compiler of _A
Poetical Rapsody_ (1602), of which the best edition is that of A. H.
Bullen (1890–1). He entered Gray’s Inn in 1593: for his contribution to
the Gray’s Inn mask of 1595, see s.v. ANON. _Gesta Grayorum_.
JOHN DAY (_c._ 1574–_c._ 1640).
Day was described as son of Walter Dey, husbandman, of Cawston,
Norfolk, when at the age of eighteen he became a sizar of Gonville
and Caius, Cambridge, on 24 Oct. 1592; on 4 May 1593 he was expelled
for stealing a book (Venn, _Caius_, i. 146). He next appears in
Henslowe’s diary, first as selling an old play for the Admiral’s in
July 1598, and then as writing busily for that company in 1599–1603
and for Worcester’s in 1602–3. Most of this work was in collaboration,
occasionally with Dekker, frequently with Chettle, Hathway, Haughton,
or Smith. From this period little or nothing survives except _The Blind
Beggar of Bethnal Green_. Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 126, doubts whether
an acrostic on Thomas Downton signed ‘John Daye’, contributed by J.
F. Herbert to _Sh. Soc. Papers_, i. 19, and now at Dulwich, is to be
ascribed to the dramatist. Day’s independent plays, written about
1604–8, and his _Parliament of Bees_ are of finer literary quality
than this early record would suggest. But Ben Jonson classed him to
Drummond in 1619 amongst the ‘rogues’ and ‘base fellows’ who were ‘not
of the number of the faithfull, i.e. Poets’ (Laing, 4, 11). He must
have lived long, as John Tatham, who included an elegy on him as his
‘loving friend’ in his _Fancies Theater_ (1640), was then only about
twenty-eight. He appears to have been still writing plays in 1623, but
there is no trace of any substantial body of work after 1608. Fleay, i.
115, suggests from the tone of his manuscript pamphlet _Peregrinatio
Scholastica_ that he took orders.
_Collection_
1881. A. H. Bullen, _The Works of John Day_.
_The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green. 1600_
_S. R._ 1657, Sept. 14. ‘A booke called The pleasant history of the
blind beggar of Bednall Greene, declaring his life and death &c.’
_Francis Grove_ (Eyre, ii. 145).
1659. The Blind Beggar of Bednal-Green, with The merry humor of Tom
Strowd the Norfolk Yeoman, as it was divers times publickly acted by
the Princes Servants. Written by John Day. _For R. Pollard and Tho.
Dring._
_Editions_ by W. Bang (1902, _Materialien_, i) and J. S.
Farmer (1914, _S. F. T._).
The Prince’s men of the title are probably the later Prince Charles’s
(1631–41), but these were the ultimate successors of Prince Henry’s,
formerly the Admiral’s, who produced, between May 1600 and Sept. 1601,
three parts of a play called indifferently by Henslowe _The Blind
Beggar of Bethnal Green_ and _Thomas Strowd_. Payments were made for
the first part to Day and Chettle and for the other two to Day and
Haughton. On the assumption that the extant play is Part i, Bullen,
_Introd._ 8 and Fleay, i. 107, make divergent suggestions as to the
division of responsibility between Day and Chettle. At l. 2177 is the
s.d. ‘Enter Captain Westford, Sill Clark’; probably the performance in
which this actor took part was a Caroline one.
_Law Tricks, or Who Would Have Thought It. 1604_
_S. R._ 1608, March 28 (Buck). ‘A booke called A most wytty and merry
conceited comedie called who would a thought it or Lawetrykes.’
_Richard Moore_ (Arber, iii. 372).
1608. Law-Trickes or, who would have Thought it. As it hath bene diuers
times Acted by the Children of the Reuels. Written by John Day. _For
Richard More._ [Epistle by the Book to the Reader; Epilogue.]
The name given to the company suggests that the play was on the stage
in 1605–6. But I think the original production must have been in 1604,
as the dispute between Westminster and Winchester for ‘terms’, in which
Winchester is said to have been successful, ‘on Saint Lukes day, coming
shalbe a twelue-month’ (ed. Bullen, p. 61) can only refer to the term
held at Winchester in 1603. An inundation in July is also mentioned (p.
61), and Stowe, _Annales_ (1615), 844, has a corresponding record for
1604, but gives the day as 3 Aug.
_The Isle of Gulls. 1606_
1606. The Ile of Guls. As it hath been often playd in the blacke
Fryars, by the Children of the Reuels. Written by Iohn Day. _Sold by
John Hodgets._ [Induction and Prologue.]
1606. _For John Trundle, sold by John Hodgets._
1633. _For William Sheares._
The play is thus referred to by Sir Edward Hoby in a letter of 7 March
1606 to Sir Thomas Edmondes (Birch, i. 59): ‘At this time (_c._ 15
Feb.) was much speech of a play in the Black Friars, where, in the
“Isle of Gulls”, from the highest to the lowest, all men’s parts were
acted of two divers nations: as I understand sundry were committed to
Bridewell.’ A passage in iv. 4 (Bullen, p. 91), probably written with
_Eastward Ho!_ in mind, refers to the ‘libelling’ ascribed to poets by
‘some Dor’ and ‘false informers’; and the Induction defends the play
itself against the charge that a ‘great mans life’ is ‘charactred’
in Damoetas. Nevertheless, Damoetas, the royal favourite, ‘a little
hillock made great with others ruines’ (p. 13) inevitably suggests
Sir Robert Carr, and Fleay, i. 109, points out that the ‘Duke’ and
‘Duchess’ of the dramatis personae have been substituted for a ‘King’
and ‘Queen’. It may not be possible now to verify all the men whose
‘parts’ were acted; evidently the Arcadians and Lacedaemonians stand
for the two ‘nations’ of English and Scotch. I do not see any ground
for Fleay’s attempt to treat the play, not as a political, but as
a literary satire, identifying Damoetas with Daniel, and tracing
allusions to Jonson, Marston, and Chapman in the Induction. Hoby’s
indication of date is confirmed by references to the ‘Eastward,
Westward or Northward hoe’ (p. 3; cf. s.vv. Chapman, Dekker), to the
quartering for treason on 30 Jan. 1606 (pp. 3, 51), and conceivably to
Jonson’s _Volpone_ of 1605 or early 1606 (p. 88, ‘you wil ha my humor
brought ath stage for a vserer’).
_The Travels of Three English Brothers. 1607_
_S. R._ 1607, June 29 (Buck). ‘A playe called the trauailles of the
Three Englishe brothers as yt was played at the Curten.’ _John Wright_
(Arber, iii. 354).
1607. The Travailes of The three English Brothers.
Sir Thomas }
Sir Anthony } Shirley.
Mr. Robert }
As it is now play’d by her Maiesties Seruants. _For John Wright._
[Epistle to the Family of the Sherleys, signed ‘Iohn Day, William
Rowley, George Wilkins’, Prologue and Epilogue.]
The source was a pamphlet on the Sherleys by A. Nixon (S. R. 8 June
1607) and the play seems to have been still on the stage when it
was printed. Some suggestions as to the division of authorship are
in Fleay, ii. 277, Bullen, _Introd._ 19, and C. W. Stork, _William
Rowley_, 57. A scene at Venice (Bullen, p. 55) introduces Will Kempe,
who mentions Vennar’s _England’s Joy_ (1602), and prepares to play an
‘extemporall merriment’ with an Italian Harlaken. He has come from
England with a boy. The Epilogue refers to ‘some that fill up this
round circumference’.
_Humour out of Breath. 1607–8_
_S. R._ 1608, April 12 (Buck). ‘A booke called Humour out of breathe.’
_John Helme_ (Arber, iii. 374).
1608. Humour out of breath. A Comedie Diuers times latelie acted, By
the Children Of The Kings Reuells. Written by Iohn Day. _For John
Helme._ [Epistle to Signior Nobody, signed ‘Iohn Daye’.]
_Editions_ by J. O. Halliwell (1860), A. Symons in _Nero and Other
Plays_ (1888, _Mermaid Series_).
The date must be taken as 1607–8, since the King’s Revels are not
traceable before 1607. Fleay, i. 111, notes a reference in iii. 4 to
the ‘great frost’ of that Christmas. The Epistle speaks of the play
as ‘sufficiently featur’d too, had it been all of one man’s getting’,
which may be a hint of divided authorship.
_The Parliament of Bees. 1608 < > 16_
[_MS._] _Lansdowne MS._ 725, with title. ‘An olde manuscript conteyning
the Parliament of Bees, found in a Hollow Tree in a garden at Hibla, in
a Strange Languadge, And now faithfully Translated into Easie English
Verse by John Daye, Cantabridg.’ [Epistles to William Augustine, signed
‘John Day, Cant.’ and to the Reader, signed ‘Jo: Daye’.]
_S. R._ 1641, March 23 (Hansley). ‘A booke called The Parliam^t of
Bees, &c., by John Day.’ _Will Ley_ (Eyre, i. 17).
1641. The Parliament of Bees, With their proper Characters. Or A
Bee-hive furnisht with twelve Honycombes, as Pleasant as Profitable.
Being an Allegoricall description of the actions of good and bad men
in these our daies. By John Daye, Sometimes Student of Caius Colledge
in Cambridge. _For William Lee._ [Epistle to George Butler, signed
‘John Day’, The Author’s Commission to his Bees, similarly signed, and
The Book to the Reader. The text varies considerably from that of the
manuscript.]
_Edition_ by A. Symons in _Nero and Other Plays_ (1888, _Mermaid
Series_).
This is neither a play nor a mask, but a set of twelve short
‘Characters’ or ‘Colloquies’ in dialogue. The existence of an edition
of 1607 is asserted in Gildon’s abridgement (1699) of Langbaine, but
cannot be verified, and is most improbable, since the manuscript
Epistle refers to an earlier work already dedicated by Day, as ‘an
unknowing venturer’, to Augustine, and this must surely be the
allegorical treatise _Peregrinatio Scholastica_ printed by Bullen
(_Introd._ 35) from _Sloane MS._ 3150 with an Epistle by Day to William
Austin, who may reasonably be identified with Augustine. But the
_Peregrinatio_, although Day’s first venture in dedication, was not a
very early work, for Day admits that ‘I boast not that gaudie spring
of credit and youthfull florish of opinion as some other filde in the
same rancke with me’. Moreover, it describes (p. 50) an ‘ante-maske’,
and this term, so far as we know, first came into use about 1608 (cf.
ch. vi). The _Bees_ therefore must be later still. On the other hand,
it can hardly be later than about 1616, when died Philip Henslowe, whom
it is impossible to resist seeing with Fleay, i. 115, in the Fenerator
or Usuring Bee (p. 63). Like Henslowe he is a ‘broaker’ and ‘takes up’
clothes; and
Most of the timber that his state repairs,
He hew’s out o’ the bones of foundred players:
They feed on Poets braines, he eats their breath.
Now of the twelve Characters of the _Bees_, five (2, 3, 7, 8, 9) are
reproduced, in many parts verbatim, subject to an alteration of names,
in _The Wonder of a Kingdom_, printed as Dekker’s (q.v.) in 1636,
but probably identical with _Come See a Wonder_, licensed by Herbert
as Day’s in 1623. Two others (4, 5) are similarly reproduced in _The
Noble Soldier_, printed in 1634 under the initials ‘S. R.’, probably
indicating Samuel Rowley, but possibly also containing work by Dekker.
The precise relation of Day to these plays is indeterminate, but the
scenes more obviously ‘belong’ to the _Bees_ than to the plays, and if
the _Bees_ was written but not printed in 1608–16, the chances are that
Day used it as a quarry of material when he was called upon to work,
as reviser or collaborator, on the plays. Meanwhile, Austin, if he
was the Southwark and Lincoln’s Inn writer of that name (_D. N. B._),
died in 1634, and when the _Bees_ was ultimately printed in 1641 a new
dedicatee had to be found.
_Lost and Doubtful Plays_
For the Admiral’s, 1598–1603.
Day appears to have sold the company an old play _1 The Conquest
of Brute_ in July 1598, and to have subsequently written or
collaborated in the following plays:
1599–1600: _Cox of Collumpton_, with Haughton; _Thomas Merry_, or
_Beech’s Tragedy_, with Haughton; _The Seven Wise Masters_, with
Chettle, Dekker, and Haughton; _Cupid and Psyche_, with Chettle and
Dekker; _1 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green_, with Chettle; and the
unfinished _Spanish Moor’s Tragedy_, with Dekker and Haughton.
1600–1: _2 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green_, with Haughton; _Six Yeomen
of the West_, with Haughton.
1601–2: _The Conquest of the West Indies_, with Haughton and Smith;
_3 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green_, with Haughton; _Friar Rush and
The Proud Woman of Antwerp_, with Chettle and Haughton; _The Bristol
Tragedy_; and the unfinished _2 Tom Dough_, with Haughton.
1602–3: _Merry as May Be_, with Hathway and Smith; _The Boss of
Billingsgate_, with Hathway and another.
For Worcester’s men.
1602–3: _1 and 2 The Black Dog of Newgate_, with Hathway, Smith, and
another; _The Unfortunate General_, with Hathway, Smith, and a third;
and the unfinished _Shore_, with Chettle.
Of the above only _The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green_ and a note
of _Cox of Collumpton_ (cf. ch. xiii, s.v. Admiral’s) survive; for
speculations as to others see Heywood, _Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas_
(_Cupid and Psyche_), Marlowe, _Lust’s Dominion_ (_Spanish Moor’s
Tragedy_), Yarington, _Two Lamentable Tragedies_ (_Thomas Merry_),
and the anonymous _Edward IV_ (_Shore_) and _Fair Maid of Bristol_
(_Bristow Tragedy_).
Henslowe’s correspondence (_Henslowe Papers_, 56, 127) contains notes
from Day and others about some of the Admiral’s plays and a few lines
which may be from _The Conquest of the Indies_.
Day’s _Mad Pranks of Merry Mall of the Bankside_ (S. R. 7 Aug. 1610)
was probably a pamphlet (cf. Dekker, _The Roaring Girl_). Bullen,
_Introd._ 11, thinks the _Guy Earl of Warwick_ (1661), printed as
‘by B. J.’, too bad to be Day and Dekker’s _Life and Death of Guy of
Warwick_ (S. R. 15 Jan. 1620). On 30 July 1623 Herbert licensed a
_Bellman of Paris_ by Day and Dekker for the Prince’s (Herbert, 24).
_The Maiden’s Holiday_ by Marlowe (q.v.) and Day (S. R. 8 April 1654)
appears in Warburton’s list of burnt plays (_3 Library_, ii. 231) as
Marlowe’s.
For other ascriptions to Day see _The Maid’s Metamorphosis_ and
_Parnassus_ in ch. xxiv.
THOMAS DEKKER (_c._ 1572–_c._ 1632).
Thomas Dekker was of London origin, but though the name occurs in
Southwark, Cripplegate, and Bishopsgate records, neither his parentage
nor his marriage, if he was married, can be definitely traced. He
was not unlettered, but nothing is known of his education, and the
conjecture that he trailed a pike in the Netherlands is merely based
on his acquaintance with war and with Dutch. The Epistle to his
_English Villanies_, with its reference to ‘my three score years’,
first appeared in the edition of 1632; he was therefore born about
1572. He first emerges, in Henslowe’s diary, as a playwright for
the Admiral’s in 1598, and may very well have been working for them
during 1594–8, a period for which Henslowe records plays only and
not authors. The further conjecture of Fleay, i. 119, that this
employment went as far back as 1588–91 is hazardous, and in fact led
Fleay to put his birth-date as far back as 1567. It was based on the
fact that the German repertories of 1620 and 1626 contain traces of
his work, and on Fleay’s erroneous belief (cf. ch. xiv) that all the
plays in these repertories were taken to Germany by Robert Browne as
early as 1592. But it is smiled upon by Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 256)
as regards _The Virgin Martyr_ alone. Between 1598 and 1602 Dekker
wrote busily, and as a rule in collaboration, first for the Admiral’s
at the Rose and Fortune, and afterwards for Worcester’s at the Rose.
He had a hand in some forty-four plays, of which, in anything like
their original form, only half a dozen survive. _Satiromastix_,
written for the Chamberlain’s men and the Paul’s boys in 1601, shows
that his activities were not limited to the Henslowe companies.
This intervention in the _Poetomachia_ led Jonson to portray him
as Demetrius Fannius ‘the dresser of plays’ in _The Poetaster_;
that he is also Thersites in _Troilus and Cressida_ is a not very
plausible conjecture. Long after, in 1619, Jonson classed him among
the ‘rogues’ (Laing, 4). In 1604, however, he shared with Jonson the
responsibility for the London devices at James’s coronation entry.
About this time began his career as a writer of popular pamphlets, in
which he proved the most effective successor of Thomas Nashe. These,
and in particular _The Gull’s Hornbook_ (1609), are full of touches
drawn from his experience as a dramatist. Nor did he wholly desert the
stage, collaborating with Middleton for the Prince’s and with Webster
for Paul’s, and writing also, apparently alone, for the Queen’s. In
1612 he devised the Lord Mayor’s pageant. In 1613 he fell upon evil
days. He had always been impecunious, and Henslowe (i. 83, 101, 161)
had lent him money to discharge him from the Counter in 1598 and from
an arrest by the Chamberlain’s in 1599. Now he fell into the King’s
Bench for debt, and apparently lay there until 1619. The relationship
of his later work to that of Ford, Massinger, Day, and others, lies
rather beyond the scope of this inquiry, but in view of the persistent
attempts to find early elements in all his plays, I have made my list
comprehensive. He is not traceable after 1632, and is probably the
Thomas Decker, householder, buried at St. James’s, Clerkenwell, on 25
Aug. 1632. A Clerkenwell recusant of this name is recorded in 1626 and
1628 (_Middlesex County Records_, iii. 12, 19).
_Collections_
1873. [R. H. Shepherd], _The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker_. 4 vols.
(_Pearson Reprints_). [Contains 15 plays and 4 Entertainments.]
1884–6. A. B. Grosart, _The Non-Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker_. 5
vols. (Huth Library). [Contains nearly all the pamphlets, with _Patient
Grissell_. A better edition of _The Gull’s Hornbook_ is that by R. B.
McKerrow (1904); a chapter is in App. H.]
1887. E. Rhys, _Thomas Dekker_ (_Mermaid Series_). [Contains _The
Shoemaker’s Holiday_, _1, 2 The Honest Whore_, _Old Fortunatus_, _The
Witch of Edmonton_.]
_Dissertations_: M. L. Hunt, _Thomas Dekker: A Study_ (1911, _Columbia
Studies in English_); W. Bang, _Dekker-Studien_ (1900, _E. S._ xxviii.
208); F. E. Pierce, _The Collaboration of Webster with Dekker_ (1909,
_Yale Studies_, xxxvii) and _The Collaboration of Dekker and Ford_
(1912, _Anglia_, xxxvi, 141, 289); E. E. Stoll, _John Webster_ (1905),
ch. ii, and _The Influence of Jonson on Dekker_ (1906, _M. L. N._ xxi.
20); R. Brooke, _John Webster and the Elizabethan Drama_ (1916); F. P.
Wilson, _Three Notes on Thomas Dekker_ (1920, _M. L. R._ xv. 82).
PLAYS
_Old Fortunatus. 1599_
_S. R._ 1600, Feb. 20. ‘A commedie called old Fortunatus in his newe
lyuerie.’ _William Aspley_ (Arber, iii. 156).
1600. The Pleasant Comedie of Old Fortunatus. As it was plaied before
the Queenes Maiestie this Christmas, by the Right Honourable the Earle
of Nottingham, Lord high Admirall of England his Seruants. _S. S. for
William Aspley_. [Prologue at Court, another Prologue, and Epilogue
at Court; signed at end Tho. Dekker.]
_Editions_ by Dilke (1814, _O. E. P._ iii), H. Scherer (1901,
_Münchener Beiträge_, xxi), O. Smeaton (1904, _T. D._).
The Admiral’s revived, from 3 Feb. to 26 May 1596, ‘the 1 parte of
Forteunatus’. Nothing is heard of a second part, but during 9–30 Nov.
1599 Dekker received £6 on account of the Admiral’s for ‘the hole
history of Fortunatus’, followed on 1 Dec. by £1 for altering the book
and on 12 Dec. £2 ‘for the eande of Fortewnatus for the corte’. The
company were at Court on 27 Dec. 1599 and 1 Jan. 1600. _The Shoemaker’s
Holiday_ was played on 1 Jan.; _Fortunatus_ therefore on 27 Dec. The
Prologue (l. 21) makes it ‘a iust yeere’ since the speaker saw the
Queen, presumably on 27 Dec. 1598. The S. R. entry suggests that the
1599 play was a revision of the 1596 one. Probably Dekker boiled the
old two parts down into one play; the juncture may, as suggested by
Fleay, i. 126, and Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 179), come about l. 1315.
The Court additions clearly include, besides the Prologue and the
Epilogue with its reference to Elizabeth’s forty-second regnal year
(1599–1600), the compliment of ll. 2799–834 at the ‘eande’ of the play.
The ‘small circumference’ of the theatrical prologue was doubtless
the Rose. Dekker may or may not have been the original author of the
two-part play; probably he was not, if Fleay is right in assigning
it to _c._ 1590 on the strength of the allusions to the Marprelate
controversy left in the 1600 text, e.g. l. 59. I should not wonder if
Greene, who called his son Fortunatus, were the original author. A
Fortunatus play is traceable in German repertories of 1608 and 1626
and an extant version in the collection of 1620 owes something to
Dekker’s (Herz, 97; cf. P. Harms, _Die deutschen Fortunatus-Dramen_
in _Theatergeschichtliche Forschungen_, v). But Dekker’s own source,
directly or indirectly, was a German folk-tale, which had been
dramatized by Hans Sachs as early as 1553.
_The Shoemaker’s Holiday. 1599_
_S. R._ 1610, April 19. Transfer from Simmes to J. Wright of ‘A booke
called the shoomakers holyday or the gentle crafte’ subject to an
agreement for Simmes to ‘haue the workmanshipp of the printinge thereof
for the vse of the sayd John Wrighte duringe his lyfe, yf he haue a
printinge house of his owne’ (Arber, iii. 431).
1600. The Shomakers Holiday. Or The Gentle Craft. With the humorous
life of Simon Eyre, shoomaker, and Lord Maior of London. As it was
acted before the Queenes most excellent Maiestie on New yeares day at
night last, by the right honourable the Earle of Notingham, Lord high
Admirall of England, his seruants. _Valentine Simmes_. [Epistle to
Professors of the Gentle Craft and Prologue before the Queen.]
1610, 1618, 1624, 1631, 1657.
_Editions_ by E. Fritsche (1862), K. Warnke and E. Proescholdt (1886),
W. A. Neilson (1911, _C. E. D._), and A. F. Lange (1914, _R. E. C._
iii).
Henslowe advanced £3 ‘to bye a boocke called the gentle Craft of Thomas
Dickers’ on 15 July 1599. Probably the hiatus in the Diary conceals
other payments for the play, and there is nothing in the form of the
entry to justify the suspicions of Fleay, i. 124, that it was not new
and was not by Dekker himself. Moreover, the source was a prose tract
of _The Gentle Craft_ by T. D[eloney], published in 1598. The Admiral’s
were at Court on 1 Jan. 1600, but not on 1 Jan. 1601. A writer signing
himself Dramaticus, in _Sh. Soc. Papers_, iv. 110, describes a copy in
which a contemporary hand has written the names ‘T. Dekker, R. Wilson’
at the end of the Epistle, together with the names of the actors in the
margin of the text. A few of these are not otherwise traceable in the
Admiral’s. Fleay and Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 203) unite in condemning
this communication as an obvious forgery; but I rather wish they had
given their reasons.
_Patient Grissell. 1600_
_With_ Chettle and Haughton.
_S. R._ 1600, March 28. ‘The Plaie of Patient Grissell.’ _Cuthbert
Burby_ (Arber, iii. 158).
1603. The Pleasant Comodie of Patient Grissill. As it hath beene
sundrie times lately plaid by the right honorable the Earle of
Nottingham (Lord high Admirall) his seruants. _For Henry Rocket._
_Editions_ by J. P. Collier (1841, _Sh. Soc._), A. B. Grosart (1886,
_Dekker_, v. 109), G. Hübsch (1893, _Erlanger Beiträge_, xv), J. S.
Farmer (1911, _T. F. T._).--_Dissertations_ by A. E. H. Swaen in
_E. S._ xxii. 451, Fr. v. Westenholz, _Die Griseldis-Sage in der
Literaturgeschichte_ (1888).
Henslowe paid £10 10_s._ to Dekker, Chettle, and Haughton for the
play between 16 Oct. and 29 Dec. 1599, also £1 for Grissell’s gown
on 26 Jan. 1600 and £2 ‘to staye the printing’ on 18 March 1600. The
text refers to ‘wonders of 1599’ (l. 2220) and to ‘this yeare’ as
‘leap yeare’ (l. 157). The production was doubtless _c._ Feb.–March
1600. Fleay, i. 271, attempts to divide the work amongst the three
contributors; cf. Hunt, 60. I see nothing to commend the theory of
W. Bang (_E. S._ xxviii. 208) that the play was written by Chettle
_c._ 1590–4 and revised with Dekker, Haughton, and Jonson. No doubt
the dandy’s duel, in which clothes alone suffer, of Emulo-Sir Owen
resembles that of Brisk-Luculento in _Every Man Out of his Humour_,
but this may be due to a common origin in fact (cf. Fleay, i. 361;
Penniman, _War_, 70; Small, 43). Fleay, followed by Penniman,
identifies Emulo with Samuel Daniel, but Small, 42, 184, satisfactorily
disposes of this suggestion. There seems no reason to regard _Patient
Grissell_ as part of the _Poetomachia_. A ‘Comoedia von der Crysella’
is in the German repertory of 1626; the theme had, however, already
been dealt with in a play of _Griseldis_ by Hans Sachs (Herz, 66, 78).
_Satiromastix. 1601_
_With_ Marston?
_S. R._ 1601, Nov. 11. ‘Vppon condicon that yt be lycensed to be
printed, A booke called the vntrussinge of the humorous poetes by
Thomas Decker.’ _John Barnes_ (Arber, iii. 195).
1602. Satiromastix. Or The vntrussing of the Humorous Poet. As it hath
bin presented publikely, by the Right Honorable, the Lord Chamberlaine
his Seruants; and priuately, by the Children of Paules. By Thomas
Dekker. _For Edward White._ [Epistle to the World, note _Ad Lectorem_
of _errata_, and Epilogue. Scherer, xiv, distinguishes two editions,
but T. M. Parrott’s review in _M. L. R._ vi. 398 regards these as only
variant states of one edition.]
_Editions_ by T. Hawkins (1773, _O. E. D._ iii), H. Scherer (1907,
_Materialien_, xx), J. H. Penniman (1913, _B. L._).
The Epistle refers to the _Poetomachia_ between ‘Horace’ and ‘a band
of leane-witted Poetasters’, and on the place of _Satiromastix_
in this fray there is little to be added to Small, 119. Jonson is
satirized as Horace. Asinius Bubo is some unknown satellite of his,
probably the same who appears as Simplicius Faber in Marston’s _What
You Will_ (q.v.). Crispinus, Demetrius, and Tucca are taken over from
Jonson’s _Poetaster_ (q.v.). The satirical matter is engrafted on to
a play with a tragic plot and comic sub-plot, both wholly unconcerned
with the _Poetomachia_. Jonson must have known that the attack was
in preparation, when he made Tucca abuse Histrio for threatening to
‘play’ him, and Histrio say that he had hired Demetrius [Dekker] ‘to
abuse Horace, and bring him in, in a play’ (_Poetaster_, III. iv.
212, 339). But obviously Dekker cannot have done much of his satire
until he had seen _Poetaster_, to many details of which it retorts.
It is perhaps rather fantastic to hold that, as he chaffs Jonson for
the boast that he wrote _Poetaster_ in fifteen weeks (_Satiromastix_,
641), he must himself have taken less. In any case a date of production
between that of _Poetaster_ in the spring of 1601 and the S. R. entry
on 11 Nov. 1601 is indicated. The argument of Scherer, x, for a date
about Christmas 1601, and therefore after the S. R. entry, is rebutted
by Parrott. It is generally held that Marston helped Dekker with the
play, in spite of the single name on the title-page. No doubt Tucca
in _Poetaster_, III. iv. 352, suggests to Histrio that Crispinus
shall help Demetrius, and the plural is used in _Satiromastix_
(_Epistle_, 12, and _Epilogue_, 2700) and in Jonson’s own _Apologetical
Dialogue_ to _Poetaster_ (l. 141) of the ‘poetasters’ who were
Jonson’s ‘untrussers’. Small, 122, finds Marston in the plot and
characterization, but not in the style.
_Sir Thomas Wyatt. 1602_
_With_ Webster, and possibly Chettle, Heywood, and Smith.
1607. The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyat. With the Coronation of
Queen Mary, and the coming in of King Philip. As it was plaied by the
Queens Maiesties Seruants. Written by Thomas Dickers and Iohn Webster.
_E. A. for Thomas Archer._
1612. _For Thomas Archer._
_Editions_ by J. Blew (1876), and J. S. Farmer (1914, _S. F. T._) and
with _Works_ of Webster (q.v.).
Henslowe, on behalf of Worcester’s men, paid Chettle, Dekker, Heywood,
Smith, and Webster, for _1 Lady Jane_ in Oct. 1602. He then bought
properties for _The Overthrow of Rebels_, almost certainly the same
play, and began to pay Dekker for a _2 Lady Jane_, which apparently
remained unfinished, at any rate at the time. One or both of these
plays, or possibly only the shares of Dekker and Webster in one or both
of them, may reasonably be taken to survive in _Sir Thomas Wyatt_.
Stoll, 49, thinks the play, as we have it, is practically Dekker’s and
that there is ‘no one thing’ that can be claimed ‘with any degree of
assurance’ for Webster. But this is not the general view. Fleay, ii.
269, followed in the main by Hunt, 76, gives Webster scc. i-ix, Greg
(_Henslowe_, ii. 233) scc. i-x and xvi (with hesitation as to iii-v),
Pierce, after a careful application of a number of ‘tests’ bearing both
on style and on matter, scc. ii, v, vi, x, xiv, xvi; but he thinks that
some or all of these were retouched by Dekker. Brooke inclines to trace
Webster in scc. ii, xvi, Heywood in scc. vi, x, and a good deal of
Dekker. Hunt thinks the planning due to Chettle.
_The Honest Whore. 1604, c. 1605_
_With_ Middleton.
_S. R._ 1604, Nov. 9 (Pasfield). ‘A Booke called The humors of the
patient man, The longinge wyfe and the honest whore.’ _Thomas Man the
younger_ (Arber, iii. 275).
1608, April 29 (Buck). ‘A booke called the second parte of the
conuerted Courtisan or honest Whore.’ _Thomas Man Junior_ (Arber,
iii. 376). [No fee entered.]
1630, June 29 (Herbert). ‘The second parte of the Honest Hoore by
Thomas Dekker.’ _Butter_ (Arber, iv. 238).
1604. The Honest Whore, With, The Humours of the Patient Man, and the
Longing Wife. Tho: Dekker. _V. S. for John Hodgets._ [Part i.]
1605, 1615, 1616, N.D. [All Part i.]
1630. The Second Part of the Honest Whore, With the Humors of the
Patient Man, the Impatient Wife: the Honest Whore, perswaded by strong
Arguments to turne Curtizan againe: her braue refuting those Arguments.
And lastly, the Comicall Passages of an Italian Bridewell, where the
Scaene ends. Written by Thomas Dekker. _Elizabeth Allde for Nathaniel
Butter._ [Part ii.]
1635. The Honest Whore, With, The Humours of the Patient Man, and the
Longing Wife, Written by Thomas Dekker, As it hath beene Acted by her
Maiesties Servants with great Applause. _N. Okes, sold by Richard
Collins._ [Part i.]
_Editions_ by W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ i) and W. A. Neilson
(1911, _C. E. D._).
Henslowe made a payment to Dekker and Middleton for ‘the pasyent man
& the onest hore’ between 1 Jan. and 14 March 1604, on account of the
Prince’s men, and the mention of Towne in a stage-direction to Part i
(ed. Pearson, ii. 78) shows that it was in fact acted by this company.
Fleay, i. 132, and Hunt, 94, cite some allusions in Part ii suggesting
a date soon after that of Part i, and this would be consistent with
Henslowian methods. There is more difference of opinion about the
partition of the work. Of Part i Fleay gives scc. i, iii, and xiii-xv
alone to Dekker, and Hunt finds the influence of Middleton in the theme
and plot of both Parts. Bullen, however (_Middleton_, i. xxv), thinks
Middleton’s share ‘inconsiderable’, giving him only I. v and III. i,
with a hand in II. i and in a few comic scenes of Part ii. Ward, ii.
462, holds a similar view.
_Westward Ho! 1604_
_With_ Webster.
_S. R._ 1605, March 2. ‘A commodie called westward Hoe presented by the
Children of Paules provided yat he get further authoritie before yt
be printed.’ _Henry Rocket_ (Arber, iii. 283). [Entry crossed out and
marked ‘vacat’.]
1607. Westward Hoe. As it hath beene diuers times Acted by the
Children of Paules. Written by Tho: Decker, and Iohn Webster. _Sold by
John Hodgets._
_Editions_ with _Works_ of Webster (q.v.).
The allusions cited by Fleay, ii. 269, Stoll, 14, Hunt, 101, agree
with a date of production at the end of 1604. Fleay assigns Acts I-III
and a part of IV. ii to Webster; the rest of Acts IV, V to Dekker. But
Stoll, 79, thinks that Webster only had ‘some slight, undetermined part
in the more colourless and stereotyped portions ... under the shaping
and guiding hand of Dekker’, and Pierce, 131, after an elaborate
application of tests, can only give him all or most of I. i and III.
iii and a small part of I. ii and III. ii. Brooke finds traces of
Webster in I. i and III. iii and Dekker in II. i, ii and V. iii, and
has some useful criticism of the ‘tests’ employed by Pierce.
_Northward Ho! 1605_
_With_ Webster.
_S. R._ 1607, Aug. 6 (Buck). ‘A booke Called Northward Ho.’ _George
Elde_ (Arber, iii. 358).
1607. North-Ward Hoe. Sundry times Acted by the Children of Paules. By
Thomas Decker, and Iohn Webster. _G. Eld._
_Editions_ by J. S. Farmer (1914, _S. F. T._) and in _Works_ of Webster
(q.v.).
The play is a reply to _Eastward Ho!_ which was itself a reply to
_Westward Ho!_ and was on the stage before May 1605, and it is referred
to with the other two plays in Day’s _Isle of Gulls_, which was on
the stage in Feb. 1606. This pretty well fixes its date to the end
of 1605. I do not think that Stoll, 16, is justified in his argument
for a date later than Jan. 1606, since, even if the comparison of the
life of a gallant to a squib is a borrowing from Marston’s _Fawn_, it
seems probable that the _Fawn_ itself was originally written by 1604,
although possibly touched up early in 1606. Fleay, ii. 270, identifies
Bellamont with Chapman, one of the authors of _Eastward Ho!_ and Stoll,
65, argues in support of this. It is plausible, but does not carry with
it Fleay’s identification of Jenkins with Drayton. Fleay gives Webster
I. ii, II. i, III. i, and IV. i, but Stoll finds as little of him as in
_Westward Ho!_ and Pierce, 131, only gives him all or most of I. i, II.
ii, and the beginning of v and a small part of III. i. Brooke traces
Webster in I. i and III. i and Dekker in IV. i.
_The Whore of Babylon 1605 < > 7_
_S. R._ 1607, April 20 (Buck). ‘A booke called the Whore of Babilon.’
_Nathanael Butter and John Trundell_ (Arber, iii. 347).
1607. The Whore of Babylon. As it was Acted by the Princes Seruants.
Written by Thomas Dekker. _For N. Butter._ [Epistle to the Reader and
Prologue.]
Fleay, i. 133, and Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 210) regard the play as a
revision of _Truth’s Supplication to Candlelight_, for which Henslowe,
on behalf of the Admiral’s, was paying Dekker in Jan. 1600 and buying
a robe for Time in April 1600. Truth and Time, but not Candlelight,
are characters in the play, which deals with Catholic intrigues
against Elizabeth, represented as Titania, and her suitors. I do not
feel sure that it would have been allowed to be staged in Elizabeth’s
lifetime. In any case it must have been revised _c._ 1605–7, in view of
the references, not only to the death of Essex (ed. Pearson, p. 246)
and the reign of James (p. 234), but to the _Isle of Gulls_ of 1605
(p. 214). The Cockpit, alluded to (p. 214) as a place where follies
are shown in apes, is of course that in the palace, where Henry saw
plays. The Epistle and Prologue have clear references to a production
in ‘Fortune’s dial’ and the ‘square’ of the Fortune, and the former
criticizes players; but hardly proves the definite breach with the
Prince’s suggested by Fleay and Greg.
_The Roaring Girl. c. 1610_
_With_ Middleton.
1611. The Roaring Girle. Or Moll Cut-Purse, As it hath lately beene
Acted on the Fortune-stage by the Prince his Players. Written by T.
Middleton and T. Dekkar. _For Thomas Archer._ [Epistle to the Comic
Play-Readers, signed ‘Thomas Middleton’, Prologue and Epilogue.]
_Editions_ by W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ ii), A. H. Bullen (1885,
_Middleton_, iv. 1), and J. S. Farmer (1914, _S. F. T._).
Fleay, i, 132, thinks the play written about 1604–5, but not produced
until 1610. This is fantastic and Bullen points out that Mary Frith,
the heroine, born not earlier than _c._ 1584–5, had hardly won her
notoriety by 1604. By 1610 she certainly had, and the ‘foule’ book of
her ‘base trickes’ referred to in the Epilogue was probably John Day’s
_Mad Pranks of Merry Mall of the Bankside_, entered on S. R. 7 Aug.
1610, but not extant. The Epilogue also tells the audience that, if
they are dissatisfied,
The Roring Girle her selfe some few dayes hence,
Shall on this Stage, give larger recompence.
I think this can only refer to a contemplated personal appearance
of Mary Frith on the stage; it has been interpreted as referring to
another forthcoming play. Moll Cutpurse appears in Field’s _Amends for
Ladies_, but this was not a Fortune play. Bullen (_Middleton_, i. xxxv)
regards the play as an example of collaboration, and gives Dekker I.
II. ii, and V; Middleton, with occasional hesitation, the rest. Fleay,
i. 132, only gives Middleton II. ii, IV. i, V. ii.
_If It be not Good, the Devil is in It. 1610 < > 12_
1612. If It Be Not Good, the Diuel is in it. A New Play, As it hath bin
lately Acted, with great applause, by the Queenes Maiesties Seruants:
At the Red Bull. Written by Thomas Dekker. _For I. T. sold by Edward
Marchant._ [Epistle to the Queen’s men signed Tho: Dekker, Prologue,
and Epilogue. The running title is ‘If this be not a good Play, the
Diuell is in it’.]
The Epistle tells us that after ‘Fortune’ (the Admiral’s) had ‘set her
foote vpon’ the play, the Queen’s had ‘raised it up ... the Frontispice
onely a little more garnished’. Fleay, i. 133, attempts to fix the
play to 1610, but hardly proves more than that it cannot be earlier
than 14 May 1610, as the murder on that day of Henri IV is referred to
(ed. Pearson, p. 354). The Epistle also refers to a coming new play by
Dekker’s ‘worthy friend’, perhaps Webster (q.v.). In the opening scene
the devil Lurchall is addressed as Grumball, which suggests the actor
Armin (cf. ch. xv). Daborne (q.v.) in the Epistle to his _Christian
Turned Turk_ seems to claim a share in this play.
_Match Me in London_ (?)
_S. R._ 1630, 8 Nov. (Herbert). ‘A Play called Mach mee in London by
Thomas Decker.’ _Seile_ (Arber, iv. 242).
1631. A Tragi-Comedy: Called, Match mee in London. As it hath beene
often presented; First, at the Bull in St. Iohns-street; And lately,
at the Priuate-House in Drury Lane, called the Phoenix. Written by
Tho: Dekker. _B. Alsop and T. Fawcet for H. Seile._ [Epistle to
Lodowick Carlell signed ‘Tho: Dekker’.]
Herbert’s diary contains the entry on 21 Aug. 1623, ‘For the L.
Elizabeth’s servants of the Cockpit. An old play called Match me in
London which had been formerly allowed by Sir G. Bucke.’ On this, some
rather slight evidence from allusions, and a general theory that Dekker
did not write plays during his imprisonment of 1613–19, Fleay, i. 134,
puts the original production by Queen Anne’s men _c._ 1611 and Hunt,
160, in 1612–13. As there are some allusions to cards and the game of
maw, Fleay thinks the play a revision of _The Set at Maw_ produced
by the Admiral’s on 15 Dec. 1594. Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 172) points
out the weakness of the evidence, but finds some possible traces of
revision in the text.
_The Virgin Martyr. c. 1620_
_With_ Massinger.
_S. R._ 1621, 7 Dec. (Buck). ‘A Tragedy called The Virgin Martir.’
_Thomas Jones_ (Arber, iv. 62).
1622. The Virgin Martir, A Tragedie, as it hath bin divers times
publickely Acted with great Applause, By the seruants of his Maiesties
Reuels. Written by Phillip Messenger and Thomas Deker. _B. A. for
Thomas Jones._
1631, 1651, 1661.
The play is said to have been ‘reformed’ and licensed by Buck for the
Red Bull on 6 Oct. 1620 (Herbert, 29). An additional scene, licensed
on 7 July 1624 (_Var._ i. 424), did not find its way into print.
Fleay, i. 135, 212, asserts that the 1620 play was a refashioning by
Massinger of a play by Dekker for the Queen’s about 1611, itself a
recast of _Diocletian_, produced by the Admiral’s on 16 Nov. 1594,
but ‘dating from 1591 at the latest’. He considers II. i, iii, III.
iii, and IV. ii of the 1620 version to be still Dekker’s. Ward, iii.
12, and Hunt, 156, give most of the play to Dekker. But all these
views are impressionistic, and there is no special reason to suppose
that Massinger revised, rather than collaborated with, Dekker, or to
assume a version of _c._ 1611. As for an earlier version still, Fleay’s
evidence is trivial. In any case 1591 is out of the question, as
Henslowe marked the _Diocletian_ of 1594 ‘n.e.’ Nor does he say it was
by Dekker. A play on Dorothea the Martyr had made its way into Germany
by 1626, but later German repertories disclose that there was also
a distinct play on Diocletian (Herz, 66, 103; Greg, _Henslowe_, ii.
172). Greg, however, finds parts of _The Virgin Martyr_, ‘presumably
Dekker’s’, to be ‘undoubtedly early’. Oliphant (_E. S._ xvi. 191)
makes the alternative suggestion that _Diocletian_ was the basis of
Fletcher’s _Prophetess_, in which he believes the latter part of IV. i
and V. i to be by an older hand, which he cannot identify. All this is
very indefinite.
_The Witch of Edmonton. 1621_
_With_ Ford and W. Rowley.
_S. R._ 1658, May 21. ‘A booke called The witch of Edmonton, a
Tragicomedy by Will: Rowley, &c.’ _Edward Blackmore_ (Eyre, ii. 178).
1658. The Witch of Edmonton, A known true Story. Composed into a
Tragi-Comedy By divers well-esteemed Poets; William Rowley, Thomas
Dekker, John Ford, &c. Acted by the Princes Servants; often at the
Cock-Pit in Drury Lane, once at Court, with singular Applause. Never
printed till now. _J. Cottrel for Edward Blackmore._ [Prologue signed
‘Master Bird’.]
_Editions_ with _Works_ of John Ford, by H. Weber (1811), W. Gifford
(1827), H. Coleridge (1840, 1848, 1851), A. Dyce (1869), A. H. Bullen
(1895).
I include this for the sake of completeness, but it is based upon a
pamphlet published in 1621 and was played at Court by the Prince’s men
on 29 Dec. 1621 (Murray, ii. 193). It is generally regarded as written
in collaboration. Views as to its division amongst the writers are
summarized by Hunt, 178, and Pierce (_Anglia_, xxxvi. 289). The latter
finds Dekker in nearly all the scenes, Ford in four, Rowley perhaps in
five.
_The Wonder of a Kingdom. 1623_
_Possibly with_ Day.
_S. R._ 1631, May 16 (Herbert). ‘A Comedy called The Wonder of a
Kingdome by Thomas Decker.’ _John Jackman_ (Arber, iv. 253).
1636, Feb. 24. ‘Vnder the hands of Sir Henry Herbert and Master
Kingston Warden (dated the 7th of May 1631) a Play called The Wonder of
a Kingdome by Thomas Decker.’ _Nicholas Vavasour_ (Arber, iv. 355).
1636. The Wonder of a Kingdome. Written by Thomas Dekker. _Robert
Raworth for Nicholas Vavasour._
Herbert’s diary for 18 Sept. 1623 has the entry: ‘For a company of
strangers. A new comedy called Come see a wonder, written by John
Daye. It was acted at the Red Bull and licensed without my hand to
it because they were none of the 4 companies.’ As _The Wonder of a
Kingdom_ contains scenes which are obviously from Day’s _Parliament of
Bees_ (_1608–16_) it is possible either to adopt the simple theory of
a collaboration between Day and Dekker in 1623, or to hold with Fleay,
i. 136, and Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 174, that Day’s ‘new’ play of 1623
was a revision of an earlier one by Dekker. The mention of cards in the
closing lines seems an inadequate ground for Fleay’s further theory,
apparently approved by Greg, that the original play was _The Mack_,
produced by the Admiral’s on 21 Feb. 1595.
_The Sun’s Darling. 1624_
_With_ Ford.
1656. The Sun’s-Darling: A Moral Masque: As it hath been often
presented at Whitehall, by their Majesties Servants; and after at the
Cockpit in Drury Lane, with great Applause. Written by John Foard and
Tho. Decker Gent. _J. Bell for Andrew Penneycuicke._
1657. Reissue with same imprint.
1657. Reissue with same imprint.... ‘As it hath been often presented by
their Majesties Servants; at the Cockpit in Drury Lane’....
_Editions_ with _Works_ of John Ford, by H. Weber (1811), W.
Gifford (1827), H. Coleridge (1840, 1848, 1851), A. Dyce (1869), A. H.
Bullen (1895).
The play was licensed by Herbert for the Lady Elizabeth’s at the
Cockpit on 3 March 1624 (Chalmers, _S. A._ 217; Herbert, 27) and
included in a list of Cockpit plays in 1639 (_Variorum_, iii. 159).
Fleay, i. 232, Ward, ii. 470, and Pierce (_Anglia_, xxxvi. 141) regard
it as a revision by Ford of earlier work by Dekker, and the latter
regards the last page of Act I, Acts II and III, and the prose of Acts
IV and V as substantially Dekker’s. It is perhaps a step from this
to the theory of Fleay and Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 190) that the play
represents the _Phaethon_, which Dekker wrote for the Admiral’s in
Jan. 1598 and afterwards altered for a Court performance at Christmas
1600. There are allusions to ‘humours’ and to ‘pampered jades of Asia’
(ed. Pearson, pp. 316, 318) which look early, but Phaethon is not a
character, nor is the story his. A priest of the Sun appears in Act I:
I am surprised that Fleay did not identify him, though he is not mad,
with the ‘mad priest of the sun’ referred to in Greene’s (q.v.) Epistle
to _Perimedes_. The play is not a ‘masque’ in the ordinary sense.
_The Noble Soldier > 1631_
_With_ Day and S. Rowley?
_S. R._ 1631, May 16 (Herbert). ‘A Tragedy called The noble Spanish
Souldier by Thomas Deckar.’ _John Jackman_ (Arber, iv. 253).
1633, Dec. 9. ‘Entred for his Copy vnder the handes of Sir Henry
Herbert and Master Kingston warden _Anno Domini_ 1631. a Tragedy called
_The Noble Spanish soldior_ written by master Decker.’ _Nicholas
Vavasour_ (Arber, iv. 310).
1634. The Noble Souldier, Or, A Contract Broken, justly reveng’d. A
Tragedy. Written by S. R. _For Nicholas Vavasour._
_Editions_ by A. H. Bullen (1882, _O. E. P._ i) and J. S. Farmer (1913,
_S. F. T._).
The printer tells us that the author was dead in 1634.
The initials may indicate Samuel Rowley of the Admiral’s and Prince
Henry’s. Bullen and Hunt, 187, think that Dekker revised work by
Rowley. But probably Day also contributed, for II. i, ii; III. ii;
IV. i; V. i, ii, and parts of I. ii and V. iv are drawn like scenes
in _The Wonder of a Kingdom_ from his _Parliament of Bees_ (1608–16).
Fleay, i. 128, identifies the play with _The Spanish Fig_ for which
Henslowe made a payment on behalf of the Admiral’s in Jan. 1602. This
Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 220) thinks ‘plausible’, regarding the play as
‘certainly an old play of about 1600, presumably by Dekker and Rowley
with later additions by Day’. He notes that the King is not, as Fleay
alleged, poisoned with a Spanish fig, but a Spanish fig is mentioned,
‘and it is quite possible that such may have been the mode of poisoning
in the original piece’. Henslowe does not name the payee for _The
Spanish Fig_, and it was apparently not finished at the time.
_Lost and Doubtful Plays_
It will be convenient to set out all the certain or conjectured work by
Dekker mentioned in Henslowe’s Diary.
(a) _Conjectural anonymous Work before 1598_
(i) _Philipo and Hippolito._
Produced as a new play by the Admiral’s on 9 July 1594. The ascription
to Dekker, confident in Fleay, i. 213, and regarded as possible
by Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 165), appears to be due to the entry of a
_Philenzo and Hypollita_ by Massinger, who revised other early work of
Dekker, in the S. R. on 29 June 1660, to the entry of a _Philenzo and
Hipolito_ by Massinger in Warburton’s list of burnt plays (_3 Library_,
ii. 231), and to the appearance of a _Julio and Hyppolita_ in the
German collection of 1620. A copy of Massinger’s play is said (Collier,
_Henslowe_, xxxi) to be amongst the _Conway MSS._
(ii) _The Jew of Venice._
Entered as a play by Dekker in the S. R. on 9 Sept. 1653 (_3 Library_,
ii. 241). It has been suggested (Fleay, i. 121, and _Sh._ 30, 197; Greg
in _Henslowe_, ii. 170) that it was the source of a German play printed
from a Vienna MS. by Meissner, 131 (cf. Herz, 84). In this a personage
disguises himself as a French doctor, which leads to the conjectural
identification of its English original both with _The Venetian Comedy_
produced by the Admiral’s on 27 Aug. 1594 and with _The French Doctor_
performed by the same men on 19 Oct. 1594 and later dates and bought by
them from Alleyn in 1602. The weakest point in all this guesswork is
the appearance of common themes in the German play and in _The Merchant
of Venice_, which Fleay explains to his own satisfaction by the
assumption that Shakespeare based _The Merchant of Venice_ on Dekker’s
work.
(iii) _Dr. Faustus._
Revived by the Admiral’s on 30 Sept. 1594. On the possibility that the
1604 text contains comic scenes written by Dekker for this revival, cf.
s.v. Marlowe.
(iv) _Diocletian._
Produced by the Admiral’s, 16 Nov. 1599; cf. s.v. _The Virgin Martyr_
(_supra_).
(v) _The Set at Maw._
Produced by the Admiral’s on 14 Dec. 1594; cf. s.v. _Match Me in
London_ (_supra_).
(vi) _Antony and Valia._
Revived by the Admiral’s, 4 Jan. 1595, and ascribed by Fleay, i. 213,
with some encouragement from Greg in _Henslowe_, ii. 174, to Dekker, on
the ground of entries in the S. R. on 29 June 1660 and in Warburton’s
list of burnt plays (_3 Library_, ii. 231) of an _Antonio and Vallia_
by Massinger, who revised other early work by Dekker.
(vii) _The Mack._
Produced by the Admiral’s on 21 Feb. 1595; cf. s.v. _The Wonder of a
Kingdom_ (_supra_).
(viii) _1 Fortunatus._
Revived by the Admiral’s on 3 Feb. 1596; cf. s.v. _Old Fortunatus_
(_supra_).
(ix) _Stukeley._
Produced by the Admiral’s on 11 Dec. 1596. On Fleay’s ascription to
Dekker, cf. s.v. _Captain Thomas Stukeley_ (Anon.).
(x) _Prologue to Tamberlaine._
This rests on a forged entry in Henslowe’s Diary for 20 Dec. 1597; cf.
s.v. Marlowe.
(b) _Work for Admiral’s, 1598–1602_
(i) _Phaethon._
Payments in Jan. 1598 and for alterations for the Court in Dec. 1600;
cf. s.v. _The Sun’s Darling_ (_supra_).
(ii) _The Triplicity or Triangle of Cuckolds._
Payment in March 1598.
(iii) _The Wars of Henry I or The Welshman’s Prize._
Payment, with Chettle and Drayton, March 1598. Greg (_Henslowe_, ii.
192) speculates on possible relations of the plays to others on a
Welshman and on Henry I.
(iv) _1 Earl Godwin._
Payment, with Chettle, Drayton, and Wilson, March 1598.
(v) _Pierce of Exton._
Payment, with Chettle, Drayton, and Wilson, April 1598. Apparently the
play was not finished.
(vi) _1 Black Bateman of the North._
Payments, with Chettle, Drayton, and Wilson, May 1598.
(vii) _2 Earl Godwin._
Payments, with Chettle, Drayton, and Wilson, May–June 1598.
(viii) _The Madman’s Morris._
Payments, with Drayton and Wilson, July 1598.
(ix) _Hannibal and Hermes._
Payments, with Drayton and Wilson, July 1598.
(x) _2 Hannibal and Hermes._
Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 195) gives this name to (xiii).
(xi) _Pierce of Winchester._
Payments, with Drayton and Wilson, July–Aug. 1598.
(xii) _Chance Medley._
Payments to Dekker (or Chettle), with Munday, Drayton, and Wilson, Aug.
1598.
(xiii) _Worse Afeared than Hurt._
Payments, with Drayton, Aug.–Sept. 1598.
(xiv) _1 Civil Wars of France._
Payment, with Drayton, Sept. 1598.
(xv) _Connan Prince of Cornwall._
Payments, with Drayton, Oct. 1598.
(xvi) _2 Civil Wars of France._
Payment, with Drayton, Nov. 1598.
(xvii) _3 Civil Wars of France._
Payments, with Drayton, Nov.–Dec. 1598.
(xviii) _Introduction to Civil Wars of France._
Payments, Jan. 1599.
(xix) _Troilus and Cressida._
Payments, with Chettle, April 1599. A fragmentary ‘plot’ (cf. ch. xxiv)
may belong to this play.
(xx) _Agamemnon or Orestes Furious._
Payments, with Chettle, May 1599.
(xxi) _The Gentle Craft._
Payment, July 1599; cf. _The Shoemaker’s Holiday_ (_supra_).
(xxii) _The Stepmother’s Tragedy._
Payments, with Chettle, Aug.–Oct. 1599.
(xxiii) _Bear a Brain._
Payment, Aug. 1599; cf. s.vv. _The Shoemaker’s Holiday_ (_supra_) and
_Look About You_ (Anon.).
(xxiv) _Page of Plymouth._
Payments, with Jonson, Aug.–Sept. 1599.
(xxv) _Robert II or The Scot’s Tragedy._
Payments, with Chettle, Jonson, ‘& other Jentellman’ (? Marston, q.v.),
Sept. 1599.
(xxvi) _Patient Grissell._
Payments, with Chettle and Haughton, Oct.–Dec. 1599; cf. _supra_.
(xxvii) _Fortunatus._
Payments, Nov.–Dec. 1599; cf. s.v. _Old Fortunatus_ (_supra_).
(xxviii) _Truth’s Supplication to Candlelight._
Payments, Jan. 1600. Apparently the play was not finished; cf. s.v.
_The Whore of Babylon_ (_supra_).
(xxix) _The Spanish Moor’s Tragedy._
Payment, with Day and Haughton, Feb. 1600. Apparently the play was not
finished; cf. s.v. _Lust’s Dominion_ (Marlowe).
(xxx) _The Seven Wise Masters._
Payments, with Chettle, Day, and Haughton, March 1600.
(xxxi) _The Golden Ass_ or _Cupid and Psyche_.
Payments, with Chettle and Day, April-May 1600; on borrowings from
this, cf. s.v. Heywood, _Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas_.
(xxxii) _1 Fair Constance of Rome._
Payments, with Drayton, Hathway, Munday, and Wilson (q.v.), June 1600.
(xxxiii) _[1] Fortune’s Tennis._
Payment, Sept. 1600. A fragmentary plot (cf. ch. xxiv) is perhaps less
likely to belong to this than to Munday’s _Set at Tennis_.
(xxxiv) _King Sebastian of Portugal._
Payments, with Chettle, April-May 1601.
(xxxv) _The Spanish Fig._
Payment, Jan. 1602. The payee is unnamed; cf. _The Noble Soldier_
(_supra_).
(xxxvi) Prologue and Epilogue to _Pontius Pilate_.
Payment, Jan. 1602.
(xxxvii) Alterations to _Tasso’s Melancholy_.
Payments, Jan.–Dec. 1602.
(xxxviii) _Jephthah_.
Payments, with Munday, May 1602.
(xxxix) _Caesar’s Fall, or The Two Shapes_.
Payments, with Drayton, Middleton, Munday, and Webster, May 1602.
(c) _Work for Worcester’s, 1602_
(i) _A Medicine for a Curst Wife._
Payments, July–Sept. 1602. The play was begun for the Admiral’s and
transferred to Worcester’s.
(ii) _Additions to Sir John Oldcastle._
Payments, Aug.–Sept. 1602; cf. s.v. Drayton.
(iii) _1 Lady Jane_, or _The Overthrow of Rebels_.
Payments, with Chettle, Heywood, Smith, and Webster, Oct. 1602; cf.
s.v. _Sir Thomas Wyatt_ (_supra_).
(iv) _2 Lady Jane._
Payment, Oct. 1602. Apparently the play was not finished; cf. s.v.
_Sir Thomas Wyatt_ (_supra_).
(v) _Christmas Comes but Once a Year._
Payments, with Chettle, Heywood, and Webster, Nov. 1602.
(d) _Work for Prince’s, 1604_
_The Patient Man and the Honest Whore._
Payments, with Middleton, Jan.–March 1602; cf. s.v. _The Honest Whore_
(_supra_).
The following plays are assigned to Dekker in S. R. but are now lost:
_The Life and Death of Guy of Warwick_, with Day (S. R. 15 Jan.
1620).
_Gustavus King of Swethland_ (S. R. 29 June 1660).
_The Tale of Ioconda and Astolso_, a Comedy (S. R. 29 June 1660).
The two latter are also in Warburton’s list of burnt plays (_3
Library_, ii. 231).
The following are assigned to Dekker in Herbert’s licence entries:
A French Tragedy of _The Bellman of Paris_, by Dekker and Day, for
the Prince’s, on 30 July 1623.
_The Fairy Knight_, by Dekker and Ford, for the Prince’s, on 11 June
1624.
_The Bristow Merchant_, by Dekker and Ford, for the Palsgrave’s, on 22
Oct. 1624.
Fleay, i. 232, seems to have nothing but the names to go upon in
suggesting identifications of the two latter with the _Huon of
Bordeaux_, revived by Sussex’s on 28 Dec. 1593, and Day’s _Bristol
Tragedy_ (q.v.) respectively.
For other ascriptions to Dekker see _Capt. T. Stukeley_, _Charlemagne_,
_London Prodigal_, _Sir Thomas More_, _The Weakest Goeth to the Wall_
in ch. xxiv. He has also been conjectured to be the author of the songs
in the 1632 edition of Lyly’s plays.
ENTERTAINMENTS
_Coronation Entertainment. 1604_
See ch. xxiv, C.
_Troia Nova Triumphans. 29 Oct. 1612_
_S. R._ 1612, Oct. 21. ‘To be prynted when yt is further Aucthorised, A
Booke called Troia Nova triumphans. London triumphinge. or the solemne
receauinge of Sir John Swynerton knight into the citye at his Retourne
from Westminster after the taking his oathe written by Thomas Decker.’
_Nicholas Okes_ (Arber, iii. 500).
1612. Troia-Noua Triumphans. London Triumphing, or, The Solemne,
Magnificent, and Memorable Receiuing of that worthy Gentleman, Sir Iohn
Swinerton Knight, into the Citty of London, after his Returne from
taking the Oath of Maioralty at Westminster, on the Morrow next after
Simon and Iudes day, being the 29. of October, 1612. All the Showes,
Pageants, Chariots of Triumph, with other Deuices (both on the Water
and Land) here fully expressed. By Thomas Dekker. _Nicholas Okes, sold
by John Wright._
_Edition_ in Fairholt (1844), ii. 7.
The opening of the description refers to ‘our best-to-be-beloved
friends, the noblest strangers’. John Chamberlain (Birch, i. 202) says
that the Palsgrave was present and Henry kept away by his illness,
that the show was ‘somewhat extraordinary’ and the water procession
wrecked by ‘great winds’. At Paul’s Chain the Mayor was met by the
‘first triumph’, a sea-chariot, bearing Neptune and Luna, with a
ship of wine. Neptune made a speech. At Paul’s Churchyard came ‘the
second land-triumph’, the throne or chariot of Virtue, drawn by four
horses on which sat Time, Mercury, Desire, and Industry. Virtue made
a speech, and both pageants preceded the Mayor down Cheapside. At the
little Conduit in Cheapside was the Castle of Envy, between whom and
Virtue there was a dialogue, followed by fireworks from the castle. At
the Cross in Cheapside was another ‘triumph’, the House of Fame, with
representations of famous Merchant Tailors, ‘a perticular roome being
reserved for one that represents the person of Henry, the now Prince
of Wales’. After a speech by Fame, the pageant joined the procession,
and from it was heard a song on the way to the Guildhall. On the way
to Paul’s after dinner, Virtue and Envy were again beheld, and at the
Mayor’s door a speech was made by Justice.
THOMAS DELONEY (_c._ 1543–_c._ 1600).
A ballad writer and pamphleteer, who wrote a ballad on the visit to
Tilbury in 1588. See ch. xxiv, C.
ROBERT DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX (1566–1601).
It is possible that Essex, who sometimes dabbled in literature, had
himself a hand in the device of _Love and Self-Love_, with which
he entertained Elizabeth on 17 Nov. 1595, and of which some of the
speeches are generally credited to Bacon (q.v.).
WILLIAM DODD (_c._ 1597–1602).
A Scholar and Fellow of St. John’s, Cambridge, and a conjectured author
of _Parnassus_ (cf. ch. xxiv).
MICHAEL DRAYTON (_c._ 1563–1631).
Drayton was born at Hartshill in Warwickshire, and brought up in the
household of Sir Henry Goodyere of Polesworth, whose daughter Anne,
afterwards Lady Rainsford, is the Idea of his pastorals and sonnets.
With _The Harmony of the Church_ (1591) began a life-long series of
ambitious poems, in all the characteristic Elizabethan manners, for
which Drayton found many patrons, notably Lucy Lady Bedford, Sir Walter
Aston of Tixall, Prince Henry and Prince Charles, and Edward Earl of
Dorset. The guerdons of his pen were not sufficient to keep him from
having recourse to the stage. Meres classed him in 1598 among the
‘best for tragedy’, and Henslowe’s diary shows him a busy writer for
the Admiral’s men, almost invariably in collaboration with Dekker and
others, from Dec. 1597 to Jan. 1599, and a more occasional one from
Oct. 1599 to May 1602. At a later date he may possibly have written for
Queen Anne’s men, since commendatory verses by T. Greene are prefixed
to his _Poems_ of 1605. In 1608 he belonged to the King’s Revels
syndicate at Whitefriars. No later connexion with the stage can be
traced, and he took no steps to print his plays with his other works.
His Elegy to Henry Reynolds of _Poets and Poesie_ (C. Brett, _Drayton’s
Minor Poems_, 108) does honour to Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, and
Beaumont, and tradition makes him a partaker in the drinking-bout that
led to Shakespeare’s end. Jonson wrote commendatory verses for him in
1627, but in 1619 had told Drummond (Laing, 10) that ‘Drayton feared
him; and he esteemed not of him’. The irresponsible Fleay, i. 361;
ii. 271, 323, identifies him with Luculento of _E. M. O._, Captain
Jenkins of Dekker and Webster’s _Northward Ho!_, and the eponym of the
anonymous _Sir Giles Goosecap_; Small, 98, with the Decius criticized
in the anonymous _Jack Drum’s Entertainment_, who may also be Dekker.
The collections of Drayton’s _Poems_ do not include his
plays.--_Dissertations_: O. Elton, _M. D._ (1895, _Spenser Soc._,
1905); L. Whitaker, _M. D. as a Dramatist_ (1903, _M. L. A._ xviii.
378).
_Sir John Oldcastle. 1599_
_With_ Hathaway, Munday, and Wilson.
_S. R._ 1600, Aug. 11 (Vicars). ‘The first parte of the history of the
life of Sir John Oldcastell lord Cobham. Item the second and last parte
of the history of Sir John Oldcastell lord Cobham with his martyrdom,’
_Thomas Pavier_ (Arber, iii. 169).
1600. The first part Of the true and honorable historie, of the life of
Sir John Oldcastle, the good Lord Cobham. As it hath been lately acted
by the right honorable the Earle of Notingham Lord high Admirall of
England his seruants. _V. S. for Thomas Pavier._ [Prologue.]
1600.... Written by William Shakespeare. _For T. P._ [Probably a
forgery of later date than that given in the imprint; cf. p. 479.]
1664. In Third Folio Shakespeare.
1685. In Fourth Folio Shakespeare.
_Editions_ in collections of the Shakespeare _Apocrypha_, and by W.
Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ i), P. Simpson (1908, _M. S. R._), J. S. Farmer
(1911, _T. F. T._).
Henslowe advanced £10 to the Admiral’s as payment to Munday, Drayton,
Wilson, and Hathway for the first part of ‘the lyfe of S^r Jhon
Ouldcasstell’ and in earnest for the second part on 16 Oct. 1599,
and an additional 10_s._ for the poets ‘at the playnge of S^r John
Oldcastell the ferste tyme as a gefte’ between 1 and 8 Nov. 1599.
Drayton had £4 for the second part between 19 and 26 Dec. 1599, and
properties were being bought for it in March 1600. It is not preserved.
By Aug. 1602 the play had been transferred to Worcester’s men. More
properties were bought, doubtless for a revival, and Dekker had £2
10_s._ for ‘new a dicyons’. Fleay, ii. 116, attempts to disentangle the
work of the collaborators. Clearly the play was an answer to _Henry
IV_, in which Sir John Falstaff was originally Sir John Oldcastle, and
this is made clear in the prologue:
It is no pampered glutton we present,
Nor aged Councellour to youthfull sinne.
_Doubtful and Lost Plays_