NOTE.--In a letter to the _Athenaeum_ of June 9, 1883, Mr. Fleay
suggests that _Sir Giles Goosecap_ is the work of George Chapman. "It
was produced by the Children of the Chapel, and must therefore date
between 1599 and 1601. The only other plays known to have been
represented by the Chapel Children are Lyly's _Love's Metamorphosis_
and the three _Comical Satires_ of Ben Jonson. The present play bears
palpable marks of Jonson's influence.... The author, then, must have
been a stage writer at the end of the sixteenth century, probably a
friend of Jonson's, and not surviving 1636. The only known playwrights
who fulfil the time conditions are Marston, Middleton, and Chapman.
Internal evidence, to say nothing of Jonson's enmity, is conclusive
against Marston and Middleton. Chapman, on the other hand, fulfils the
conditions required. He was Jonson's intimate friend, and died in 1634.
In 1598 he was writing plays for Henslow at the Rose Theatre; on July
17, 1599, his connexion with the Admiral's Company there performing
ceased; and his next appearance in stage history is as a writer for the
Children of Her Majesty's Revels, the very company that succeeded, and
was, indeed, founded on that of the Children of the Chapel at
Blackfriars. If Chapman was not writing for the Chapel boys from 1599 to
1601, we do not know what he was doing at all. The external evidence,
then, clearly points to Chapman. The internal is still more decisive. To
say nothing of metrical evidence, which seems just now out of fashion,
probably on account of the manner in which it has been handled, can
there be any doubt of the authorship of such lines as these:--
'According to my master Plato's mind,' &c.--iii. II.
And for the lower comedy, act iv., sc. 1, in which Momford
makes Eugenia dictate a letter to Clarence, should be compared
with the _Gentleman Usher_, iii. 1, and _Monsieur d'Olive_, iv. 1.
These are clearly all from one mould." I, like Mr. Fleay, had
been struck by the resemblance to Chapman's style in parts of
_Sir Gyles Goosecappe_; but it seems to me that the likeness is
stronger in the serious than in the comic scenes. If Chapman
was the author, it is curious that his name did not appear on
the title-page of the second edition. The reference to the
Maréchal de Biron's visit, iii. 1, proves conclusively that the
play cannot have been written earlier than the autumn of 1601.