Edmonton_, _Sir T. More_, and _Thomas Lord Cromwell_ in ch. xxiv.
The complete series of his work for the Admiral’s during 1597–1602 is
as follows:
(i) _Mother Redcap._
Payments, with Munday, Dec. 1597–Jan. 1598.
(ii) _The Welshman’s Prize, or The Famous Wars of Henry I and the
Prince of Wales._
Payments, with Chettle and Dekker, March 1598. Greg (_Henslowe_, ii.
192) thinks that the play may have had some relation to Davenport’s
_Henry I_ of 1624 entered as by Shakespeare and Davenport in S. R. on 9
Sept. 1653.
(iii) _1 Earl Godwin and his Three Sons._
Payments, with Chettle, Dekker, and Wilson, March 1598.
(iv) _2 Earl Godwin and his Three Sons._
Payments, with Chettle, Dekker, and Wilson, May to June 1598.
(v) _Pierce of Exton._
Payment of £2, with Chettle, Dekker, and Wilson, April 1598; but
apparently not finished.
(vi) _1 Black Bateman of the North._
Payments, with Chettle, Dekker, and Wilson, May 1598.
(vii) _Funeral of Richard Cœur-de-lion._
Payments, with Chettle, Munday, and Wilson, June 1598.
(viii) _The Madman’s Morris._
Payments, with Dekker and Wilson, July 1598.
(ix) _Hannibal and Hermes._
Payments, with Dekker and Wilson, July 1598.
(x) _Pierce of Winchester._
Payments, with Dekker and Wilson, July–Aug. 1598.
(xi) _Chance Medley._
Payments, with Chettle or Dekker, Munday, and Wilson, Aug. 1598.
(xii) _Worse Afeared than Hurt._
Payments, with Dekker, Aug.–Sept. 1598.
(xiii-xv) _1, 2, 3 The Civil Wars of France._
Payments, with Dekker, Sept.–Dec. 1598. Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 198)
suggests some relation with Chapman’s _Bussy D’Ambois_ (q.v.).
(xvi) _Connan Prince of Cornwall._
Payments, with Dekker, Oct. 1598.
(xvii) _William Longsword._
Apparently Drayton’s only unaided play and unfinished. His autograph
receipt for a payment in Jan. 1599 is in Henslowe, i. 59.
[There is now a break in Drayton’s dramatic activities, but not in his
relations with Henslowe, for whom he acted as a witness on 8 July 1599.
On 9 Aug. 1598 he had stood security for the delivery of a play by
Munday (Henslowe, i. 60, 93).]
(xviii-xix) _1, 2 Sir John Oldcastle._
See above.
(xx) _Owen Tudor._
Payments, with Hathway, Munday, and Wilson, Jan. 1600; but apparently
not finished.
(xxi) _1 Fair Constance of Rome._
Payments, with Dekker, Hathway, Munday, and Wilson (q.v.), June 1600.
(xxii) _The Rising of Cardinal Wolsey._
Payments, with Chettle (q.v.), Munday, and Smith, Aug.–Nov. 1601.
(xxiii) _Caesar’s Fall, or The Two Shapes._
Payments, with Dekker, Middleton, Munday, and Webster, May 1602.
GILBERT DUGDALE (_c._ 1604).
Author of _Time Triumphant_, an account of the entry and coronation of
James I (cf. ch. xxiv, C).
JOHN DUTTON (_c._ 1598–1602).
Perhaps only a ‘ghost-name’, but conceivably the author of _Parnassus_
(cf. ch. xxiv).
JOHN DYMMOCKE (_c._ 1601).
Possibly the translator of _Pastor Fido_ (cf. ch. xxiv).
RICHARD EDES (1555–1604).
Edes, or Eedes, entered Christ Church, Oxford, from Westminster in
1571, took his B.A. in 1574, his M.A. in 1578, and was University
Proctor in 1583. He took orders, became Chaplain to the Queen, and was
appointed Canon of Christ Church in 1586 and Dean of Worcester in 1597.
Some of his verse, both in English and Latin, has survived, and Meres
includes him in 1598 amongst ‘our best for Tragedie’. The Epilogue,
in Latin prose, of a play called _Caesar Interfectus_, which was both
written and spoken by him, is given by F. Peck in _A Collection of
Curious Historical Pieces_, appended to his _Memoirs of Cromwell_
(1740), and by Boas, 163, from _Bodl. MS. Top. Oxon._ e. 5, f. 359. A
later hand has added the date 1582, from which Boas infers that _Caesar
Interfectus_, of which Edes was probably the author, was one of three
tragedies recorded in the Christ Church accounts for Feb.–March 1582.
Edes appears to have written or contributed to Sir Henry Lee’s (q.v.)
Woodstock Entertainment of 1592.
RICHARD EDWARDES (_c._ 1523–1566).
Edwardes was a Somersetshire man. He entered Corpus Christi College,
Oxford, on 11 May 1540, and became Senior Student of Christ Church in
1547. Before the end of Edward’s reign he was seeking his fortune at
Court and had a fee or annuity of £6 13_s._ 4_d._ (Stopes, _Hunnis_,
147). He must not be identified with the George Edwardes of Chapel
lists, _c._ 1553 (ibid. 23; _Shakespeare’s Environment_, 238; Rimbault,
x), but was of the Chapel by 1 Jan. 1557 (Nichols, _Eliz._ i. xxxv;
_Illustrations_, App. 14), when he made a New Year’s gift of ‘certeigne
verses’, and was confirmed in office by an Elizabethan patent of 27
May 1560. He succeeded Bower as Master of the Children, receiving his
patent of appointment on 27 Oct. 1561 and a commission to take up
children on 4 Dec. 1561 (Wallace, i. 106; ii. 65; cf. ch. xii). Barnabe
Googe in his _Eglogs, Epytaphes and Sonettes_ (15 March 1563) puts his
‘doyngs’ above those of Plautus and Terence. In addition to plays at
Court, he took his boys on 2 Feb. 1565 and 2 Feb. 1566 to Lincoln’s Inn
(cf. ch. vii), of which he had become a member on 25 Nov. 1564 (_L. I.
Admission Register_, i. 72). He appeared at Court as a ‘post’ on behalf
of the challengers for a tilt in Nov. 1565 (cf. ch. iv). In 1566 he
helped in the entertainment of Elizabeth at Oxford, and on Oct. 31 of
that year he died. His reputation as poet and dramatist is testified
to in verses by Barnabe Googe, George Turberville, Thomas Twine, and
others and proved enduring. The author [Richard Puttenham?] of _The
Arte of English Poesie_ (1589) couples him with the Earl of Oxford as
deserving the highest price for comedy and enterlude, and Francis Meres
in his _Palladis Tamia_ (1598) includes him amongst those ‘best for
comedy’. Several of his poems are in _The Paradise of Dainty Devices_
(1576). Warton, iv. 218, says that William Collins (the poet) had a
volume of prose stories printed in 1570, ‘sett forth by maister Richard
Edwardes mayster of her maiesties revels’. One of these contained
a version of the jest used in the _Induction_ of _The Taming of the
Shrew_ (q.v.). There is nothing else to connect Edwardes with the
Revels office, and probably ‘revels’ in Warton’s account is a mistake
for ‘children’ or ‘chapel’.
_Dissertations_: W. Y. Durand, _Notes on R. E._ (1902, _J. G. P._ iv.
348), _Some Errors concerning R. E._ (1908, _M. L. N._ xxiii. 129).
_Damon and Pythias. 1565_
_S. R._ 1567–8. ‘A boke intituled ye tragecall comodye of Damonde and
Pethyas.’ _Rycharde Jonnes_ (Arber, i. 354).
Warton, iv. 214, describes an edition, not now known, as printed by
William How in Fleet Street. The Tragical comedie of Damon and Pythias,
newly imprinted as the same was playde before the queenes maiestie by
the children of her grace’s chapple. Made by Mayster Edwards, then
being master of the children. _William How._ [Only known through
the description of Warton, iv. 214.]
1571. The excellent Comedie of two the moste faithfullest Freendes,
Damon and Pithias. Newly Imprinted, as the same was shewed before the
Queenes Maiestie, by the Children of her Graces Chappell, except the
Prologue that is somewhat altered for the proper vse of them that
hereafter shall haue occasion to plaie it, either in Priuate, or open
Audience. Made by Maister Edwards, then beynge Maister of the Children.
_Richard Jones._
1582. _Richard Jones._
_Editions_ in Dodsley^4, iv (1874), and by W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._
i) and J. S. Farmer (1908, _T. F. T._).--_Dissertation_: W. Y. Durand,
_A Local Hit in E.’s D. and P._ (_M. L. N._ xxii. 236).
The play is not divided into acts or scenes; the characters include
Carisophus a parasite, and Grim the Collier. The prologue [not that
used at Court] warns the audience that they will be ‘frustrate quite
of toying plays’ and that the author’s muse that ‘masked in delight’
and to some ‘seemed too much in young desires to range’ will leave such
sports and write a ‘tragical comedy ... mixed with mirth and care’.
Edwardes adds (cf. App. C, No. ix):
Wherein, talking of courtly toys, we do protest this flat,
We talk of Dionysius court, we mean no court but that.
A song at the end wishes Elizabeth joy and describes her as ‘void of
all sickness, in most perfect health’. Durand uses this reference to
date the play in the early months of 1565, since a letter of De Silva
(_Sp. P._ i. 400) records that Elizabeth had a feverish cold since
8 Dec. 1564, but was better by 2 Jan. 1565. He identifies the play
with the ‘Edwardes tragedy’ of the Revels Accounts for 1564–5 (cf.
App. B), and points out that there is an entry in those accounts for
‘rugge bumbayst and cottone for hosse’, and that in _Damon and Pythias_
(Dodsley, iv. 71) the boys have stuffed breeches with ‘seven ells of
rug’ to one hose. A proclamation of 6 May 1562 (_Procl._ 562) had
forbidden the use of more than a yard and three-quarters of stuff in
the ‘stockes’ of hose, and an enforcing proclamation (_Procl._ 619) was
required on 12 Feb. 1566. Boas, 157, notes a revival at Merton in 1568.
Fleay, 60, thinks that the play contains attacks on the Paul’s boys
in return for satire of Edwardes as Ralph Roister in Ulpian Fulwell’s
_Like Will to Like_ (q.v.).
_Lost Play_
_Palamon and Arcite. 1566_
This play was acted in two parts on 2 and 4 Sept. 1566, before
Elizabeth in the Hall of Christ Church, Oxford (cf. ch. iv). The first
night was made memorable by the fall of part of the staircase wall,
by which three persons were killed. The Queen was sorry, but the play
went on. She gave Edwardes great thanks for his pains. The play was
in English. Several contemporary writers assign it to Edwardes, and
Nicholas Robinson adds that he and other Christ Church men translated
it out of Latin, and that he remained two months in Oxford working at
it. Bereblock gives a long analysis of the action, which shows that,
even if there is no error as to the intervening Latin version, the
original source was clearly Chaucer’s _Knight’s Tale_. W. Y. Durand,
_Journ. Germ. Phil._ iv. 356, argues that Edwardes’s play was not a
source of _Two Noble Kinsmen_, on the ground of the divergence between
that and Bereblock’s summary.
There is no evidence of any edition of the play, although Plummer, xxi,
says that it ‘has been several times printed’.
_Doubtful Plays_
Fleay, ii. 295, assigns to Edwardes _Godly Queen Hester_, a play of
which he had only seen a few lines, and which W. W. Greg, in his
edition in _Materialien_, v, has shown with great probability to date
from about 1525–9. His hand has also been sought in R. B.’s _Apius and
Virginia_ and in _Misogonus_ (cf. ch. xxiv).
ELIZABETH (1533–1603).
H. H. E. Craster (_E. H. R._ xxix. 722) includes in a list of
Elizabeth’s English translations a chorus from Act II of the
pseudo-Senecan _Hercules Oetaeus_, extant in _Bodl. MS. e Museo_, 55,
f. 48, and printed in H. Walpole, _Royal and Noble Authors_ (ed. Park,
1806), i. 102. It probably dates later than 1561. But he can find no
evidence for a Latin version of a play of Euripides referred to by
Walpole, i. 85.
RICHARD FARRANT (?-1580).
Farrant’s career as Master of the Children of Windsor and Deputy Master
of the Children of the Chapel and founder of the first Blackfriars
theatre has been described in chh. xii and xvii. It is not improbable
that he wrote plays for the boys, and W. J. Lawrence, _The Earliest
Private Theatre Play_ (_T. L. S._, 11 Aug. 1921), thinks that one of
these was _Wars of Cyrus_ (cf. ch. xxiv), probably based on W. Barker’s
translation (1567) of Xenophon’s _Cyropaedia_, and that the song of
Panthea ascribed to Farrant in a Christ Church manuscript (cf. vol.
ii, p. 63) has dropped out from the extant text of this. Farrant’s
song, ‘O Jove from stately throne’, mentioning Altages, may be from
another play. I think that _Wars of Cyrus_, as it stands, is clearly
post-_Tamburlaine_, and although there are indications of lost songs
at ll. 985, 1628, there is none pointing to a lament of Panthea. But
conceivably the play was based on one by Farrant.
GEORGE FEREBE (_c._ 1573–1613 <)
A musician and Vicar of Bishop’s Cannings, Wilts.
_The Shepherd’s Song. 1613_
_S. R._ 1613, June 16. ‘A thinge called The Shepeherdes songe before
Queene Anne in 4. partes complete Musical vpon the playnes of Salisbury
&c.’ _Walter Dight_ (Arber, iii. 526).
Aubrey, i. 251, says ‘when queen Anne came to Bathe, her way lay to
traverse the famous Wensdyke, which runnes through his parish. He
made severall of his neighbours good musitians, to play with him in
consort, and to sing. Against her majesties comeing, he made a pleasant
pastorall, and gave her an entertaynment with his fellow songsters
in shepherds’ weeds and bagpipes, he himself like an old bard. After
that wind musique was over, they sang their pastorall eglogues
(which I have, to insert into Liber B).’ Wood’s similar account in
_Fasti_ (1815), i. 270, is probably based on Aubrey’s. He dates the
entertainment June 11 (cf. ch. iv. and App. A, s. ann. 1613), and gives
the opening of the song as
Shine, O thou sacred Shepherds Star,
On silly shepherd swaines.
Aubrey has a shorter notice in another manuscript and adds, ‘He gave
another entertaynment in Cote-field to King James, with carters
singing, with whipps in their hands; and afterwards, a footeball play’.
GEORGE FERRERS (_c._ 1500–79).
A Lincoln’s Inn lawyer, son of Thomas Ferrers of St. Albans, who
was Page of the Chamber to Henry VIII, and acted as Lord of Misrule
to Edward VI at the Christmases of 1551–2 and 1552–3 (_Mediaeval
Stage_, i. 405; Feuillerat, _Edw. and M._ 56, 77, 90). He sat in
Parliaments of both Mary and Elizabeth, and wrote some of the poems
in _The Mirror for Magistrates_ (1559–78). He contributed verses to
the Kenilworth entertainment of 1575, must then have been a very old
man, and died in 1579. Puttenham says of Edward VI’s time, ‘Maister
_Edward Ferrys_ ... wrate for the most part to the stage, in Tragedie
and sometimes in Comedie or Enterlude’, and again, ‘For Tragedie, the
Lord of Buckhurst & Maister _Edward Ferrys_, for such doings as I
haue sene of theirs, do deserue the hyest price’; and is followed by
Meres, who places ‘Master Edward Ferris, the author of the _Mirror for
Magistrates_’ amongst ‘our best for Tragedie’ (cf. App. C, Nos. xli,
lii). Obviously George Ferrers is meant, but Anthony Wood hunted out an
Edward Ferrers, belonging to another family, of Baddesley Clinton, in
Warwickshire, and took him for the dramatist. He died in 1564 and had a
son Henry, amongst whose papers were found verses belonging to certain
entertainments, mostly of the early ‘nineties, which an indiscreet
editor thereupon ascribed to George Ferrers (cf. s.v. Sir H. Lee).
NATHAN FIELD (1587–?).
For life _vide supra_ Actors (ch. xv).
_A Woman is a Weathercock. 1609_ (?)
_S. R._ 1611, Nov. 23 (Buck). ‘A booke called, A woman is a
weather-cocke, beinge a Comedye.’ _John Budge_ (Arber, iii. 471).
1612. A Woman is a Weather-cocke. A New Comedy, As it was acted before
the King in White-Hall. And diuers times Priuately at the White-Friers,
By the Children of her Maiesties Reuels. Written by Nat: Field. _For
John Budge._ [Epistles to Any Woman that hath been no Weathercock and
to the Reader, both signed ‘N. F.’, and Commendatory verses ‘To his
loved son, Nat. Field, and his Weathercock Woman’, signed ‘George
Chapman’.]
_Editions_ in _O. E. D._ (1830, ii), by J. P. Collier (1833, _Five Old
Plays_), in Dodsley^4 (1875, xi), and by A. W. Verity in _Nero and
Other Plays_ (1888, _Mermaid Series_).
This must, I suppose, have been one of the five plays given at Court
by the Children of the Whitefriars in the winter of 1609–10. Fleay, i.
185, notes that I. ii refers to the Cleve wars, which began in 1609.
The Revels children were not at Court in 1610–11. In his verses to _The
Faithful Shepherdess_ (1609–10) Field hopes for his ‘muse in swathing
clouts’, to ‘perfect such a work as’ Fletcher’s. The first Epistle
promises that when his next play is printed, any woman ‘shall see what
amends I have made to her and all the sex’; the second ends, ‘If thou
hast anything to say to me, thou know’st where to hear of me for a year
or two, and no more, I assure thee’, as if Field did not mean to spend
his life as a player.
_Amends for Ladies. > 1611_
1618. Amends for Ladies. A Comedie. As it was acted at the
Blacke-Fryers, both by the Princes Seruants, and the Lady Elizabeths.
By Nat. Field. _G. Eld for Math. Walbancke._
1639.... With the merry prankes of Moll Cut-Purse: Or, the humour of
roaring A Comedy full of honest mirth and wit.... _Io. Okes for Math.
Walbancke._
_Editions_, with _A W. is a W._ (q.v.).
The title-page points to performances in Porter’s Hall (_c._ 1615–16)
by the combined companies of the Prince and Princess; but the Epistle
to _A W. is a W._ (q.v.) makes it clear that the play was at least
planned, and probably written, by the end of 1611. Collier, iii. 434,
and Fleay, i. 201, confirm this from an allusion to the play in A.
Stafford’s _Admonition to a Discontented Romanist_, appended to his
_Niobe Dissolved into a Nilus_ (S. R. 10 Oct. 1611). Fleay is less
happy in fixing an inferior limit of date by the publication of the
version of the _Curious Impertinent_ story in Shelton’s _Don Quixote_
(1612), since that story was certainly available in Baudouin’s French
translation as early as 1608. The introduction of Moll Cutpurse
suggests rivalry with Dekker and Middleton’s _Roaring Girl_ (also _c._
1610–11) at the Fortune, which theatre is chaffed in ii. 1 and iii. 4.
_Later Play_
_The Fatal Dowry_ (1632), a King’s men’s play, assigned on the
title-page to P. M. and N. F., probably dates from 1616–19. C. Beck,
_Philip Massinger, The Fatall Dowry, Einleitung zu einer neuen Ausgabe_
(1906, _Erlangen diss._), assigns the prose of II. ii and IV. i to
Field. There is an edition by C. L. Lockert (1918).
_Doubtful Plays_
Attempts have been made to trace Field’s hand in _Bonduca_, _Cupid’s
Revenge_, _Faithful Friends_, _Honest Man’s Fortune_, _Thierry and
Theodoret_, and _Four Plays in One_, all belonging to the Beaumont
(q.v.) and Fletcher series, and in _Charlemagne_ (cf. ch. xxiv).
JOHN FLETCHER (1579–1625).
Fletcher was born in Dec. 1579 at Rye, Sussex, the living of his father
Richard Fletcher, who became Bishop of Bristol, Worcester, and in 1594
London. His cousins, Giles and Phineas, are known as poets. He seems
too young for the John Fletcher of London who entered Corpus Christi,
Cambridge, in 1591. After his father’s death in 1596, nothing is heard
of him until his emergence as a dramatist, and of this the date cannot
be precisely fixed. Davenant says that ‘full twenty yeares, he wore
the bayes’, which would give 1605, but this is in a prologue to _The
Woman Hater_, which Davenant apparently thought Fletcher’s, although
it is Beaumont’s; and Oliphant’s attempt to find his hand, on metrical
grounds, in _Captain Thomas Stukeley_ (1605) rests only on one not
very conclusive scene. But he had almost certainly written for the
Queen’s Revels before the beginning, about 1608, of his collaboration
with Beaumont, under whom his later career is outlined. It is possible
that he is the John Fletcher who married Joan Herring on 3 Nov. 1612
at St. Saviour’s, Southwark, and had a son John about Feb. 1620 in St.
Bartholomew’s the Great (Dyce, i. lxxiii), and if so one may put the
fact with Aubrey’s gossip (cf. s.v. Beaumont), and with Oldwit’s speech
in Shadwell’s _Bury-Fair_ (1689): ‘I knew Fletcher, my friend Fletcher,
and his maid Joan; well, I shall never forget him: I have supped with
him at his house on the Bankside; he loved a fat loin of pork of all
things in the world; and Joan his maid had her beer-glass of sack;
and we all kissed her, i’ faith, and were as merry as passed.’ I have
sometimes wondered whether Jonson is chaffing Beaumont and Fletcher
in _Bartholomew Fair_ (1614), V. iii, iv, as Damon and Pythias, ‘two
faithfull friends o’ the Bankside’, that ‘have both but one drabbe’,
and enter with a gammon of bacon under their cloaks. I do not think
this can refer to Francis Bacon. Fletcher died in Aug. 1625 and was
buried in St. Saviour’s (_Athenaeum_, 1886, ii. 252).
For Plays _vide_ s.v. Beaumont, and for the ascribed lost play of
_Cardenio_, s.v. Shakespeare.
PHINEAS FLETCHER (1582–1650).
Phineas Fletcher, son of Giles, a diplomatist and poet, brother of
Giles, a poet, and first cousin of John (q.v.), was baptized at
Cranbrook, Kent, on 8 April 1582. From Eton he passed to King’s
College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. in 1604, his M.A. in 1608,
and became a Fellow in 1611. He was Chaplain to Sir Henry Willoughby of
Risley from 1616 to 1621, and thereafter Rector of Hilgay, Norfolk, to
his death in 1650. He wrote much Spenserian poetry, but his dramatic
work was purely academic. In addition to _Sicelides_, he may have
written an English comedy, for which a payment was made to him by
King’s about Easter 1607 (Boas, i. xx).
_Collections_
1869. A. B. Grosart, _The Poems of P. F._ 4 vols. (_Fuller Worthies
Library_).
1908–9. F. S. Boas, _The Poetical Works of Giles Fletcher and P. F._ 2
vols. (_Cambridge English Classics_).
_Sicelides. 1615_
[_MSS._] _Bodl. Rawl. Poet. MS._ 214.
_Addl. MS. 4453._ ‘Sicelides: a Piscatorie made by Phinees Fletcher and
acted in Kings Colledge in Cambridge.’ [A shorter version than that of
Q. and the _Rawl. MS._]
_S. R._ 1631, April 25 (Herbert). ‘A play called Scicelides, acted
at Cambridge.’ _William Sheeres_ (Arber, iv. 251).
1631. Sicelides A Piscatory, As it hath been Acted in Kings Colledge,
in Cambridge. _I. N. for William Sheares._ [Prologue and Epilogue.]
A reference (III. iv) to the shoes hung up by Thomas Coryat in
Odcombe church indicates a date of composition not earlier than 1612.
The play was intended for performance before James at Cambridge, but
was actually given before the University after his visit, on 13 March
1615 (cf. ch. iv).
FRANCIS FLOWER (_c._ 1588).
A Gray’s Inn lawyer, one of the devisers of dumb-shows and directors
for the _Misfortunes of Arthur_ of Thomas Hughes (q.v.) in 1588, for
which he also wrote two choruses.
JOHN FORD (1586–1639 <).
Ford’s dramatic career, including whatever share he may have had
with Dekker (q.v.) in _Sun’s Darling_ and _Witch of Edmonton_, falls
substantially outside my period. But amongst plays entered as his by
Humphrey Moseley on 29 June 1660 (Eyre, ii. 271) are:
‘An ill begining has A good end, and a bad begining may have a
good end, a Comedy.’
‘The London Merchant, a Comedy.’
These ascriptions recur in Warburton’s list of lost plays (_3 Library_,
ii. 231), where the first play has the title ‘A good beginning may
have A good end’. It is possible, therefore, that Ford either wrote or
revised the play of ‘A badd beginininge makes a good endinge’, which
was performed by the King’s men at Court during 1612–13 (cf. App. B).
One may suspect the _London Merchant_ to be a mistake for the _Bristow
Merchant_ of Ford and Dekker (q.v.) in 1624. The offer of the title in
_K. B. P._ ind. 11 hardly proves that there was really a play of _The
London Merchant_. Ford’s _Honor Triumphant: or The Peeres Challenge,
by Armes defensible at Tilt, Turney, and Barriers_ (1606; ed. _Sh.
Soc._ 1843) is a thesis motived by the jousts in honour of Christian of
Denmark (cf. ch. iv). It has an Epistle to the Countesses of Pembroke
and Montgomery, and contains four arguments in defence of amorous
propositions addressed respectively to the Duke of Lennox and the Earls
of Arundel, Pembroke, and Montgomery.
EDWARD FORSETT (_c._ 1553–_c._ 1630).
A political writer (_D. N. B._) and probable author of the academic
_Pedantius_ (cf. App. K).
ABRAHAM FRAUNCE (_c._ 1558–1633 <).
Fraunce was a native of Shrewsbury, and passed from the school of
that place, where he obtained the friendship of Philip Sidney, to
St. John’s, Cambridge, in 1576. He took his B.A. in 1580, played in
Legge’s academic _Richardus Tertius_ and in _Hymenaeus_ (Boas, 394),
which he may conceivably have written (cf. App. K), became Fellow of
the college in 1581, and took his M.A. in 1583. He became a Gray’s Inn
man, dedicated various treatises on logic and experiments in English
hexameters to members of the Sidney and Herbert families during
1583–92, and appears to have obtained through their influence some
office under the Presidency of Wales. He dropped almost entirely out of
letters, but seems to have been still alive in 1633.
_Latin Play_
_Victoria. 1580 < > 3_
[_MS._] In possession of Lord De L’Isle and Dudley at Penshurst, headed
‘Victoria’. [Lines ‘Philippo Sidneio’, signed ‘Abrahamus Fransus’.
Prologue.]
_Edition_ by G. C. Moore Smith (1906, _Materialien_, xiv).
The play is an adaptation of _Il Fedele_ (1575) by Luigi Pasqualigo,
which is also the foundation of the anonymous _Two Italian Gentlemen_
(q.v.). As Sidney was knighted on 13 Jan. 1583, the play was probably
written, perhaps for performance at St. John’s, Cambridge, before that
date and after Fraunce took his B.A. in 1580.
_Translation_
_Phillis and Amyntas. 1591_
_S. R._ 1591, Feb. 9 (Bp. of London). ‘A book intituled The Countesse
of Pembrookes Ivye churche, and Emanuel.’ _William Ponsonby_ (Arber,
ii. 575).
1591. The Countesse of Pembrokes Yuychurch. Containing the affectionate
life, and vnfortunate death of Phillis and Amyntas: That in a
Pastorall; This in a Funerall; both in English Hexameters. By Abraham
Fraunce. _Thomas Orwin for William Ponsonby._
_Dissertation_: E. Köppel, _Die englischen Tasso-Übersetzungen des 16.
Jahrhunderts_ (1889, _Anglia_, xi).
This consists of a slightly altered translation of the _Aminta_ (1573)
of Torquato Tasso, followed by a reprint of Fraunce’s English version
(1587) of Thomas Watson’s _Amyntas_ (1585), which is not a play, but a
collection of Latin eclogues. There is nothing to show that Fraunce’s
version of _Aminta_ was ever acted.
WILLIAM FULBECK (1560–1603?).
He entered Gray’s Inn in 1584, contributed two speeches to the
_Misfortunes of Arthur_ of Thomas Hughes (q.v.) in 1588, and wrote
various legal and historical books.
ULPIAN FULWELL (_c._ 1568).
Fulwell was born in Somersetshire and educated at St. Mary’s
Hall, Oxford. On 14 April 1577 he was of the parish of Naunton,
Gloucestershire, and married Mary Whorewood of Lapworth,
Warwickshire.[657]
_Like Will to Like. c. 1568_
_S. R._ 1568–9. ‘A play lyke Wyll to lyke quod the Devell to the
Collyer.’ _John Alde_ (Arber, i. 379).
1568. An Enterlude Intituled Like wil to like quod the Deuel to the
Colier, very godly and ful of pleasant mirth.... Made by Vlpian
Fulwell. _John Allde._
1587. _Edward Allde._
_Editions_ in Dodsley^4, iii (1874), and by J. S. Farmer (1909, _T. F.
T._).
A non-controversial moral. The characters, allegorical and typical,
are arranged for five actors, and include Ralph Roister, and ‘Nicholas
Newfangle the Vice’, who ‘rideth away upon the Devil’s back’ (Dodsley,
iii. 357). There is a prayer for the Queen at the end.
This might be _The Collier_ played at Court in 1576. Fleay, 60; i.
235, puts it in 1561–3, assigns it to the Paul’s boys, and suggests
that Richard Edwardes (q.v.) is satirized as Ralph Roister. Greg
(_Henslowe_, ii. 228) suggests that Fulwell’s may be the play revived
by Pembroke’s at the Rose on 28 Oct. 1600 as ‘the [devell] licke vnto
licke’.
WILLIAM GAGER (> 1560–1621).
Gager entered Christ Church, Oxford, from Westminster in 1574, and took
his B.A. in 1577, his M.A. in 1580, and his D.C.L. in 1589. In 1606 he
became Chancellor of the diocese of Ely. He had a high reputation for
his Latin verses, many of which are contained in _Exequiae D. Philippi
Sidnaei_ (1587) and other University volumes. A large collection
in _Addl. MS._ 22583 includes lines to George Peele (q.v.). Meres
in 1598 counts him as one of ‘the best for comedy amongst vs’. His
correspondence with John Rainolds affords a summary of the controversy
on the ethics of the stage in its academic aspect.
_Latin Plays_
_Meleager. Feb. 1582_
1592. Meleager. Tragoedia noua. Bis publice acta in aede Christi
Oxoniae. _Oxoniae. Joseph Barnes._ [Epistle to Earl of Essex, ‘ex
aede Christi Oxoniae, Calendis Ianuarij MDXCII. Gulielmus Gagerus’;
Commendatory verses by Richard Edes, Alberico Gentili, and I.
C[ase?]; Epistle _Ad lectorem Academicum_; _Prologus ad academicos_;
_Argumentum_; _Prologus ad illustrissimos Penbrochiae ac Lecestriae
Comites_. At end, _Epilogus ad Academicos_; _Epilogus ad clarissimos
Comites Penbrochiensem ac Lecestrensem_; _Panniculus Hippolyto ...
assutus_ (_vide infra_); _Apollo_ προλογίζει _ad serenissimam Reginam
Elizabetham 1592_; _Prologus in Bellum Grammaticale ad eandem sacram
Maiestatem_; _Epilogus in eandem Comoediam ad Eandem_.]
The dedication says ‘Annus iam pene vndecimus agitur ... ex quo
Meleager primum, octauus ex quo iterum in Scenam venit’, and adds that
Pembroke, Leicester, and Sidney were present on the second occasion.
_Meleager_ is ‘primogenitus meus’. The first production was doubtless
one of those recorded in the Christ Church accounts in Feb. 1582 (Boas,
162), and the second during Leicester’s visit as Chancellor in Jan.
1585 (Boas, 192).
_Dido. 12 June 1583_
[_MSS._] _Christ Church, Oxford, MS_. [complete text].
_Addl. MS._ 22583. [Acts II, III only, with Prologue, Argument, and
Epilogue.]
_Edition_ of B.M. fragment by A. Dyce (1850, _Marlowe’s Works_).
_Abstract_ from _Ch. Ch. MS._ in Boas, 183.
The play was produced before Alasco at Christ Church on 12 June 1583.
It is unlikely that it influenced Marlowe’s play.
_Ulysses Redux. 6 Feb. 1592_
1592. Vlysses Redux Tragoedia Nova. In Aede Christi Oxoniae Publice
Academicis Recitata, Octavo Idus Februarii. 1591. _Oxoniae. Joseph
Barnes._ [_Prologus ad Academicos_; Epistle to Lord Buckhurst, ‘ex
aede Christi Oxoniae sexto Idus Maij, 1592 ... Gulielmus Gagerus’;
Commendatory verses by Thomas Holland, Alberico Gentili, Richard Edes,
Henry Bust, Matthew Gwinne, Richard Late-warr, Francis Sidney, John
Hoschines (Hoskins), William Ballowe, James Weston; Verses _Ad Zoilum_;
Epistle _Ad Criticum_. At end, _Prologus in Rivales Comoediam_;
_Prologus in Hippolytum Senecae Tragoediam_; _Epilogus in eundem_;
_Momus_; _Epilogus Responsiuus_.]
The play was produced on Sunday, 6 Feb. 1592, and an indiscreet
invitation to John Rainolds opened the flood-gates of controversy upon
Gager’s head (cf. vol. i, p. 251 and App. C, No. 1). Gager’s _Rivales_
was revived on 7 Feb. and the pseudo-Senecan _Hippolytus_, with Gager’s
_Panniculus_, on 8 Feb. followed by a speech in the character of Momus
as a carper at plays, and a reply to Momus by way of Epilogue. The
latter was printed in an enlarged form given to it during the course of
the controversy (Boas, 197, 234, with dates which disregard leap-year).
_Additions to Hippolytus. 8 Feb. 1592_
1592. Panniculus Hippolyto Senecae assutus, 1591. [Appended to
_Meleager_; for Gager’s prologue, &c., cf. s.v. _Ulysses Redux_.]
These consist of two scenes, one of the nature of an opening, the other
an insertion between Act I and Act II, written for a performance of the
play at Christ Church on 8 Feb. 1592.
_Oedipus_
_Addl. MS._ 22583, f. 31, includes with other poems by Gager five
scenes from a tragedy on _Oedipus_, of which nothing more is known.
_Lost Play_
_Rivales. 11 June 1583_
This comedy was produced before Alasco at Christ Church, on 11 June
1583. It is assigned to Gager by A. Wood, _Annals_, ii. 216, and
referred to as his in the controversy with Rainolds (Boas, 181), who
speaks of it as ‘the vnprinted Comedie’, and criticizes its ‘filth’.
It contained scenes of country wooing, drunken sailors, a _miles
gloriosus_, a _blanda lena_. The prologue to _Dido_ says of it:
Hesterna Mopsum scena ridiculum dedit.
It was revived at Christ Church on 7 Feb. 1592 (Boas, 197) and again at
the same place before Elizabeth on 26 Sept. 1592, when, according to a
Cambridge critic, it was ‘but meanely performed’. Presumably it is the
prologue for this revival which is printed with _Ulysses Redux_ (q.v.).
BERNARD GARTER (_c._ 1578).
A London citizen, whose few and mainly non-dramatic writings were
produced from 1565 to 1579. For his description of the Norwich
entertainment (_1578_), cf. ch. xxiv.
THOMAS GARTER (_c._ 1569).
He may conceivably be identical with Bernard Garter, since Thomas and
Bernard are respectively given from different sources (cf. _D. N. B._)
as the name of the father of Bernard Garter of Brigstocke, Northants,
whose son was alive in 1634.
_Susanna, c. 1569_
_S. R._ 1568–9. ‘Ye playe of Susanna.’ _Thomas Colwell_ (Arber, i. 383).
1578?
No copy is known, but S. Jones, _Biographica Dramatica_ (1812), iii.
310, says: ‘Susanna. By Thomas Garter 4^{to} 1578. The running title of
this play is, _The Commody of the moste vertuous and godlye Susanna_.’
According to Greg, _Masques_, cxxiii, the original authority for the
statement is a manuscript note by Thomas Coxeter (_ob._ 1747) in a copy
of G. Jacob’s _Lives of the Dramatic Poets_ (1719–20). ‘Susanna’ is in
Rogers and Ley’s list, and an interlude ‘Susanna’s Tears’ in Archer’s
and Kirkman’s.
GEORGE GASCOIGNE (_c._ 1535–77).
George Gascoigne was son of Sir John Gascoigne of Cardington,
Bedfordshire. He was probably born between 1530 and 1535, and was
educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and Gray’s Inn. He misspent
his youth as a dissipated hanger-on at Court, under the patronage of
Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton and others, and won some reputation as
a versifier. About 1566 he married Elizabeth Breton of Walthamstow,
widow of a London merchant, and mother of Nicholas Breton, the poet.
From March 1573 to Oct. 1574 he served as a volunteer under William of
Orange in the Netherlands. In 1575 he was assisting in preparing shows
before Elizabeth at Kenilworth and Woodstock. It is possible that he
was again in the Netherlands and present at the sack of Antwerp in
1576. On 7 Oct. 1577 he died at Stamford.
_Collections_
N.D. [1573] A Hundreth sundrie Flowres bounde up in one small
Poesie.... _For Richard Smith._ [Datable by a prefatory epistle of 20
Jan. 1573, signed ‘H. W.’ and a reference in Gascoigne’s own epistle of
31 Jan. 1575 to Q_{2}. Includes _Jocasta_, _Supposes_, and the Mask.]
1575. The Posies of George Gascoigne Esquire. Corrected, perfected, and
augmented by the Authour. _H. Bynneman for Richard Smith._ [A second
issue, _For Richard Smith_.]
1587. The whole workes of George Gascoigne Esquyre: Newlye compyled
into one Volume.... _Abel Jeffes._ [Adds the _Princely Pleasures_. A
second issue, ‘The pleasauntest workes....’]
1869–70. W. C. Hazlitt, _The Complete Poems of George Gascoigne_. 2
vols. (_Roxburghe Library_). [Adds _Glass of Government_ and _Hemetes_.]
1907–10. J. W. Cunliffe, _The Complete Works of George Gascoigne_. 2
vols. (_C. E. C._).
_Dissertation_: F. E. Schelling, _The Life and Writings of George
Gascoigne_ (1893, _Pennsylvania Univ. Publ._).
_Jocasta. 1566_
_With_ Francis Kinwelmershe.
[_MS._] _B.M. Addl. MS._ 34063, formerly the property of Roger, second
Lord North, whose name and the motto ‘Durum Pati [15]68’ are on the
title.
1573. Iocasta: A Tragedie written in Greke by Euripides, translated
and digested into Acte by George Gascoyne, and Francis Kinwelmershe
of Grayes Inne, and there by them presented. 1566. _Henry Bynneman
for Richard Smith._ [Part of _Collection_, 1573; also in 1575, 1587.
Argument; Epilogue ‘Done by Chr. Yeluerton’.]
_Editions_ by F. J. Child (1848, _Four Old Plays_) and J. W. Cunliffe
(1906, _B. L._, and 1912, _E. E. C. T._).--_Dissertation_: M. T. W.
Foerster, _Gascoigne’s J. a Translation from the Italian_ (1904, _M.
P._ ii. 147).
A blank-verse translation of Lodovico Dolce’s _Giocasta_ (1549),
itself a paraphrase or adaptation of the _Phoenissae_ of Euripides
(Creizenach, ii. 408). After Acts I and IV appears ‘Done by F.
Kinwelmarshe’ and after II, III, V ‘Done by G. Gascoigne’. Before each
act is a description of a dumb-show and of its accompanying music.
_Supposes. 1566_
1573. Supposes: A Comedie written in the Italian tongue by Ariosto,
and Englished by George Gascoyne of Grayes Inne Esquire, and there
presented. [Part of _Collection_, 1573; also in 1575 (with addition of
‘1566’ to title) and 1587. Prologue.]
_Editions_ by T. Hawkins (1773, _O. E. D._ iii), J. W. Cunliffe (1906,
_B. L._), and R. W. Bond (1911, _E. P. I._).
A prose translation of Ludovico Ariosto’s _I Suppositi_ (1509). There
was probably a revival at Trinity, Oxford, on 8 Jan. 1582, when Richard
Madox records, ‘We supt at y^e presidents lodging and after had y^e
supposes handeled in y^e haul indifferently’ (Boas, 161).
_The Glass of Government. c. 1575_
1575. The Glasse of Governement. A tragicall Comedie so entituled,
bycause therein are handled aswell the rewardes for Vertues, as also
the punishment for Vices. Done by George Gascoigne Esquier. 1575. Seen
and allowed, according to the order appointed in the Queenes Maiesties
Injunctions. _For C. Barker._ [Colophon] _H. M. for Christopher
Barker._ [Epistle to Sir Owen Hopton, by ‘G. Gascoigne’, dated 26 Apr.
1575; Commendatory verses by B. C.; Argument; Prologue; Epilogue. A
reissue has a variant colophon (_Henry Middleton_) and Errata.]
_Edition_ by J. S. Farmer (1914, _S. F._).--_Dissertation_: C. H.
Herford, _G.’s G. of G._ (_E. S._ ix. 201).
This, perhaps only a closet drama, is an adaptation of the ‘Christian
Terence’ (cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 216), with which Gascoigne may
have become familiar in Holland during 1573–4. The prologue (cf. App.
C, No. xiv) warns that the play is not a mere ‘worthie jest’, and that
Who list laye out some pence in such a marte,
Bellsavage fayre were fittest for his purse.
MASK
_Montague Mask. 1572_
1573. A Devise of a Maske for the right honourable Viscount Mountacute.
[Part of _Collection_, 1573; also in 1575, 1587.]
Anthony and Elizabeth Browne, children of Anthony, first Viscount
Montague, married Mary and Robert, children of Sir William Dormer of
Eythorpe, Bucks., in 1572 (cf. ch. v).
ENTERTAINMENTS
See s.v. Lee, _Woodstock Entertainment_ (_1575_) and ch. xxiv, s.v.
_Kenilworth Entertainment_ (_1575_).
THOMAS GOFFE (1591–1629).
_Selimus_ and the _Second Maiden’s Tragedy_ have been ascribed to
him, but as regards the first absurdly, and as regards the second not
plausibly, since he only took his B.A. degree in 1613. His known plays
are later in date than 1616.
ARTHUR GOLDING (1536–1605 <).
Arthur was son of John Golding of Belchamp St. Paul, Essex, and
brother-in-law of John, 16th Earl of Oxford. He was a friend of Sidney
and known to Elizabethan statesmen of puritanical leanings. Almost his
only original work was a _Discourse upon the Earthquake_ (1580), but
he was a voluminous translator of theological and classical works,
including Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_ (1565, 1567). Beza’s tragedy was
written when he was Professor at Lausanne in 1550 (Creizenach, ii. 456).
_Abraham’s Sacrifice. 1575_
1577. A Tragedie of Abrahams Sacrifice, Written in french, by Theodore
Beza, and translated into Inglish by A. G. Finished at Powles Belchamp
in Essex, the xj of August, 1575. _Thomas Vautrollier._ [Woodcuts,
which do not suggest a scenic representation.]
_Edition_ by M. W. Wallace (1907, _Toronto Philological Series_).
HENRY GOLDINGHAM (_c._ 1575).
A contributor to the Kenilworth and Norwich entertainments (cf. ch.
xxiv, C) and writer of _The Garden Plot_ (1825, _Roxburghe Club_).
Gawdy, 13, mentions ‘a yonge gentleman touard my L. of Leycester called
Mr. Goldingam’, as concerned _c._ 1587 in a street brawl.
WILLIAM GOLDINGHAM (_c._ 1567).
Author of the academic _Herodes_ (cf. App. K).
HENRY GOLDWELL (_c._ 1581).
Describer of _The Fortress of Perfect Beauty_ (cf. ch. xxiv, C).
STEPHEN GOSSON (1554–1624).
Gosson was born in Kent during 1554, was at Corpus Christi, Oxford,
1572 to 1576, then came to London, where he obtained some reputation
as playwright and poet. Meres in _Palladis Tamia_ (1598) commends his
pastorals, which are lost. Lodge speaks of him also as a ‘player’.[658]
In 1579 he forsook the stage, became a tutor in the country and
published _The School of Abuse_ (App. C, No. xxii). This he dedicated
to Sidney, but ‘was for his labour scorned’. He was answered the same
year in a lost pamphlet called _Strange News out of Afric_ and also
by Lodge (q.v.), and rejoined with _A Short Apology of the School of
Abuse_ (App. C, No. xxiv). The players revived his plays to spite
him and on 23 Feb. 1582 produced _The Play of Plays and Pastimes_ to
confute him. In the same year he produced his final contribution to
the controversy in _Plays Confuted in Five Actions_ (App. C, No. xxx).
In 1591 Gosson became Rector of Great Wigborough, Essex, and in 1595
published the anonymous pamphlet _Pleasant Quips for Upstart Newfangled
Gentlewomen_. In 1600 he became Rector of St. Botolph’s, Bishopsgate.
In 1616 and 1617 he wrote to Alleyn (q.v.) as his ‘very loving and
ancient friend’.[659] He died 13 Feb. 1624.
Gosson claims to have written both tragedies and comedies,[660] but
no play of his is extant. He names three of them. Of _Catiline’s
Conspiracies_ he says that it was ‘usually brought into the Theater
and that ‘because it is known to be a pig of mine own sow, I will
speak the less of it; only giving you to understand, that the whole
mark which I shot at in that work was to show the reward of traitors
in Catiline, and the necessary government of learned men in the person
of Cicero, which foresees every danger that is likely to happen and
forestalls it continually ere it take effect’.[661] Lodge disparages
the originality of this play and compares it unfavourably with Wilson’s
_Short and Sweet_[662] (q.v.). Of two other plays Gosson says: ‘Since
my publishing the _School of Abuse_ two plays of my making were brought
to the stage; the one was a cast of Italian devices, called, The Comedy
of _Captain Mario_; the other a Moral, _Praise at Parting_. These they
very impudently affirm to be written by me since I had set out my
invective against them. I can not deny they were both mine, but they
were both penned two years at the least before I forsook them, as by
their own friends I am able to prove.’[663] It is conceivable that
Gosson may be the translator of _Fedele and Fortunio_ (cf. ch. xxiv).
ROBERT GREENE (1558–92).
Robert Greene was baptized at Norwich on 11 July 1558. He entered St.
John’s College, Cambridge, as a sizar in 1575 and took his B.A. in
1578 and his M.A. by 1583, when he was residing in Clare Hall. The
addition of an Oxford degree in July 1588 enabled him to describe
himself as _Academiae Utriusque Magister in Artibus_. He has been
identified with a Robert Greene who was Vicar of Tollesbury, Essex,
in 1584–5, but there is no real evidence that he took orders. The
earlier part of his career may be gathered from his autobiographic
pamphlet, _The Repentance of Robert Greene_ (1592), eked out by the
portraits, also evidently in a measure autobiographic, of Francesco
in _Never Too Late_ (1590) and of Roberto in _Green’s Groats-worth
of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance_ (1592). It seems that he
travelled in youth and learnt much wickedness; then married and lived
for a while with his wife and had a child by her. During this period
he began his series of euphuistic love-romances. About 1586, however,
he deserted his wife, and lived a dissolute life in London with the
sister of Cutting Ball, a thief who ended his days at Tyburn, as his
mistress. By her he had a base-born son, Fortunatus. He does not seem
to have been long in London before he ‘had wholly betaken me to the
penning of plays which was my continual exercise’.[664] His adoption
of his profession seems to be described in _The Groats-worth of Wit_.
Roberto meets a player, goes with him, and soon becomes ‘famozed
for an arch-plaimaking poet’.[665] Similarly, in _Never Too Late_,
Francesco ‘fell in amongst a company of players, who persuaded him to
try his wit in writing of comedies, tragedies, or pastorals, and if he
could perform anything worthy of the stage, then they would largely
reward him for his pains’. Hereupon Francesco ‘writ a comedy, which so
generally pleased the audience that happy were those actors in short
time, that could get any of his works, he grew so exquisite in that
faculty’.[666] Greene’s early dramatic efforts seem to have brought
him into rivalry with Marlowe (q.v.). In the preface to _Perimedes the
Blacksmith_ (S. R. 29 March 1588) he writes: ‘I keep my old course to
palter up something in prose, using mine old poesie still, Omne tulit
punctum, although lately two Gentlemen Poets made two mad men of Rome
beat it out of their paper bucklers: and had it in derision for that I
could not make my verses jet upon the stage in tragical buskins, every
word filling the mouth like the faburden of Bo-Bell, daring God out
of heaven with that Atheist _Tamburlan_, or blaspheming with the mad
priest of the Sun.... Such mad and scoffing poets that have poetical
spirits, as bred of Merlin’s race, if there be any in England that set
the end of scholarism in an English blank-verse, I think either it is
the humour of a novice that tickles them with self-love, or too much
frequenting the hot-house (to use the German proverb) hath sweat out
all the greatest part of their wits.... I but answer in print what
they have offered on the stage.’[667] The references here to Marlowe
are unmistakable. His fellow ‘gentleman poet’ is unknown; but the
‘mad priest of the Sun’ suggests the play of ‘the lyfe and deathe of
Heliogabilus’, entered on S. R. to John Danter on 19 June 1594, but now
lost.[668] In 1589 Greene published his _Menaphon_ (S. R. 23 Aug.),
in which he further alluded to Marlowe as the teller of ‘a Canterbury
tale; some prophetical full-mouth that as he were a Cobler’s eldest
son, would by the last tell where anothers shoe wrings’.[669] Doron,
in the same story, appears to parody a passage in the anonymous play
of _The Taming of A Shrew_, which is further alluded to in a prefatory
epistle _To the Gentlemen Students of Both Universities_ contributed to
Greene’s book by Thomas Nashe. Herein Nashe, while praising Peele and
his _Arraignment of Paris_, satirizes Marlowe, Kyd, and particularly
the players (cf. App. C, No. xlii). To _Menaphon_ are also prefixed
lines by Thomas Brabine which tells the ‘wits’ that ‘strive to thunder
from a stage-man’s throat’ how the novel is beyond them. ‘Players,
avaunt!’[670] In the following year, 1590, Greene continued the attack
on the players in the autobiographic romance, already referred to,
of _Never Too Late_ (cf. App. C, No. xliii). In 1590 Greene, whose
publications had hitherto been mainly toys of love and romance, began
a series of moral pamphlets, full of professions of repentance and
denunciations of villainy. To these belong, as well as _Never Too
Late_, _Greene’s Mourning Garment_ (1590) and _Greene’s Farewell
to Folly_ (1591). A preface to the latter contains some satirical
references to the anonymous play of _Fair Em_ (cf. ch. xxiv.) One R. W.
retorted upon Greene in a pamphlet called _Martine Mar-Sextus_ (S. R. 8
Nov. 1591), in which he abuses lascivious authors who finally ‘put on a
mourning garment and cry Farewell’.[671] Similarly, Greene’s exposures
of ‘cony-catching’ or ‘sharping’ provoked the following passage in
the _Defence of Cony-catching_ (S. R. 21 April 1592) by one Cuthbert
Conycatcher: ‘What if I should prove you a cony-catcher, Master R. G.,
would it not make you blush at the matter?... Ask the Queen’s players
if you sold them not Orlando Furioso for twenty nobles, and when they
were in the country sold the same play to the Lord Admiral’s men for
as many more.... I hear, when this was objected, that you made this
excuse; that there was no more faith to be held with players than with
them that valued faith at the price of a feather; for as they were
comedians to act, so the actions of their lives were camelion-like;
that they were uncertain, variable, time-pleasers, men that measured
honesty by profit, and that regarded their authors not by desert but
by necessity of time.’[672] It is probable that the change in the tone
of Greene’s writings did not correspond to any very thorough-going
reformation of life. There is nothing to show that Greene had any share
in the Martinist controversy. But he became involved in one of the
personal animosities to which it led. Richard Harvey, the brother of
Gabriel, in his _Lamb of God_ (S. R. 23 Oct. 1589), while attacking
Lyly as Paphatchet, had ‘mistermed all our other poets and writers
about London, piperly make-plaies and make-bates. Hence Greene, beeing
chiefe agent for the companie [i.e. the London poets] (for hee writ
more than foure other, how well I will not say: but _sat citò, si
sat benè_) tooke occasion to canuaze him a little.’[673] Apparently
he called the Harveys, in his _A Quip for an Upstart Courtier_ (S.
R. 21 July 1592, cf. App. C, No. xlvii), the sons of a ropemaker,
which is what they were.[674] In August Greene partook freely of
Rhenish wine and pickled herrings at a supper with Nashe and one Will
Monox, and fell into a surfeit. On 3 September he died in a squalid
lodging, after writing a touching letter to his deserted wife, and
begging his landlady, Mrs. Isam, to lay a wreath of bays upon him.
These details are recorded by Gabriel Harvey, who visited the place
and wrote an account of his enemy’s end in a letter to a friend, which
he published in his _Four Letters and Certain Sonnets: especially
Touching Robert Greene, and Other Parties by him Abused_ (S. R. 4
Dec. 1592).[675] This brought Nashe upon him in the _Strange News of
the Intercepting of Certain Letters_[676] (S. R. 12 Jan. 1593) and
began a controversy between the two which lasted for several years. In
_Pierce’s Supererogation_ (27 Apr. 1593) Harvey spoke of ‘Nash, the ape
of Greene, Greene the ape of Euphues, Euphues the ape of Envy’, and
declared that Nashe ‘shamefully and odiously misuseth every friend or
acquaintance as he hath served ... Greene, Marlowe, Chettle, and whom
not?’[677] In _Have With You to Saffron Walden_ (1596), Nashe defends
himself against these accusations. ‘I never abusd Marloe, Greene,
Chettle in my life.... He girds me with imitating of Greene.... I
scorne it ... hee subscribing to me in anything but plotting Plaies,
wherein he was his crafts master.’[678] The alleged abuse of Marlowe,
Greene, and Chettle belongs to the history of another pamphlet. This is
_Green’s Groats-worth of Wit, Bought with a Million of Repentance_ (S.
R. 20 Sept. 1592, ‘upon the peril of Henry Chettle’[679]). According
to the title-page, it was ‘written before his death and published at
his dying request’. To this is appended the famous address _To those
Gentlemen, his Quondam Acquaintance, that spend their wits in making
Plays_.[680] The reference here to Shakespeare is undeniable. Of the
three playwrights warned, the first and third are almost certainly
Marlowe and Peele; the third may be Lodge, but on the whole is far more
likely to be Nashe (q.v.). It appears, however, that Nashe himself was
supposed to have had a hand in the authorship. Chettle did his best
to take the responsibility off Nashe’s shoulders in the preface to
his _Kind-Hart’s Dream_ (S. R. 8 Dec. 1592; cf. App. C, No. xlix). In
the epistle prefixed to the second edition of _Pierce Penniless his
Supplication to the Devil_ (_Works_, i. 154), written early in 1593,
Nashe denies the charge for himself and calls _The Groats-worth_ ‘a
scald trivial lying pamphlet’; and it is perhaps to this that Harvey
refers as abuse of Greene, Marlowe, and Chettle, although it is not
clear how Marlowe comes in. There is an echo of Greene’s hit at the
‘upstart crow, beautified with our feathers’ in the lines of R. B.,
_Greene’s Funerals_ (1594, ed. McKerrow, 1911, p. 81):
Greene, gaue the ground, to all that wrote upon him.
Nay more the men, that so eclipst his fame:
Purloynde his plumes, can they deny the same?
It should be added that the theory that Greene himself was actor as
well as playwright rests on a misinterpretation of a phrase of Harvey’s
and is inconsistent with the invariable tone of his references to the
profession.
_Collections_
1831. A. Dyce, _The Dramatic Works of R. G._ 2 vols.
1861, &c. A. Dyce, _The Dramatic and Poetical Works of R. G. and George
Peele_.
1881–6. A. B. Grosart, _The Complete Works in Prose and Verse of R. G._
15 vols. (_Huth Library_).
1905. J. C. Collins, _The Plays and Poems of R. G._ 2 vols.
1909. T. H. Dickinson, _The Plays of R. G._ (_Mermaid Series_).
_Dissertations_: W. Bernhardi, _R. G.’s Leben und Schriften_ (1874);
J. M. Brown, _An Early Rival of Shakespeare_ (1877); N. Storojenko,
_R. G.: His Life and Works_ (1878, tr. E. A. B. Hodgetts, in Grosart,
i); R. Simpson, _Account of R. G., his Life and Works, and his Attacks
on Shakspere_, in _School of Sh._ (1878), ii; C. H. Herford, _G.’s
Romances and Shakespeare_ (1888, _N. S. S. Trans._ 181); K. Knauth,
_Ueber die Metrik R. G.’s_ (1890, Halle diss.); H. Conrad, _R. G. als
Dramatiker_ (1894, _Jahrbuch_, xxix. 210); W. Creizenach, _G. über
Shakespeare_ (1898, _Wiener Festschrift_); G. E. Woodberry, _G.’s Place
in Comedy_, and C. M. Gayley, _R. G., His Life and the Order of his
Plays_ (1903, _R. E. C._ i); K. Ehrke, _R. G.’s Dramen_ (1904); S. L.
Wolff, _R. G. and the Italian Renaissance_ (1907, _E. S._ xxxvii. 321);
F. Brie, _Lyly und G._ (1910, _E. S._ xlii. 217); J. C. Jordan, _R. G._
(1915).
_Alphonsus. c. 1587_
1599. The Comicall Historie of Alphonsus King of Aragon. As it hath
bene sundrie times Acted. Made by R. G. _Thomas Creede_.
There is general agreement that, on grounds of style, this should be
the earliest of Greene’s extant plays. In IV. 1444 is an allusion to
‘mighty Tamberlaine’, and the play reads throughout like an attempt to
emulate the success of Marlowe’s play of 1587 (?). In IV. i Mahomet
speaks out of a brazen head. The play may therefore be alluded to in
the ‘Mahomet’s poo [pow]’ of Peele’s (q.v.) _Farewell_ of April 1589,
although Peele may have intended his own lost play of _The Turkish
Mahomet and Hiren the Fair Greek_. There is no reference in _Alphonsus_
to the Armada of 1588. On the whole, the winter of 1587 appears the
most likely date for it, and if so, it is possibly the play whose ill
success is recorded by Greene in the preface to _Perimedes_ (1588).
The Admiral’s revived a _Mahomet_ on 16 Aug. 1594, inventoried ‘owld
Mahemetes head’ in 1598, and revived the play again in Aug. 1601,
buying the book from Alleyn, who might have brought it from Strange’s,
or bought it from the Queen’s (Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 167; _Henslowe
Papers_, 116). Collins dates _Alphonsus_ in 1591, on a theory,
inconsistent with the biographical indications of the pamphlets,
that Greene’s play-writing did not begin much before that year. A
‘Tragicomoedia von einem Königk in Arragona’ played at Dresden in 1626
might be either this play or _Mucedorus_ (Herz, 66, 78).
_A Looking Glass for London and England. c. 1590_
_With_ Lodge.
_S. R._ 1594, March 5. ‘A booke intituled the lookinge glasse for
London by Thomas Lodg and Robert Greene gent.’ _Thomas Creede_ (Arber,
ii. 645).
1594. A Looking Glasse for London and England. Made by Thomas Lodge
Gentleman, and Robert Greene. In Artibus Magister. _Thomas Creede, sold
by William Barley._
1598. _Thomas Creede, sold by William Barley._
1602. _Thomas Creede, for Thomas Pavier._
1617. _Bernard Alsop._
_Edition_ by J. S. Farmer (1914, _S. F. T._).
The facts of Lodge’s (q.v.) life leave 1588, before the Canaries
voyage, or 1589–91, between that voyage and Cavendish’s expedition,
as possible dates for the play. In favour of the former is Lodge’s
expressed intention in 1589 to give up ‘penny-knave’s delight’. On
the other hand, the subject is closely related to that of Greene’s
moral pamphlets, the series of which begins in 1590, and the fall of
Nineveh is referred to in _The Mourning Garment_ of that year. Fleay,
ii. 54, and Collins, i. 137, accept 1590 as the date of the play.
Gayley, 405, puts it in 1587, largely on the impossible notion that
its ‘priest of the sun’ (IV. iii. 1540) is that referred to in the
_Perimedes_ preface, but partly also from the absence of any reference
to the Armada. It is possible that ‘pleasing Alcon’ in Spenser’s _Colin
Clout’s Come Home Again_ (1591) may refer to Lodge as the author of
the character Alcon in this play. _The Looking Glass_ was revived by
Strange’s men on 8 March 1592. The clown is sometimes called Adam in
the course of the dialogue (ll. 1235 sqq., 1589 sqq., 2120 sqq.), and
a comparison with _James IV_ suggests that the original performer was
John Adams of the Queen’s men, from whom Henslowe may have acquired
the play. Fleay, ii. 54, and Gayley, 405, make attempts to distinguish
Greene’s share from Lodge’s, but do not support their results by
arguments. Crawford, _England’s Parnassus_, xxxii, 441, does not regard
Allot’s ascription of the passages he borrowed to Greene and Lodge
respectively as trustworthy. Unnamed English actors played a ‘comedia
auss dem propheten Jona’ at Nördlingen in 1605 (Herz, 78).
_Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, _c. 1589_
_S. R._ 1594, May 14. ‘A booke entituled the Historye of ffryer Bacon
and ffryer Boungaye.’ _Adam Islip_ (Arber, ii. 649). [Against this and
other plays entered on the same day, Adam Islip’s name is crossed out
and Edward White’s substituted.]
1594. The Honorable Historie of frier Bacon, and frier Bongay. As it
was plaid by her Maiesties seruants. Made by Robert Greene Maister of
Arts. _For Edward White._ [Malone dated one of his copies of the 1630
edition ‘1599’ in error; cf. Gayley, 430.]
1630.... As it was lately plaid by the Prince Palatine his Seruants....
_Elizabeth Allde_. [The t.p. has a woodcut representing Act II, sc.
iii.]
1655. _Jean Bell._
_Editions_ by A. W. Ward (1878, &c.), C. M. Gayley (1903, _R. E. C._
i), W. A. Neilson (1911, _C. E. D._), and J. S. Farmer (1914, _S. F.
T._).--_Dissertation_: O. Ritter, _De R. G. Fabula: F. B. and F. B._
(1866, _Thorn diss._).
Fleay, in _Appendix B_ to Ward’s ed., argues from I. i. 137, ‘next
Friday is S. James’, that the date of the play is 1589, in which year
St. James’s Day fell on a Friday. This does not seem to me a very
reliable argument. Probably the play followed not long after Marlowe’s
_Doctor Faustus_ (q.v.), itself probably written in 1588–9. The date of
1589, which Ward, i. 396, and Gayley, 411, accept, is likely enough.
Collins prefers 1591–2, and notes (ii. 4) a general resemblance in tone
and theme to _Fair Em_, but there is nothing to indicate the priority
of either play, and no charge of plagiarism in the pamphlets (_vide
supra_) to which _Fair Em_ gave rise. _Friar Bacon_ was revived by
Strange’s men on 19 Feb. 1592, and again by the Queen’s and Sussex’s
men together on 1 April 1594. Doubtless it was Henslowe’s property,
as Middleton wrote a prologue and epilogue for a performance by the
Admiral’s men at Court at Christmas 1602 (Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 149).
_Orlando Furioso. c. 1591_
[_MS._] The Dulwich MSS. contain an actor’s copy with cues of Orlando’s
part. Doubtless it belonged to Alleyn. The fragment covers ll. 595–1592
of the Q_{q}, but contains passages not in those texts. It is printed
by Collier, _Alleyn Papers_, 198, Collins, i. 266, and Greg, _Henslowe
Papers_, 155.
_S. R._ 1593, Dec. 7. ‘A plaie booke, intituled, the historye of
Orlando ffurioso, one of the xij peeres of Ffraunce.’ _John Danter_
(Arber, ii. 641).
1594, May 28. ‘Entred for his copie by consent of John Danter.... A
booke entytuled The historie of Orlando furioso, &c. Prouided alwaies,
and yt is agreed that soe often as the same booke shalbe printed, the
saide John Danter to haue thimpryntinge thereof.’ _Cuthbert Burby_
(Arber, ii. 650).
1594. The Historie of Orlando Furioso One of the twelve Pieres of
France. As it was plaid before the Queenes Maiestie. _John Danter for
Cuthbert Burby._
1599. _Simon Stafford for Cuthbert Burby._
_Edition_ by W. W. Greg (1907, _M. S. R._).
The Armada (1588) is referred to in I. i. 87. Two passages are common
to the play and Peele’s _Old Wive’s Tale_ (before 1595), and were
probably borrowed by Peele with the name Sacripant, which Greene got
from Ariosto. The play cannot be the ‘King Charlemagne’ of Peele’s
(q.v.) _Farewell_ (April 1589), as Charlemagne does not appear in
it. The appearance of Sir John Harington’s translation of Ariosto’s
_Orlando Furioso_ in 1591 suggests that as a likely date. This also
would fit the story (_vide supra_) of the second sale to the Admiral’s
men, when the Queen’s ‘were in the country’ (cf. vol. ii, p. 112).
Strange’s men played _Orlando_ for Henslowe on 22 Feb. 1592. Collins,
i. 217, seems to accept 1591 as the date, but Fleay, i. 263, Ward, i.
395, and Gayley, 409, prefer 1588–9. So does Greg (_Henslowe_, ii.
150) on the assumption that _Old Wive’s Tale_ (q.v.) ‘must belong to
1590’. A ‘Comoedia von Orlando Furioso’ was acted at Dresden in 1626
(Herz, 66, 77).
_James the Fourth. c. 1591_
_S. R._ 1594, May 14. ‘A booke intituled the Scottishe story of James
the Ffourth slayne at Fflodden intermixed with a plesant Comedie
presented by Oboron Kinge of ffayres.’ _Thomas Creede_ (Arber, ii. 648.)
1598. The Scottish Historie of Iames the fourth, slaine at Flodden.
Entermixed with a pleasant Comedie, presented by Oboram, King of
Fayeries: As it hath bene sundrie times publikely plaide. Written by
Robert Greene, Maister of Arts. _Thomas Creede._
_Editions_ by J. M. Manly (1897, _Specimens_, ii. 327) and A. E.
H. Swaen and W. W. Greg (1921, _M. S. R._).--_Dissertation_: W.
Creizenach, _Zu G.’s J. IV_ (1885, _Anglia_, viii. 419).
There is very little to date the play. Its comparative merit perhaps
justifies placing it, as Greene’s maturest drama, in 1591. Collins, i.
44, agrees; but Fleay, i. 265; Ward, i. 400; Gayley, 415, prefer 1590.
Fleay finds traces of a second hand, whom he believes to be Lodge, but
he is not convincing. In l. 2269 the name Adam appears for Oberon in a
stage-direction, which, when compared with _A Looking-Glass_, suggests
that the actor was John Adams of the Queen’s.
_Lost Play_
Warburton’s list of burnt plays (_3 Library_, ii. 231) contains the
duplicate entries ‘His^t of Jobe by Rob. Green’ and ‘The Trag^d of
Jobe. Good.’ Greg suggests a confusion with Sir Robert Le Grys, who
appears in the list as ‘S^r Rob. le Green’.
The statement that Greene had a share in a play on Henry VIII
(_Variorum_, xix. 500) seems to be based on a confusion with a Robert
Greene named by Stowe as an authority for his _Annales_ (Collins, i.
69).
_Doubtful Plays_
Greene’s hand has been sought in _Contention of York and Lancaster_,
_Edward III_, _Fair Em_, _George a Greene_, _Troublesome Reign of King
John_, _Knack to Know a Knave_, _Thracian Wonder_, _Leire_, _Locrine_,
_Mucedorus_, _Selimus_, _Taming of A Shrew_, _Thomas Lord Cromwell_
(cf. ch. xxiv), and Shakespeare’s _Titus Andronicus_ and _Henry VI_.
FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE (_c._ 1554–1628).
Greville’s father, Sir Fulke, was a cadet of the Grevilles of Milcote,
and held great estates in Warwickshire. The son was born at Beauchamp
Court ten years before he entered Shrewsbury School on 17 Oct. 1564
with Philip Sidney, of whom he wrote, _c._ 1610–12, a _Life_ (ed.
Nowell Smith, 1907). In 1568 he went to Jesus College, Cambridge, and
from 1577 was a courtier in high favour with Elizabeth, and entrusted
with minor diplomatic and administrative tasks. He took part in the
great tilt of 15 May 1581 (cf. ch. xxiv) and was a steady patron of
learning and letters. His own plays were for the closet. He was
knighted in 1597. James granted him Warwick Castle in 1605, but he was
no friend of Robert Cecil, and took no great part in affairs until
1614, when he became Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1621 he was
created Lord Brooke. On 1 Sept. 1628 he was stabbed to death by his
servant Ralph Haywood. D. Lloyd, _Statesmen of England_ (1665), 504,
makes him claim to have been ‘master’ to Shakespeare and Jonson.
_Collections_
_S. R._ 1632, Nov. 10 (Herbert). ‘A booke called Certaine learned
and elegant Workes of Fulke Lord Brooke the perticular names are as
followeth (viz^t) ... The Tragedy of Alaham. The Tragedy of Mustapha
(by assignment from Master Butter).... _Seile_ (Arber, iv. 288).
1633. Certaine Learned and Elegant Workes of the Right Honorable
Fulke Lord Brooke, Written in his Youth, and familiar exercise with
Sir Philip Sidney. The seuerall Names of which Workes the following
page doth declare. _E. P. for Henry Seyle._ [Contains _Alaham_ and
_Mustapha_.]
1670. The Remains of Sir Fulk Grevill Lord Brooke: Being Poems
of Monarchy and Religion: Never before Printed. _T. N. for Henry
Herringham._ [Contains _Alaham_ and _Mustapha_.]
1870. A. B. Grosart, _The Works in Verse and Prose Complete of the Lord
Brooke_. 4 vols. (_Fuller Worthies Library_).
_Dissertations_: M. W. Croll, _The Works of F. G._ (1903, _Pennsylvania
thesis_); R. M. Cushman (_M. L. N._ xxiv. 180).
_Alaham. c. 1600_ (?)
[_MS._] Holograph at Warwick Castle (cf. Grosart, iv. 336).
1633. [Part of _Coll._ 1633. Prologue and Epilogue; at end, ‘This
Tragedy, called Alaham, may be printed, this 13 day of June 1632, Henry
Herbert.’]
Croll dates 1586–1600 on metrical grounds, and Cushman 1598–1603, as
bearing on Elizabethan politics after Burghley’s death.
_Mustapha. 1603 < > 8_
[_MSS._] Holograph at Warwick Castle (cf. Grosart, iv. 336). _Camb.
Univ. MS._ F. f. 2. 35.
_S. R._ 1608, Nov. 25 (Buck). ‘A booke called the Tragedy of Mustapha
and Zangar.’ _Nathanaell Butter_ (Arber, iii. 396).
1609. The Tragedy of Mustapha. _For Nathaniel Butter._
_S. R._ 1632, Nov. 10. Transfer from Butter to Seile (Arber, iv. 288)
(_vide Collections_, _supra_).
Cushman dates 1603–9, as bearing on the Jacobean doctrine of divine
right.
MATTHEW GWINNE (_c._ 1558–1627).
Gwinne, the son of a London grocer of Welsh descent, entered St.
John’s, Oxford, from Merchant Taylors in 1574, and became Fellow of the
College, taking his B.A. in 1578, his M.A. in 1582, and his M.D. in
1593. In 1592 he was one of the overseers for the plays at the visit of
Elizabeth (Boas, 252). He became Professor of Physic at Gresham College
in 1597 and afterwards practised as a physician in London.
LATIN PLAYS
_Nero > 1603_
_S. R._ 1603, Feb. 23 (Buckerydge). ‘A booke called Nero Tragedia nova
Matheo Gwyn medicine Doctore Colegij Divi Johannis precursoris apud
Oxonienses socio Collecta.’ _Edward Blunt_ (Arber, iii. 228).
1603. Nero Tragoedia Nova; Matthaeo Gwinne Med. Doct. Collegii Diui
Joannis Praecursoris apud Oxonienses Socio collecta è Tacito, Suetonio,
Dione, Seneca. _Ed. Blount._ [Epistle to James, ‘Londini ex aedibus
Greshamiis Cal. Jul. 1603’, signed ‘Matthaeus Gvvinne’; commendatory
verses to Justus Lipsius, signed ‘Io. Sandsbury Ioannensis’; Prologue
and Epilogue.]
1603. _Ed. Blount._ [Epistle to Thomas Egerton and Francis Leigh,
‘Londini ex aedibus Greshamiis in festo Cinerum 1603’; Epilogue.]
1639. _M. F. Prostant apud R. Mynne._
Boas, 390, assigns the play to St. John’s, Oxford, _c._ Easter 1603,
but the S. R. entry and the ‘Elisa regnat’ of the Epilogue point to an
Elizabethan date.
_Vertumnus. 29 Aug. 1605_
[_MS._] _Inner Temple Petyt MS._ 538, 43, f. 293, has a _scenario_,
with the title ‘The yeare about’.
1607. Vertumnus sive Annus Recurrens Oxonii, xxix Augusti, Anno. 1605.
Coram Iacobo Rege, Henrico Principe, Proceribus. A Joannensibus in
Scena recitatus ab vno scriptus, Phrasi Comica propè Tragicis Senariis.
_Nicholas Okes, impensis Ed. Blount._ [Epistle to Henry, signed
‘Matthaeus Gwinne’; Verses to Earl of Montgomery; commendatory verses,
signed ‘Guil. Paddy’, ‘Ioa. Craigius’, ‘Io. Sansbery Ioannensis’,
‘Θώμας ὁ Φρεάῤῥεος’; _Author ad Librum_. Appended are verses, signed
‘M. G.’ and headed ‘Ad Regis introitum, è Ioannensi Collegio extra
portam Vrbis Borealem sito, tres quasi Sibyllae, sic (ut e sylua)
salutarunt’, which are thought to have given a hint for _Macbeth_.]
This was shown to James during his visit to Oxford, and it sent him to
sleep. The performance was at Christ Church by men of St. John’s.
STEPHEN HARRISON (_c._ 1604).
Designer and describer of the arches at the coronation of James I (cf.
ch. xxiv, C).
RICHARD HATHWAY (_c._ 1600).
Practically nothing is known of Hathway outside Henslowe’s diary,
although he was included by Meres amongst the ‘best for comedy’ in
1598, and wrote commendatory verses for Bodenham’s _Belvedere_ (1600).
It is only conjecture that relates him to the Hathaways of Shottery in
Warwickshire, of whom was Shakespeare’s father-in-law, also a Richard.
He has left nothing beyond an undetermined share of _1 Sir John
Oldcastle_, but the following plays by him are traceable in the diary:
(a) _Plays for the Admiral’s, 1598–1602_
(i) _King Arthur._
April 1598.
(ii) _Valentine and Orson._
With Munday, July 1598. It is uncertain what relation, if any, this
bore to an anonymous play of the same name which was twice entered in
the S. R. on 23 May 1595 and 31 March 1600 (Arber, ii. 298, iii. 159),
was ascribed in both entries to the Queen’s and not the Admiral’s, and
is not known to be extant.
(iii, iv) _1, 2 Sir John Oldcastle._
With Drayton (q.v.), Munday, and Wilson, Oct.–Dec. 1599.
(v) _Owen Tudor._
With Drayton, Munday, and Wilson, Jan. 1600; but apparently not
finished.
(vi) _1 Fair Constance of Rome._
With Dekker, Drayton, Munday, and Wilson (q.v.), June 1600.
(vii) _2 Fair Constance of Rome._
June 1600; but apparently not finished.
(viii) _Hannibal and Scipio._
With Rankins, Jan. 1601. Greg, ii. 216, bravely suggests that Nabbes’s
play of the same name, printed as a piece of Queen Henrietta’s men in
1637, may have been a revision of this.
(ix) _Scogan and Skelton._
With Rankins, Jan.–March 1601.
(x) _The Conquest of Spain by John of Gaunt._
With Rankins, Mar.–Apr. 1601, but never finished, as shown by a letter
to Henslowe from S. Rowley, bidding him let Hathway ‘have his papars
agayne’ (_Henslowe Papers_, 56).
(xi, xii) _1, 2 The Six Clothiers._
With Haughton and Smith, Oct.–Nov. 1601; but the second part was
apparently unfinished.
(xiii) _Too Good To Be True._
With Chettle (q.v.) and Smith, Nov. 1601–Jan. 1602.
(xiv) _Merry as May Be._
With Day and Smith, Nov. 1602.
(b) _Plays for Worcester’s, 1602–3_
(xv, xvi) _1, 2 The Black Dog of Newgate._
With Day, Smith, and an anonymous ‘other poete’, Nov. 1602–Feb. 1603.
(xvii) _The Unfortunate General._
With Day, Smith, and a third, Jan. 1603.
(c) _Play for the Admiral’s, 1603_
(xviii) _The Boss of Billingsgate._
With Day and one or more other ‘felowe poetes’, March 1603.
CHRISTOPHER HATTON (1540–91).
Christopher Hatton, of Holdenby, Northants, entered the Inner Temple
in Nov. 1559. He was Master of the Game at the Grand Christmas of
1561, and the mask to which he is said to have owed his introduction
to Elizabeth’s favour was probably that which the revellers took to
Court, together with Norton (q.v.) and Sackville’s _Gorboduc_ on 18
Jan. 1562. He became a Gentleman Pensioner in 1564, Gentleman of the
Privy Chamber, Captain of the Guard in 1572, Vice-Chamberlain and
Privy Councillor in 1578, when he was knighted, and Lord Chancellor
on 25 April 1587. He was conspicuous at Court in masks and tilts, and
is reported, even as Lord Chancellor, to have laid aside his gown and
danced at the wedding of his nephew and heir, Sir William Newport,
alias Hatton, to Elizabeth Gawdy at Holdenby in June 1590.
His only contribution to the drama is as writer of an act of _Gismond
of Salerne_ at the Inner Temple in 1568 (cf. s.v. Wilmot).
WILLIAM HAUGHTON (_c._ 1575–1605).
Beyond his extant work and the entries in Henslowe’s diary, in the
earliest of which, on 5 Nov. 1597, he appears as ‘yonge’ Haughton,
little is known of Haughton. Cooper, _Ath. Cantab._ ii. 399, identified
him with an alleged Oxford M.A. of the same name who was incorporated
at Cambridge in 1604, but turns out to have misread the name, which is
‘Langton’ (Baugh, 15). He worked for the Admiral’s during 1597–1602,
and found himself in the Clink in March 1600. Baugh, 22, prints his
will, made on 6 June 1605, and proved on 20 July. He left a widow Alice
and children. Wentworth Smith (q.v.) and one Elizabeth Lewes were
witnesses. He was then of Allhallows, Stainings. He cannot be traced
in the parish, but the name, which in his will is Houghton, is also
spelt by Henslowe Harton, Horton, Hauton, Hawton, Howghton, Haughtoun,
Haulton, and Harvghton, and was common in London. He might be related
to a William Houghton, saddler, who held a house in Turnmill Street in
1577 (Baugh, 11), since in 1601 (_H. P._ 57) Day requested that a sum
due to Haughton and himself might be paid to ‘Will Hamton sadler’.
_Englishmen for My Money_, or _A Woman Will Have
Her Will. 1598_
_S. R._ 1601, Aug. 3. ‘A comedy of A woman Will haue her Will.’
_William White_ (Arber, iii. 190).
1616. English-Men For my Money: or, A pleasant Comedy, called, A Woman
will haue her Will. _W. White._
1626.... As it hath beene diuers times Acted with great applause. _I.
N., sold by Hugh Perry._
1631. _A. M., sold by Richard Thrale._
_Editions_ in _O. E. D._ (1830, i) and Dodsley^4, x (1875), and by J.
S. Farmer (1911, _T. F. T._), W. W. Greg (1912, _M. S. R._), and A. C.
Baugh, (1917).
The evidence for Haughton’s evidence is in two payments in Henslowe’s
diary of 18 Feb. and early in May 1598 on behalf of the Admiral’s. The
sum of these is only £2, but it seems possible that at least one, and
perhaps more than one, other payment was made for the book in 1597 (cf.
Henslowe, ii. 191).
_Patient Grissell. 1599_
_With_ Chettle and Dekker (q.v.).
_Lost and Doubtful Plays_
The following plays by Haughton, all for the Admiral’s, are traceable
in Henslowe’s diary:
(i) _A Woman Will Have Her Will._
See _supra_.
(ii) _The Poor Man’s Paradise._
Aug. 1599; apparently not finished.
(iii) _Cox of Collumpton._
With Day, Nov. 1599; on a ‘note’ of the play by Simon Forman, cf. ch.
xiii (Admiral’s).
(iv) _Thomas Merry_, or _Beech’s Tragedy_.
With Day, Nov.–Dec. 1599, on the same theme as one of Yarington’s _Two
Lamentable Tragedies_ (q.v.).
(v) _The Arcadian Virgin._
With Chettle, Dec. 1599; apparently not finished.
(vi) _Patient Grissell._
With Chettle and Dekker (q.v.), Oct.–Dec. 1599.
(vii) _The Spanish Moor’s Tragedy._
With Day and Dekker, Feb. 1600; but apparently then unfinished;
possibly identical with _Lust’s Dominion_ (cf. s.v. Marlowe).
(viii) _The Seven Wise Masters._
With Chettle, Day, and Dekker, March 1600.
(ix) _Ferrex and Porrex._
March-April 1600.
(x) _The English Fugitives._
April 1600, but apparently not finished.
(xi) _The Devil and His Dame._
6 May 1600; probably the extant anonymous _Grim the Collier of Croydon_
(q.v.).
(xii) _Strange News Out of Poland._
With ‘M^r. Pett’, May 1600.
(xiii) _Judas._
Haughton had 10_s._ for this, May 1600; apparently the play was
finished by Bird and S. Rowley, Dec. 1601.
(xiv) _Robin Hood’s Pennorths._
Dec. 1600–Jan. 1601; but apparently not finished.
(xv, xvi) _2, 3 The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green._
With Day (q.v.), Jan.–July 1600.
(xvii) _The Conquest of the West Indies._
With Day and Smith, April-Sept. 1601.
(xviii) _The Six Yeomen of the West._
With Day, May–June 1601.
(xix) _Friar Rush and the Proud Woman of Antwerp._
With Chettle and Day, July 1601–Jan. 1602.
(xx) _2 Tom Dough._
With Day, July–Sept. 1601; but apparently not finished.
(xxi, xxii) _1, 2 The Six Clothiers._
With Hathway and Smith, Oct.–Nov. 1601; but apparently the second part
was not finished.
(xxiii) _William Cartwright._
Sept. 1602; perhaps never finished.
WALTER HAWKESWORTH (?-1606).
A Yorkshireman by birth, Hawkesworth entered Trinity College,
Cambridge, in 1588, and became a Fellow, taking his B.A. in 1592 and
his M.A. in 1595. In 1605 he went as secretary to the English embassy
in Madrid, where he died.
LATIN PLAYS
_Leander. 1599_
[_MSS._] _T. C. C. MS._ R. 3. 9. _Sloane MS._ 1762. [‘Authore M^{ro}
Haukesworth, Collegii Trinitatis olim Socio Acta est secundo A. D. 1602
comitiis Baccalaureorum ... primo acta est A. D. 1598.’ Prologue, ‘ut
primo acta est’; Additions for revival; Actor-lists.]
_St. John’s, Cambridge, MS._ J. 8. [Dated at end ‘7 Jan. 1599’.]
_Emmanuel, Cambridge, MS._ I. 2. 30.
_Cambridge Univ. Libr. MS._ Ee. v. 16.
_Bodl. Rawl. Misc. MS._ 341.
_Lambeth MS._ 838.
The production in 1599 and 1603 indicated by the MSS. agrees with the
Trinity names in the actor-lists (Boas, 399).
_Labyrinthus. 1603_ (?)
[_MSS._] _T. C. C. MS._ R. 3. 6.
_Cambridge Univ. Libr. MS._ Ee. v. 16. [Both ‘M^{ro} Haukesworth’.
Prologue. Actor-list in _T. C. C. MS._]
_St. John’s, Cambridge, MS._ J. 8. _T. C. C. MS._ R. 3. 9. _Bodl. Douce
MSS._ 43, 315. _Lambeth MS._ 838.
_S. R._ 1635, July 17 (Weekes). ‘A Latyn Comedy called Laborinthus
&c.’ _Robinson_ (Arber, iv. 343).
1636. Labyrinthus Comoedia, habita coram Sereniss. Rege Iacobo in
Academia Cantabrigiensi. _Londini, Excudebat H. R._ [Prologue.]
An allusion in the text (v. 5) to the marriage ‘_heri_’ of Leander
and Flaminia has led to the assumption that production was on the day
after the revival of _Leander_ in 1603; the actor-list has some
inconsistencies, and is not quite conclusive for any year of the period
1603–6 (Boas, 317, 400).
MARY HERBERT, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE (1561–1621).
Mary, daughter of Sir Henry, and sister of Sir Philip, Sidney, married
Henry, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, in 1577. She had literary tastes and was
a liberal patroness of poets, notably Samuel Daniel. Most of her time
appears to have been spent at her husband’s Wiltshire seats of Wilton,
Ivychurch, and Ramsbury, but in the reign of James she rented Crosby
Hall in Bishopsgate, and in 1615 the King granted her for life the
manor of Houghton Conquest, Beds.
_Dissertation_: F. B. Young, _Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke_ (1912).
TRANSLATION
_Antony. 1590_
_S. R._ 1592, May 3. ‘Item Anthonius a tragedie wrytten also in French
by Robert Garnier ... donne in English by the Countesse of Pembrok.’
_William Ponsonby_ (Arber, ii. 611).
1592. A Discourse of Life and Death. Written in French by Ph. Mornay.
Antonius, A Tragoedie written also in French by Ro. Garnier Both done
in English by the Countesse of Pembroke. _For William Ponsonby._
1595. The Tragedie of Antonie. Doone ... _For William Ponsonby_.
_Edition_ by A. Luce (1897). The _Marc-Antoine_ (1578) of Robert
Garnier was reissued in his _Huit Tragédies_ (1580).
ENTERTAINMENT
_Astraea. 1592_ (?)
In Davison’s _Poetical Rapsody_ (1602, S. R. 28 May 1602) is ‘A
Dialogue betweene two Shepheards, Thenot and Piers, in Praise of
Astrea. Made by the excellent Lady the Lady Mary Countesse of Pembrook
at the Queenes Maiesties being at her house at ---- Anno 15--’.
S. Lee (_D. N. B._) puts the visit at Wilton ‘late in 1599’. But there
was no progress in 1599, and progresses to Wilts. planned in 1600,
1601, and 1602 were abandoned. Presumably the verses were written for
the visit to Ramsbury of 27–9 Aug. 1592 (cf. App. A).
JASPER HEYWOOD (1535–98).
Translator of Seneca (q.v.).
THOMAS HEYWOOD (_c._ 1570–1641).
Heywood regarded Lincolnshire as his ‘country’ and had an uncle
Edmund, who had a friend Sir Henry Appleton. K. L. Bates has found
Edmund Heywood’s will of 7 Oct. 1624 in which Thomas Heywood and
his wife are mentioned, and has shown it to be not improbable that
Edmund was the son of Richard Heywood, a London barrister who had
manors in Lincolnshire. If so, Thomas was probably the son of Edmund’s
disinherited elder brother Christopher who was aged 30 in 1570. And if
Richard Heywood is the same who appears in the circle of Sir Thomas
More, a family connexion with the dramatist John Heywood may be
conjectured. The date of Thomas’s birth is unknown, but he tells us
that he was at Cambridge, although a tradition that he became Fellow
of Peterhouse cannot be confirmed, and is therefore not likely to have
begun his stage career before the age of 18 or thereabouts. Perhaps
we may conjecture that he was born _c._ 1570, for a Thomas Heywood is
traceable in the St. Saviour’s, Southwark, token-books from 1588 to
1607, and children of Thomas Heywood ‘player’ were baptized in the
same parish from 28 June 1590 to 5 Sept. 1605 (Collier, in _Bodl. MS._
29445). This is consistent with his knowledge (App. C, No. lvii) of
Tarlton, but not of earlier actors. He may, therefore, so far as dates
are concerned, easily have written _The Four Prentices_ as early as
1592; but that he in fact did so, as well as his possible contributions
to the Admiral’s repertory of 1594–7, are matters of inference (cf.
Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 284). The editors of the _Apology for Actors_
(Introd. v) say that in his _Funeral Elegy upon James I_ (1625) he
claims to have been ‘the theatrical servant of the Earl of Southampton,
the patron of Shakespeare’. I have never seen the Elegy. It is not in
the B. M., but a copy passed from the Bindley to the Brown collection.
There is no other evidence that Southampton ever had a company of
players. The first dated notice of Heywood is in a payment of Oct.
1596 on behalf of the Admiral’s ‘for Hawodes bocke’. On 25 March 1598
he bound himself to Henslowe for two years as an actor, doubtless for
the Admiral’s, then in process of reconstitution. Between Dec. 1598
and Feb. 1599 he wrote two plays for this company, and then disappears
from their records. He was not yet out of his time with Henslowe, but
if _Edward IV_ is really his, he may have been enabled to transfer his
services to Derby’s men, who seem to have established themselves in
London in the course of 1599. By the autumn of 1602 he was a member
of Worcester’s, for whom he had probably already written _How a Man
may Choose a Good Wife from a Bad_. He now reappears in Henslowe’s
diary both as actor and as playwright. On 1 Sept, he borrowed 2_s._
6_d._ to buy garters, and between 4 Sept, and 6 March 1603 he wrote
or collaborated in not less than seven plays for the company. During
the same winter he also helped in one play for the Admiral’s. It seems
probable that some of his earlier work was transferred to Worcester’s.
He remained with them, and in succession to them Queen Anne’s, until
the company broke up soon after the death of the Queen in 1619. Very
little of his work got into print. Of the twelve plays at most which
appeared before 1619, the first seven were unauthorized issues; from
1608 onwards, he himself published five with prefatory epistles.
About this date, perhaps in the enforced leisure of plague-time, he
also began to produce non-dramatic works, both in prose and verse,
of which the _Apology for Actors_, published in 1612, but written
some years earlier (cf. App. C, No. lvii), is the most important. The
loss of his _Lives of All the Poets_, apparently begun _c._ 1614 and
never finished, is irreparable. After 1619 Heywood is not traceable
at all as an actor; nor for a good many years, with the exception
of one play, _The Captives_, for the Lady Elizabeth’s in 1624, as a
playwright, either on the stage or in print. In 1623 a Thomas Heywarde
lived near Clerkenwell Hill (_Sh.-Jahrbuch_, xlvi. 345) and is probably
the dramatist. In 1624 he claims in the Epistle to _Gynaikeion_ the
renewed patronage of the Earl of Worcester, since ‘I was your creature,
and amongst other your servants, you bestowed me upon the excellent
princesse Q. Anne ... but by her lamented death, your gift is returned
againe into your hands’. But about 1630 he emerges again. Old plays of
his were revived and new ones produced both by Queen Henrietta’s men
at the Cockpit and the King’s at the Globe and Blackfriars. He wrote
the Lord Mayor’s pageants for a series of years. He sent ten more
plays to the press, and included a number of prologues, epilogues,
and complimentary speeches of recent composition in his _Pleasant
Dialogues and Dramas_ of 1637. This period lies outside my survey. I
have dealt with all plays in which there is a reasonable prospect of
finding early work, but have not thought it necessary to discuss _The
English Traveller_, or _A Maidenhead Well Lost_, merely because of
tenuous attempts by Fleay to connect them with lost plays written for
Worcester’s or still earlier anonymous work for the Admiral’s, any
more than _The Fair Maid of the West_, _The Late Lancashire Witches_,
or _A Challenge for Beauty_, with regard to which no such suggestion
is made. As to _Love’s Mistress_, see the note on _Pleasant Dialogues
and Dramas_. The Epistle to _The English Traveller_ (1633) is worth
quoting. Heywood describes the play as ‘one reserued amongst two
hundred and twenty, in which I haue had either an entire hand, or
at the least a maine finger’, and goes on to explain why his pieces
have not appeared as _Works_. ‘One reason is, that many of them by
shifting and change of Companies, haue beene negligently lost, Others
of them are still retained in the hands of some Actors, who thinke
it against their peculiar profit to haue them come in Print, and a
third, That it neuer was any great ambition in me, to bee in this kind
Volumniously read.’ Heywood’s statement would give him an average of
over five plays a year throughout a forty years’ career, and even if
we assume that he included every piece which he revised or supplied
with a prologue, it is obvious that the score or so plays that we have
and the dozen or so others of which we know the names must fall very
short of his total output. ‘Tho. Heywood, Poet’, was buried at St.
James’s, Clerkenwell, on 16 Aug. 1641 (_Harl. Soc. Reg._ xvii. 248),
and therefore the alleged mention of him as still alive in _The Satire
against Separatists_ (1648) must rest on a misunderstanding.
_Collections_
1842–51. B. Field and J. P. Collier, _The Dramatic Works of Thomas
Heywood_. 2 vols. (_Shakespeare Society_). [Intended for a complete
edition, although issued in single parts; a title-page for vol. i was
issued in 1850 and the 10th Report of the Society treats the plays for
1851 as completing vol. ii. Twelve plays were issued, as cited _infra_.]
1874. _The Dramatic Works of Thomas Heywood._ 6 vols. (_Pearson
Reprints_). [All the undoubted plays, with _Edward IV_ and _Fair Maid
of the Exchange_; also Lord Mayors’ Pageants and part of _Pleasant
Dialogues and Dramas_.]
1888. A. W. Verity, _The Best Plays of Thomas Heywood_ (_Mermaid
Series_). [_Woman Killed with Kindness_, _Fair Maid of the West_,
_English Traveller_, _Wise Woman of Hogsdon_, _Rape of Lucrece._]
_Dissertations_: K. L. Bates, _A Conjecture as to Thomas Heywood’s
Family_ (1913, _J. G. P._ xii. 1); P. Aronstein, _Thomas Heywood_
(1913, _Anglia_, xxxvii. 163).
_The Four Prentices of London. 1592_ (?)
_S. R._ 1594, June 19. ‘An enterlude entituled Godfrey of Bulloigne
with the Conquest of Jerusalem.’ _John Danter_ (Arber, ii. 654).
1615. The Foure Prentises of London. With the Conquest of Ierusalem.
As it hath bene diuerse times Acted, at the Red Bull, by the Queenes
Maiesties Seruants. Written by Thomas Heywood. _For I. W._ [Epistle
to the Prentices, signed ‘Thomas Heywood’ and Prologue, really an
Induction.]
1632.... Written and newly reuised by Thomas Heywood. _Nicholas Okes._
_Editions_ in Dodsley^{2, 3} (1780–1827) and by W. Scott (1810, _A. B.
D._ iii).
The Prologue gives the title as _True and Strange, or The Four
Prentises of London_. The Epistle speaks of the play as written ‘many
yeares since, in my infancy of iudgment in this kinde of poetry,
and my first practice’ and ‘some fifteene or sixteene yeares agoe’.
This would, by itself, suggest a date shortly after the publication
of Fairfax’s translation from Tasso under the title of _Godfrey of
Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Ierusalem_ in 1600. But the Epistle
also refers to a recent revival of ‘the commendable practice of long
forgotten armes’ in ‘the Artillery Garden’. This, according to Stowe,
_Annales_ (1615), 906, was in 1610, which leads Fleay, i. 182, followed
by Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 166), to assume that the Epistle was written
for an edition, now lost, of about that date. In support they cite
Beaumont’s _K. B. P._ iv. 1 (dating it 1610 instead of 1607), ‘Read
the play of the _Foure Prentices of London_, where they tosse their
pikes so’. Then, calculating back sixteen years, they arrive at the
anonymous _Godfrey of Bulloigne_ produced by the Admiral’s on 19 July
1594, and identify this with _The Four Prentices_, in which Godfrey
is a character. But this _Godfrey of Bulloigne_ was a second part,
and it is difficult to suppose that the first part was anything but
the play entered on the S. R. earlier in 1594. This, from its title,
clearly left no room for a second part covering the same ground as _The
Four Prentices_, which ends with the capture of Jerusalem. If then
Heywood’s play is as old as 1594 at all, it must be identified with
the first part of _Godfrey of Bulloigne_. And is not this in its turn
likely to be the _Jerusalem_ played by Strange’s men on 22 March and
25 April 1592? If so, Heywood’s career began very early, and, as we
can hardly put his Epistle earlier than the opening of the Artillery
Garden in 1610, his ‘fifteene or sixteene yeares’ must be rather an
understatement. There is of course nothing in the Epistle itself to
suggest that the play had been previously printed, but we know from the
Epistle to _Lucrece_ that the earliest published plays by Heywood were
surreptitious.
Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 230, hesitatingly suggests that a purchase by
Worcester’s of ‘iiij lances for the comody of Thomas Hewedes & M^r.
Smythes’ on 3 Sept. 1602 may have been for a revival of _The Four
Prentices_, ‘where they tosse their pikes so’, transferred from the
Admiral’s. But I think his afterthought, that the comedy was Heywood
and Smith’s _Albere Galles_, paid for on the next day, is sound.
_Sir Thomas Wyatt. 1602_
See s.v. Dekker.
_The Royal King and the Loyal Subject. 1602_ (?)
_S. R._ 1637, March 25 (Thomas Herbert, deputy to Sir Henry Herbert).
‘A Comedy called the Royall king and the Loyall Subiects by Master
Heywood.’ _James Beckett_ (Arber, iv. 376).
1637. The Royall King, and the Loyall Subject. As it hath beene Acted
with great Applause by the Queenes Maiesties Servants. Written by
Thomas Heywood. _Nich. and John Okes for James Becket._ [Prologue
to the Stage and Epilogue to the Reader.]
_Editions_ by J. P. Collier (1850, _Sh. Soc._) and K. W. Tibbals
(1906, _Pennsylvania Univ. Publ._).--_Dissertation_: O. Kämpfer, _Th.
Heywood’s The Royal King and Painter’s Palace of Pleasure_ (1903,
_Halle diss._).
The Epilogue describes the play as ‘old’, and apparently relates it to
a time when rhyme, of which it makes considerable use, was more looked
after than ‘strong lines’, and when stuffed and puffed doublets and
trunk-hose were worn, which would fit the beginning of the seventeenth
century. An anonymous Marshal is a leading character, and the
identification by Fleay, i. 300, with the _Marshal Osric_ written
by Heywood and Smith for Worcester’s in Sept. 1602 is not the worst of
his guesses.
_A Woman Killed With Kindness. 1603_
1607. A Woman Kilde with Kindnesse. Written by Tho: Heywood. _William
Jaggard, sold by John Hodgets._ [Prologue and Epilogue.]
1617.... As it hath beene oftentimes Acted by the Queenes Maiest.
Seruants.... The third Edition. _Isaac Jaggard._
_Editions_ in Dodsley^{1, 2, 3} (1744–1827) and by W. Scott (1810, _A.
B. D._ ii), J. P. Collier (1850, _Sh. Soc._), A. W. Ward (1897, _T.
D._), F. J. Cox (1907), W. A. Neilson (1911, _C. E. D._), K. L. Bates
(1919).--_Dissertation_: R. G. Martin, _A New Source for a Woman Killed
with Kindness_ (1911, _E. S._ xliii. 229).
Henslowe, on behalf of Worcester’s, paid Heywood £6 for this play in
Feb. and March 1603 and also bought properties for it. It is mentioned
in T. M., _The Black Book of London_ (1604), sig. E3.
_The Wise Woman of Hogsdon. c. 1604_ (?)
_S. R._ 1638, Mar. 12 (Wykes). ‘A Play called The wise woman of Hogsden
by Thomas Haywood.’ _Henry Sheapard_ (Arber, iv. 411).
1638. The Wise Woman of Hogsdon. A Comedie. As it hath been sundry
times Acted with great Applause. Written by Tho: Heywood. _M. P. for
Henry Shephard._
Fleay, i. 291, suggested a date _c._ 1604 on the grounds of allusions
to other plays of which _A Woman Killed with Kindness_ is the latest
(ed. Pearson, v. 316), and a conjectural identification with Heywood’s
_How to Learn of a Woman to Woo_, played by the Queen’s at Court on
30 Dec. 1604. The approximate date is accepted by Ward, ii. 574, and
others. It may be added that there are obvious parallelisms with
the anonymous _How a Man may Choose a Good Wife from a Bad_ (1602)
generally assigned to Heywood.
_If You Know not Me, You Know Nobody. 1605_
_S. R._ 1605, July 5 (Hartwell). ‘A booke called yf you knowe not me
you knowe no body.’ _Nathaniel Butter_ (Arber, iii. 295).
1605, Sept. 14 (Hartwell). ‘A Booke called the Second parte of Yf you
knowe not me you knowe no bodie with the buildinge of the exchange.’
_Nathaniel Butter_ (Arber, iii. 301).
[_Part i_]
1605. If you Know not me, You Know no bodie: Or, The troubles of Queene
Elizabeth. _For Nathaniel Butter._
1606, 1608, 1610, 1613, 1623, 1632, 1639.
[_Part ii_]
1606. The Second Part of, If you Know not me, you know no bodie. With
the building of the Royall Exchange: And the famous Victorie of Queene
Elizabeth, in the Yeare 1588. _For Nathaniell Butter._
1609.... With the Humors of Hobson and Tawny-cote. _For Nathaniell
Butter._
N.D. [1623?].
1632. _For Nathaniel Butter._ [With different version of Act V.]
_Editions_ by J. P. Collier (1851, _Sh. Soc._) and J. Blew
(1876).--_Dissertation_: B. A. P. van Dam and C. Stoffel, _The
Fifth Act of Thomas Heywood’s Queen Elizabeth: Second Part_ (1902,
_Jahrbuch_, xxxviii. 153).
_Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas_, 248, has ‘A Prologue to the Play
of Queene Elizabeth as it was last revived at the Cockpit, in which
the Author taxeth the most corrupted copy now imprinted, which was
published without his consent’. It says:
This: (by what fate I know not) sure no merit,
That it disclaimes, may for the age inherit.
Writing ’bove one and twenty; but ill nurst,
And yet receiv’d, as well perform’d at first,
Grac’t and frequented, for the cradle age,
Did throng the Seates, the Boxes, and the Stage
So much; that some by Stenography drew
The plot: put it in print: (scarce one word trew:)
There is also an Epilogue, which shows that both parts were revived.
The piracy may serve to date the original production in 1605 and the
Caroline revival probably led to the reprints of 1632. As the play
passed to the Cockpit, it was presumably written for Queen Anne’s. Greg
(_Henslowe_, ii. 223) rightly resists the suggestion that it was the
old _Philip of Spain_ bought by the Admiral’s from Alleyn in 1602. It
is only Part i which has characteristics attributable to stenography,
and this remained unrevised. According to Van Dam and Stoffel, the 1606
and 1632 editions of Part ii represent the same original text, in the
first case shortened for representation, in the second altered by a
press-corrector.
_Fortune by Land and Sea. c. 1607_ (?)
_With_ W. Rowley.
_S. R._ 1655, June 20. ‘Fortune by Land & sea, a tragicomedie, written
by Tho: Heywood & Wm. Rowley.’ _John Sweeting_ (Eyre, i. 486).
1655. Fortune by Land and Sea. A Tragi-Comedy. As it was Acted with
great Applause by the Queens Servants. Written by Tho. Haywood and
William Rowly. _For John Sweeting and Robert Pollard._
_Edition_ by B. Field (1846, _Sh. Soc._).--_Dissertation_: Oxoniensis,
_Illustration of Fortune by Land and Sea_ (1847, _Sh. Soc. Papers_,
iii. 7).
The action is placed in the reign of Elizabeth (cf. ed. Pearson, vi,
pp. 409, 431), but this may be due merely to the fact that the source
is a pamphlet (S. R. 15 Aug. 1586) dealing with Elizabethan piracy.
Rowley’s co-operation suggests the date 1607–9 when he was writing for
Queen Anne’s men, and other trifling evidence (Aronstein, 237) makes
such a date plausible.
_The Rape of Lucrece. 1603 < > 8_
_S. R._ 1608, June 3 (Buck). ‘A Booke called A Romane tragedie called
The Rape of Lucrece.’ _John Busby and Nathanael Butter_ (Arber, iii.
380).
1608. The Rape of Lucrece. A True Roman Tragedie. With the seuerall
Songes in their apt places, by Valerius, the merrie Lord amongst the
Roman Peeres. Acted by her Maiesties Seruants at the Red Bull, neare
Clarkenwell. Written by Thomas Heywood. _For I. B._ [Epistle to the
Reader, signed ‘T. H.’]
1609. _For I. B._
1630.... The fourth Impression.... _For Nathaniel Butter._
1638.... The copy revised, and sundry Songs before omitted, now
inserted in their right places.... _John Raworth for Nathaniel Butter._
[Note to the Reader at end.]
_Edition_ in 1825 (_O. E. D._ i).
Fleay, i. 292, notes the mention of ‘the King’s head’ as a tavern sign
for ‘the Gentry’, which suggests a Jacobean date. The play was given at
Court, apparently by the King’s and Queen’s men together, on 13 Jan.
1612. The Epistle says that it has not been Heywood’s custom ‘to commit
my Playes to the Presse’, like others who ‘have used a double sale of
their labours, first to the Stage, and after to the Presse’. He now
does so because ‘some of my Playes have (unknowne to me, and without
any of my direction) accidentally come into the Printers hands (and
therefore so corrupt and mangled, copied only by the eare) that I have
beene as unable to knowe them, as ashamed to challenge them’. A play on
the subject seems to have been on tour in Germany in 1619 (Herz, 98).
_The Rape of Lucrece_ was on the Cockpit stage in 1628, according to a
newsletter in _Athenaeum_ (1879), ii. 497, and to the 1638 edition are
appended songs ‘added by the stranger that lately acted Valerius his
part’. It is in the Cockpit list of plays in 1639 (_Variorum_, iii.
159).
_The Golden Age > 1611_
_S. R._ 1611, Oct. 14 (Buck). William Barrenger, ‘A booke called, The
golden age with the liues of Jupiter and Saturne.’ _William Barrenger_
(Arber, iii. 470).
1611. The Golden Age. Or The liues of Iupiter and Saturne, with the
defining of the Heathen Gods. As it hath beene sundry times acted at
the Red Bull, by the Queenes Maiesties Seruants. Written by Thomas
Heywood. _For William Barrenger._ [Epistle to the Reader, signed ‘T.
H.’ Some copies have ‘defining’ corrected to ‘deifying’ in the title.]
_Edition_ by J. P. Collier (1851, _Sh. Soc._).
The Epistle describes the play as ‘the eldest brother of three Ages,
that haue aduentured the Stage, but the onely yet, that hath beene
iudged to the presse’, and promises the others. It came to the press
‘accidentally’, but Heywood, ‘at length hauing notice thereof’,
prefaced it, as it had ‘already past the approbation of auditors’.
Fleay, i. 283, followed hesitatingly by Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 175),
thinks it a revision of the _Olympo_ or _Seleo & Olempo_, which he
interprets _Coelo et Olympo_, produced by the Admiral’s on 5 March
1595. The Admiral’s inventories show that they had a play with Neptune
in it, but it is only at the very end of _The Golden Age_ that the
sons of Saturn draw lots and Jupiter wins Heaven or Olympus. Fleay’s
assumption that the play was revised _c._ 1610, because of Dekker,
_If it be not Good_, i. 1, ‘The Golden Age is moulding new again’, is
equally hazardous.
_The Silver Age > 1612_
1613. The Silver Age, Including. The loue of Iupiter to Alcmena: The
birth of Hercules. And the Rape of Proserpine. Concluding, With the
Arraignement of the Moone. Written by Thomas Heywood. _Nicholas Okes,
sold by Beniamin Lightfoote._ [Epistle to the Reader, signed ‘T. H,’;
Prologue and Epilogue.]
_Edition_ by J. P. Collier (1851, _Sh. Soc._).
The Epistle says, ‘Wee begunne with _Gold_, follow with _Siluer_,
proceede with _Brasse_, and purpose by Gods grace, to end with _Iron_’.
Fleay, i. 283, and Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 175) take this and _The Brazen
Age_ to be the two parts of the anonymous _Hercules_, produced by the
Admiral’s men on 7 and 23 May 1595 respectively. It may be so. But the
text presumably represents the play as given at Court, apparently by
the King’s and Queen’s men together, on 12 Jan. 1612. An Anglo-German
_Amphitryo_ traceable in 1626 and 1678 may be based on Heywood’s work
(Herz, 66; _Jahrbuch_, xli. 201).
_The Brazen Age > 1613_
1613. The Brazen Age, The first Act containing, The death of the
Centaure Nessus, The Second, The Tragedy of Meleager: The Third The
Tragedy of Iason and Medea. The Fourth. Vulcans Net. The Fifth. The
Labours and death of Hercules: Written by Thomas Heywood. _Nicholas
Okes for Samuel Rand._ [Epistle to the Reader; Prologue and Epilogue.]
Cf. s.v. _The Silver Age_.
_The Iron Age. c. 1613_ (?)
1632. [_Part i_] The Iron Age: Contayning the Rape of Hellen: The siege
of Troy: The Combate betwixt Hector and Aiax: Hector and Troilus slayne
by Achilles: Achilles slaine by Paris: Aiax and Vlesses contend for the
Armour of Achilles: The Death of Aiax, &c. Written by Thomas Heywood.
_Nicholas Okes._ [Epistles to Thomas Hammon and to the Reader, signed
‘Thomas Heywood’.]
1632. [_Part ii_] The Second Part of the Iron Age. Which contayneth the
death of Penthesilea, Paris, Priam, and Hecuba: The burning of Troy:
The deaths of Agamemnon, Menelaus, Clitemnestra, Hellena, Orestes,
Egistus, Pillades, King Diomed, Pyrhus, Cethus, Synon, Thersites, &c.
Written by Thomas Heywood. _Nicholas Okes._ [Epistles to the Reader and
to Thomas Mannering, signed ‘Thomas Heywood’.]
_Dissertation_: R. G. Martin, _A New Specimen of the Revenge Play_
(1918, _M. P._ xvi. 1).
The Epistles tell us that ‘these were the playes often (and not with
the least applause,) Publickely Acted by two Companies, vppon one Stage
at once, and haue at sundry times thronged three seuerall Theaters,
with numerous and mighty Auditories’; also that they ‘haue beene long
since Writ’. This, however, was in 1632, and I can only read the
Epistles to the earlier _Ages_ as indicating that the _Iron Age_ was
contemplated, but not yet in existence, up to 1613. I should therefore
put the play _c._ 1613, and take the three theatres at which it was
given to be the Curtain, Red Bull, and Cockpit. Fleay, i. 285, thinks
that Part i was the anonymous _Troy_ produced by the Admiral’s on 22
June 1596. More plausible is the conjecture of Greg (_Henslowe_, ii.
180) that this was ‘an earlier and shorter version later expanded into
the two-part play’. Spencer had a play on the Destruction of Troy at
Nuremberg in 1613 (Herz, 66).
_Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas. 1630–6_ (?)
_S. R._ 1635, Aug. 29 (Weekes). ‘A booke called Pleasant Dialogues
and Dramma’s selected out of Lucian Erasmus Textor Ovid &c. by Thomas
Heywood.’ _Richard Hearne_ (Arber, iv. 347).
1637. Pleasant Dialogues and Dramma’s, selected out of Lucian, Erasmus,
Textor, Ovid, &c. With sundry Emblems extracted from the most elegant
Iacobus Catsius. As also certaine Elegies, Epitaphs, and Epithalamions
or Nuptiall Songs; Anagrams and Acrosticks; With divers Speeches (upon
severall occasions) spoken to their most Excellent Majesties, King
Charles, and Queene Mary. With other Fancies translated from Beza,
Bucanan, and sundry Italian Poets. By Tho. Heywood. _R. O. for R. H.,
sold by Thomas Slater._ [Epistle to the Generous Reader, signed ‘Tho.
Heywood’, and Congratulatory Poems by Sh. Marmion, D. E., and S. N.]
_Edition_ by W. Bang (1903, _Materialien_, iii).
The section called ‘Sundry Fancies writ upon severall occasions’ (Bang,
231) includes a number of Prologues and Epilogues, of which those which
are datable fall between 1630 and 1636. Bang regards all the contents
of the volume as of about this period. Fleay, i. 285, had suggested
that _Deorum Judicium_, _Jupiter and Io_, _Apollo and Daphne_,
_Amphrisa_, and possibly _Misanthropos_ formed the anonymous _Five
Plays in One_ produced by the Admiral’s on 7 April 1597, and also that
_Misanthropos_, which he supposed to bear the name _Time’s Triumph_,
was played with _Faustus_ on 13 April 1597 and carelessly entered by
Henslowe as ‘times triumpe & fortus’. Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 183) says
of the _Dialogues and Dramas_, ‘many of the pieces in that collection
are undoubtedly early’. He rejects Fleay’s views as to _Misanthropos_
on the grounds that it is ‘unrelieved tediousness’ and has no claim to
the title _Time’s Triumph_, and is doubtful as to _Deorum Judicium_.
The three others he seems inclined to accept as possibly belonging to
the 1597 series, especially _Jupiter and Io_, where the unappropriated
head of Argus in one of the Admiral’s inventories tempts him. He is
also attracted by an alternative suggestion of Fleay’s that one of the
_Five Plays in One_ may have been a _Cupid and Psyche_, afterwards
worked up into _Love’s Mistress_ (1636). This he says, ‘if it existed’,
would suit very well. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that it
did exist. Moreover, P. A. Daniel has shown that certain lines found
in _Love’s Mistress_ are assigned to Dekker in _England’s Parnassus_
(1600, ed. Crawford, xxxi. 509, 529) and must be from the _Cupid and
Psyche_ produced by the Admiral’s _c._ June 1600 (_Henslowe_, ii. 212).
There is no indication that Heywood collaborated with Dekker, Chettle,
and Day in this; but it occurs to me that, if he was still at the Rose,
he may have acted in the play and cribbed years afterwards from the
manuscript of his part. I will only add that _Misanthropos_ and _Deorum
Judicium_ seem to me out of the question. They belong to the series of
‘dialogues’ which Heywood in his Epistle clearly treats as distinct
from the ‘dramas’, for after describing them he goes on, ‘For such as
delight in Stage-poetry, here are also divers Dramma’s, never before
published: Which, though some may condemne for their shortnesse, others
againe will commend for their sweetnesse’. It is only _Jupiter and Io_
and _Apollo and Daphne_, which are based on Ovid, and _Amphrisa_, for
which there is no known source, that can belong to this group; and
Heywood gives no indication as to their date.
_Lost and Doubtful Plays_
On _How to Learn of a Woman to Woo_, see s.v. _The Wise Woman of
Hogsden_. The author of _The Second Part of Hudibras_ (1663) names
Heywood as the author of _The Bold Beauchamps_, which is mentioned with
_Jane Shore_ in _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_, Ind. 59.
The following is a complete list of the plays, by Heywood or
conjecturally assigned to him, which are recorded in Henslowe’s diary:
_Possible plays for the Admiral’s, 1594–7_
For conjectures as to the authorship by Heywood of _Godfrey of
Bulloigne_ (1594), _The Siege of London_ (>1594), _Wonder of a Woman_
(1595), _Seleo and Olympo_ (1595), _1, 2 Hercules_ (1595), _Troy_
(1596), _Five Plays in One_ (1597), _Time’s Triumph_ (>1597), see _The
Four Prentices_, the anonymous _Edward IV_, W. Rowley’s _A New Wonder_,
_The Golden Age_, _The Silver Age_, _The Iron Age_, _Pleasant Dialogues
and Dramas_.
_Plays for the Admiral’s, 1598–1603_
(i) _War without Blows and Love without Suit._
Dec. 1598–Jan. 1599; identified, not plausibly, by Fleay, i. 287, with
the anonymous _Thracian Wonder_ (q.v.).
(ii) _Joan as Good as my Lady._
Feb. 1599, identified, conjecturally, by Fleay, i. 298, with _A
Maidenhead Well Lost_, printed as Heywood’s in 1634.
(iii) _1 The London Florentine._
With Chettle, Dec. 1602–Jan. 1603.
_Plays for Worcester’s, 1602–3_
(iv) _Albere Galles._
With Smith, Sept. 1602, possibly identical with the anonymous _Nobody
and Somebody_ (q.v.).
(v) _Cutting Dick_ (additions only).
Sept. 1602, identified by Fleay, ii. 319, with the anonymous _Trial of
Chivalry_, but not plausibly (Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 231).
(vi) _Marshal Osric._
With Smith, Sept. 1602, conceivably identical with _The Royal King and
the Loyal Subject_ (q.v.).
(vii) _1 Lady Jane._
With Chettle, Dekker, Smith, and Webster, Oct. 1602, doubtless
represented by the extant _Sir Thomas Wyatt_ of Dekker (q.v.) and
Webster, in which, however, Heywood’s hand has not been traced.
(viii) _Christmas Comes but Once a Year_.
With Chettle, Dekker, and Webster, Nov. 1602.
(ix) _The Blind Eats many a Fly_.
Nov. 1602–Jan. 1603.
(x) [Unnamed play.]