Volume 3 / Book 5 — BOOK V PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS (continued 2)

1841–53. Publications of the Shakespeare Society. [Include, besides several plays of T. Heywood (q.v.), Dekker, Chettle, and Haughton’s Patient Grissell, Munday’s John a Kent and John a Cumber, Legge’s Richardus Tertius, Norton and Sackville’s Gorboduc, Merbury’s Marriage between Wit and Wisdom, and Sir Thomas More, True Tragedy of Richard III, 1 Contention, True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, Taming of A Shrew, Timon, by various editors. Some copies of these plays, not including Heywood’s, were bound up in 4 vols., with the general date 1853, as a Supplement to Dodsley.]

1848. F. J. Child, Four Old Plays.

1851. J. P. Collier, Five Old Plays (Roxburghe Club).

1870. J. S. Keltie, The Works of the British Dramatists.

[Many of the collections enumerated above are obsolete, and I have not usually thought it worth while to record here the plays included in them. Lists of the contents of most of them are given in Hazlitt; Manual, 267.]

1874–6. A Select Collection of Old English Plays: Fourth Edition, now first Chronologically Arranged, Revised and Enlarged; with the notes of all the Commentators, and New Notes, by W. C. Hazlitt. Vols. i-ix (1874), x-xiv (1875), xv (1876). [Cited as Dodsley, or Dodsley⁴; incorporates with Collier’s edition of Dodsley the collections of 1833, 1848, 1851, and 1853.]

1875. W. C. Hazlitt, Shakespeare’s Library. Second Edition. Part i, 4 vols.; Part ii, 2 vols. [Part i is based on Collier’s Shakespeare’s Library (1844). Part ii, based on the collections of 1779 and 1841–53, adds the dramatic sources, Warner’s Menaechmi, True Tragedie of Richard III, Legge’s Richardus Tertius, Troublesome Raigne of John, Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth, 1 Contention of York and Lancaster, True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor (Q₁), Whetstone’s Promos and Cassandra, King Leire, Timon, Taming of A Shrew.]

1878. R. Simpson, The School of Shakspere. 2 vols. [Captain Thomas Stukeley, Nobody and Somebody, Histriomastix, Jack Drum’s Entertainment, Warning for Fair Women, Fair Em, with A Larum for London (1872) separately printed.]

1882–5. A. H. Bullen, A Collection of Old English Plays. 4 vols. [Cited as Bullen, O. E. P. Maid’s Metamorphosis, Noble Soldier, Sir Giles Goosecap, Wisdom of Doctor Dodipoll, Charlemagne or The Distracted Emperor, Trial of Chivalry, Yarington’s Two Lamentable Tragedies, Costly Whore, Every Woman in her Humour, with later plays.]

[1885]-91. 43 Shakspere Quarto Facsimiles. Issued under the superintendence of F. J. Furnivall. [Photographic facsimiles by W. Griggs and C. Praetorius, with introductions by various editors, including, besides accepted Shakespearian plays, Pericles (Q₁, Q₂), 1 Contention (Q₁), True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York (Q₁), Whole Contention (Q₃), Famous Victories of Henry V (Q₁), Troublesome Raigne of John (Q₁), Taming of A Shrew (Q₁).]

1888. Nero and other Plays (Mermaid Series). [Nero (1624), Porter’s Two Angry Women of Abingdon, Day’s Parliament of Bees and Humour Out of Breath, Field’s Woman is a Weathercock and Amends for Ladies, by various editors.]

1896–1905. The Temple Dramatists. [Cited as T. D. Single plays by various editors, including, besides plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, Dekker, Heywood, Jonson, Kyd, Marlowe, Peele, Udall, Webster (q.v.), Arden of Feversham, Edward III, Merry Devil of Edmonton, Selimus, T. N. K., Return from Parnassus.]

1897. J. M. Manly, Specimens of the Pre-Shakspearean Drama. 2 vols. issued. [Udall’s Roister Doister, Gammer Gurton’s Needle, Preston’s Cambyses, Norton and Sackville’s Gorboduc, Lyly’s Campaspe, Greene’s James IV, Peele’s David and Bethsabe, Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy in vol. ii; earlier plays in vol. i.]

1897. H. A. Evans, English Masques (Warwick Library). [Ten masks by Jonson (q.v.), Daniel’s Twelve Goddesses, Campion’s Lords’ Mask, Beaumont’s Inner Temple Mask, Mask of Flowers, and later masks.]

1897–1912. Jahrbuch der deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, vols. xxxiii-xlviii. [Wilson’s Cobbler’s Prophecy (1897), 1 Richard II (1899), Wager’s The Longer Thou Livest, the More Fool Thou Art (1900), The Wars of Cyrus (1901), Jonson’s E. M. I. (1902), Lupton’s All for Money (1904), Wapull’s The Tide Tarrieth No Man (1907), Lumley’s translation of Iphigenia (1910), Caesar and Pompey, or Caesar’s Revenge (1911, 1912), by various editors.]

1898. A. Brandl, Quellen des weltlichen Dramas in England vor Shakespeare. Ein Ergänzungsband zu Dodsley’s Old English Plays. (Quellen und Forschungen, lxxx.) [King Darius, Misogonus, Horestes, Wilmot’s Gismond of Salern, Common Conditions, and earlier plays.]

1902–8. The Belles Lettres Series. Section iii. The English Drama. General Editor, G. P. Baker. [Cited as B. L. Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, Chapman, Dekker, Gascoigne, Jonson, Webster (q.v.), in separate volumes by various editors.]

1902–14. Materialien zur Kunde des älteren englischen Dramas ... begründet und herausgegeben von W. Bang. 44 vols. issued. (A. Uystpruyst, Louvain.) [Includes, with other ‘material’, text facsimile reprints of plays, &c., of Barnes, Brewer, Daniel, Chettle and Day, Dekker, Heywood, Jonson, Mason, Sharpham (q.v.), with How a Man may Choose a Good Wife from a Bad, Sir Giles Goosecap, the Latin Victoria of A. Fraunce and Pedantius, and translations from Seneca.]

1903, 1913, 1914. C. M. Gayley, Representative English Comedies. 3 vols. [Plays of Udall, Lyly, Peele, Greene, Porter, Jonson, and Dekker, with Gammer Gurton’s Needle, Eastward Ho!, Merry Devil of Edmonton, and later plays, by various editors.]

1905–8. J. S. Farmer, Publications of the Early English Drama Society. [Modernized texts, mainly of little value, but including a volume of Recently Recovered Plays, from the quartos in the Irish sale of 1906.]

1907–20. Malone Society Reprints. 46 vols. issued. [In progress; text-facsimile reprints of separate plays, by various editors, under general editorship of W. W. Greg; cited as M. S. R.]

1907–14. J. S. Farmer, The Tudor Facsimile Texts, with a Hand List (1914). [Photographic facsimiles, mostly by R. B. Fleming; cited as T. F. T. The Hand List states that 184 vols. are included in the collection, but I believe that some were not actually issued before the editor’s death. Some or all of these, with reissues of others, appear in Old English Plays, Student’s Facsimile Edition; cited as S. F. T.]

1908–14. The Shakespeare Classics. General Editor, I. Gollancz. (The Shakespeare Library). [Includes Warner’s Menaechmi and Leire, Taming of A Shrew, and Troublesome Reign of King John.]

1911. W. A. Neilson, The Chief Elizabethan Dramatists excluding Shakespeare. [Plays by Lyly, Peele, Greene, Marlowe, Kyd, Chapman, Jonson, Dekker, Marston, Heywood, Beaumont, Fletcher, Webster, Middleton, and later writers; cited as C. E. D.]

1911. R. W. Bond, Early Plays from the Italian. [Gascoigne’s Supposes, Bugbears, Misogonus.]

1912. J. W. Cunliffe, Early English Classical Tragedies. [Norton and Sackville’s Gorboduc, Gascoigne and Kinwelmersh’s Jocasta, Wilmot’s Gismond of Salerne, Hughes’s Misfortunes of Arthur.]

1912. Masterpieces of the English Drama. General Editor, F. E. Schelling, [Cited as M. E. D. Plays of Marlowe, Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster and Tourneur (q.v.), with Massinger and Congreve, in separate volumes by various editors.]

1915. C. B. Wheeler, Six Plays by Contemporaries of Shakespeare (World’s Classics). [Dekker’s Shoemaker’s Holiday, Beaumont and Fletcher’s K. B. P. and Philaster, Webster’s White Devil and Duchess of Malfi, Massinger’s New Way to Pay Old Debts.]

[In this chapter I give under the head of each playwright (a) a brief sketch of his life in relation to the stage, (b) a list of contemporary and later collections of his dramatic works, (c) a list of dissertations (books, pamphlets, articles in journals) bearing generally upon his life and works. Then I take each play, mask, &c., up to 1616 and give (a) the MSS. if any; (b) the essential parts of the entry, if any, on the Stationers’ Register, including in brackets the name of any licenser other than an official of the Company, and occasionally adding a note of any transfer of copyright which seems of exceptional interest; (c) the essential parts of the title-page of the first known print; (d) a note of its prologues, epilogues, epistles, and other introductory matter; (e) the dates and imprints of later prints before the end of the seventeenth century with any new matter from their t.ps. bearing on stage history; (f) lists of all important 18th-20th century editions and dissertations, not of the collective or general type already dealt with; (g) such notes as may seem desirable on authorship, date, stage history and the like. Some of these notes are little more than compilations; others contain the results of such work as I have myself been able to do on the plays concerned. Similarly, I have in some cases recorded, on the authority of others, editions and dissertations which I have not personally examined. The section devoted to each playwright concludes with lists of work not extant and of work of which his authorship has, often foolishly, been conjectured. I ought to make it clear that many of my title-pages are borrowed from Dr. Greg, and that, while I have tried to give what is useful for the history of the stage, I have no competence in matters of minute bibliographical accuracy.]

WILLIAM ALABASTER (1567–1640)

Alabaster, or Alablaster, was born at Hadleigh, Suffolk, in 1567 and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, from Westminster in 1583. His Latin poem Eliseis is mentioned by Spenser in Colin Clout’s Come Home Again (1591). He was incorporated M.A. of Oxford in 1592, and went as chaplain to Essex in the Cadiz expedition of 1596. On 22 Sept. 1597 Richard Percival wrote to Sir Robert Cecil (Hatfield MSS. vii. 394), ‘Alabaster has made a tragedy against the Church of England’. Perhaps this is not to be taken literally, but only refers to his conversion to Catholicism. Chamberlain, 7, 64, records that he was ‘clapt up for poperie’, had escaped from the Clink by 4 May 1598, but was recaptured at Rochelle. This was about the beginning of Aug. 1599 (Hatfield MSS. ix. 282). Later he was reconverted and at his death in 1640 held the living of Therfield, Herts. He wrote on mystical theology, and a manuscript collection of 43 sonnets, mostly unprinted, is described by B. Dobell in Athenaeum (1903), ii. 856.

Roxana. c. 1592

[MSS.] T. C. C. MS. (‘Authore Domino Alabaster’); Camb. Univ. MS. Ff. ii. 9; Lambeth MS. 838 (‘finis Roxanae Alabastricae’).

S. R. 1632, May 9 (Herbert). ‘A Tragedy in Latyn called Roxana &c.’ Andrew Crooke (Arber, iv. 277).

1632. Roxana Tragædia olim Cantabrigiae, Acta in Col. Trin. Nunc primum in lucem edita, summaque cum diligentia ad castigatissimum exemplar comparata. R. Badger for Andrew Crook. [At end is Herbert’s imprimatur, dated ‘1 March, 1632’.]

1632. Roxana Tragædia a plagiarii unguibus vindicata, aucta, & agnita ab Authore Gulielmo Alabastro. William Jones. [Epistle by Gulielmus Alabaster to Sir Ralph Freeman; commendatory verses by Hugo Hollandius and Tho. Farnabius; engraved title-page, with representation of a stage (cf. ch. xviii, Bibl. Note).]

The Epistle has ‘Ante quadraginta plus minus annos, morticinum hoc edidi duarum hebdomadarum abortum, et unius noctis spectaculo destinatum, non aevi integri’. The play is a Latin version of Luigi Groto’s La Dalida (1567).

SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER, EARL OF STIRLING (c. 1568–1640).

William Alexander of Menstrie, after an education at Glasgow and Leyden and travel in France, Spain, and Italy, was tutor to Prince Henry before the accession of James, and afterwards Gentleman extraordinary of the Privy Chamber both to Henry and to Charles. He was knighted about 1609, appointed a Master of Requests in 1614 and Secretary for Scotland in 1626. He was created Earl of Stirling in 1633. He formed literary friendships with Michael Drayton and William Drummond of Hawthornden, but Jonson complained (Laing, 11) that ‘Sir W. Alexander was not half kinde unto him, and neglected him, because a friend to Drayton’. His four tragedies read like closet plays, and his only connexion with the stage appears to be in some verses to Alleyn after the foundation of Dulwich in 1619 (Collier, Memoirs of Alleyn, 178).

Collections

S. R. 1604, April 30 (by order of Court). ‘A booke Called The Woorkes of William Alexander of Menstrie Conteyninge The Monarchicke Tragedies, Paranethis to the Prince and Aurora.’ Edward Blunt (Arber, iii. 260).

1604. The Monarchicke Tragedies. By William Alexander of Menstrie. V. S. for Edward Blount. [Croesus and Darius (with a separate t.p.).]

1607. The Monarchick Tragedies; Croesus, Darius, The Alexandraean, Iulius Caesar, Newly enlarged. By William Alexander, Gentleman of the Princes priuie Chamber. Valentine Simmes for Ed. Blount. [New issue, with additions. Julius Caesar has separate t.p. Commendatory verses, signed ‘Robert Ayton’.]

1616. The Monarchicke Tragedies. The third Edition. By S^r. W. Alexander Knight. William Stansby. [Croesus, Darius, The Alexandraean Tragedy, Julius Caesar, in revised texts, the last three with separate t.ps.]

1637. Recreations with the Muses. By William Earle of Sterline. Tho. Harper. [Croesus, Darius, The Alexandraean Tragedy, Julius Caesar.]

1870–2. Poetical Works. 3 vols.

1921. L. E. Kastner and H. B. Charlton, The Poetical Works of Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling. Vol. i. The Dramatic Works.—Dissertations: C. Rogers, Memorials of the Earl of S. and the House of A. (1877); H. Beumelburg, Sir W. A. Graf von S., als dramatischer Dichter (1880, Halle diss.).

Darius > 1603

1603. The Tragedie of Darius. By William Alexander of Menstrie. Robert Waldegrave. Edinburgh. [Verses to James VI; Epistle to Reader; Commendatory verses by ‘Io Murray’ and ‘W. Quin’.]

1604. G. Elde for Edward Blount. [Part of Coll. 1604, with separate t.p.; also in later Colls. Two sets of verses to King at end.]

Croesus > 1604

1604. [Part of Coll. 1604; also in later Colls. Argument; Verses to King at end.]

The Alexandraean Tragedy > 1607

1605? [Hazlitt, Manual, 7, and others cite a print of this date, which is not confirmed by Greg, Plays, 1.]

1607. (Running Title). The Alexandraean Tragedie. [Part of Coll. 1607; also in later Colls. Argument.]

Julius Caesar > 1607

1607. The Tragedie of Iulius Caesar. By William Alexander, Gentleman of the Princes priuie Chamber. Valentine Simmes for Ed. Blount. [Part of Coll. 1607, with separate t.p.; also in later Colls. Argument.]

Edition in H. H. Furness, Julius Caesar (1913, New Variorum Shakespeare, xvii).

WILLIAM ALLEY (c. 1510–70).

Alley’s Πτωχὸμυσεῖον. The Poore Mans Librarie (1565) contains three and a half pages of dialogue between Larymos and Phronimos, described as from ‘a certaine interlude or plaie intituled Aegio. In the which playe ij persons interlocutorie do dispute, the one alledging for the defence of destenie and fatall necessitie, and the other confuting the same’. P. Simpson (9 N. Q. iii. 205) suggests that Alley was probably himself the author. The book consists of praelectiones delivered in 1561 at St. Paul’s, of which Alley had been a Prebendary. He became Bishop of Exeter in 1560. On his attitude to the public stage, cf. App. C. No. viii. It is therefore odd to find the Lord Bishop’s players at Barnstaple and Plymouth in 1560–1 (Murray, ii. 78).

ROBERT AMERIE (c. 1610).

The deviser of the show of Chester’s Triumph (1610). See ch. xxiv (C).

ROBERT ARMIN (> 1588–1610 <). For biography see Actors (ch. xv).

The Two Maids of Moreclacke. 1607–8 (?)

1609. The History of the two Maids of Moreclacke, With the life and simple maner of Iohn in the Hospitall. Played by the Children of the Kings Maiesties Reuels. Written by Robert Armin, seruant to the Kings most excellent Maiestie. N. O. for Thomas Archer. [Epistle to Reader, signed ‘Robert Armin’.]

Editions in A. B. Grosart, Works of R. A. Actor (1880, Choice Rarities of Ancient English Poetry, ii), 63, and J. S. Farmer (1913, S. F. T.). The epistle says that the play was ‘acted by the boyes of the Reuels, which perchaunce in part was sometime acted more naturally in the Citty, if not in the hole’, that the writer ‘would haue againe inacted Iohn my selfe but ... I cannot do as I would’, and that he had been ‘requested both of Court and Citty, to show him in priuate’. John is figured in a woodcut on the title-page, which is perhaps meant for a portrait of Armin. As a King’s man, and no boy, he can hardly have played with the King’s Revels; perhaps we should infer that the play was not originally written for them. All their productions seem to date from 1607–8.

Doubtful Play

Armin has been guessed at as the R. A. of The Valiant Welshman.

THOMAS ASHTON (ob. 1578).

Ashton took his B.A. in 1559–60, and became Fellow of Trinity, Cambridge. He was appointed Head Master of Shrewsbury School from 24 June 1561 (G. W. Fisher, Annals of Shrewsbury School, 4). To the same year a local record, Robert Owen’s Arms of the Bailiffs (17th c.), assigns ‘M^r Astons first playe upon the Passion of Christ’, and this is confirmed by an entry in the town accounts (Owen and Blakeway, Hist. of Shrewsbury, i. 353) of 20s. ‘spent upon M^r Aston and a other gentellmane of Cambridge over pareadijs’ on 25 May 1561. Whitsuntide plays had long been traditional at Shrewsbury (Mediaeval Stage, ii. 250, 394, where the dates require correction). A local chronicle (Shropshire Arch. Soc. Trans. xxxvii. 54) has ‘Elizabeth 1565 [i. e. 1566; cf. App. A], The Queen came to Coventry intending for Salop to see M^r Astons Play, but it was ended. The Play was performed in the Quarry, and lasted the Whitson [June 2] hollydays’. This play is given in Mediaeval Stage, from local historians, as Julian the Apostate, but the same chronicle assigns that to 1556. Another chronicle (Taylor MS. of 16th-17th c.) records for 1568–9 (Shropshire Arch. Soc. Trans. iii. 268), ‘This yeare at Whytsoontyde [29 May] was a notable stage playe playeed in Shrosberie in a place there callyd the quarrell which lastid all the hollydayes unto the which cam greate number of people of noblemen and others the which was praysed greatlye and the chyff aucter therof was one Master Astoon beinge the head scoolemaster of the freescole there a godly and lernyd man who tooke marvelous greate paynes therin’. Robert Owen, who calls this Aston’s ‘great playe’ of the Passion of Christ, assigns it to 1568, but it is clear from the town accounts that 1569 is right (Fisher, 18). This is presumably the play referred to by Thomas Churchyard (q.v.) in The Worthiness of Wales (1587, ed. Spenser Soc. 85), where after describing ‘behind the walles ... a ground, newe made Theator wise’, able to seat 10,000, and used for plays, baiting, cockfights, and wrestling, he adds:

In the margin he comments, ‘Maister Aston was a good and godly Preacher’. A ‘ludus in quarell’ is noted in 1495, and this was ‘where the plases [? playes] have bine accustomyd to be usyd’ in 1570 (Mediaeval Stage, ii. 251, 255). Ashton resigned his Mastership about 1571 and was in the service of the Earl of Essex at Chartley in 1573. But he continued to work on the Statutes of the school, which as settled in 1578, the year of his death, provide that ‘Everie Thursdaie the Schollers of the first forme before they goo to plaie shall for exercise declame and plaie one acte of a comedie’ (Fisher, 17, 23; E. Calvert, Shrewsbury School Register). It is interesting to note that among Ashton’s pupils were Sir Philip Sidney and Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, who entered the school together on 16 Nov. 1564.

JAMES ASKE (c. 1588).

Author of Elizabetha Triumphans (1588), an account of Elizabeth’s visit to Tilbury. See ch. xxiv (C).

THOMAS ATCHELOW (c. 1589).

The reference to him in Nashe’s Menaphon epistle (App. C, No. xlii) rather suggests that he may have written plays.

FRANCIS BACON (1561–1626).

Bacon was son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, by Anne, daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke. He was at Trinity, Cambridge, from April 1573 to March 1575, and entered Gray’s Inn in June 1576. He sat in the Parliaments of 1584 and 1586, and about 1591 attached himself to the rising fortunes of the Earl of Essex, who in 1595 gave him an estate at Twickenham. His public employment began as a Queen’s Counsel about 1596. He was knighted on 23 July 1603, became Solicitor-General on 25 June 1607, Attorney-General on 27 Oct. 1613, Lord Keeper on 7 March 1617, and Lord Chancellor on 7 Jan. 1618. He was created Lord Verulam on 12 July 1618, and Viscount St. Albans on 27 Jan. 1621. Later in the same year he was disgraced for bribery. The edition of his Works (with his Letters and Life) by J. Spedding, R. L. Ellis, and D. D. Heath (1857–74) is exhaustive. Many papers of his brother Anthony are at Lambeth, and are drawn on by T. Birch, Memoirs of the Reign of Elizabeth (1754). F. J. Burgoyne, Facsimile of a Manuscript at Alnwick (1904), reproduces the Northumberland MS. which contains some of his writings, with others that may be his, and seems once to have contained more. Apart from philosophy, his chief literary work was The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall, of which 10 appeared in 1597, and were increased to 38 in 1612 and 58 in 1625. Essay xxxvii, added in 1625, is Of Masks and Triumphs, and, although Bacon was not a writer for the public stage, he had a hand, as deviser or patron, in several courtly shows.

(i) He helped to devise dumb-shows for Thomas Hughes’s Misfortunes of Arthur (q.v.) given by Gray’s Inn at Greenwich on 28 Feb. 1588.

(ii) The list of contents of the Northumberland MS. (Burgoyne, xii) includes an item, now missing from the MS., ‘Orations at Graies Inne Revells’, and Spedding, viii. 342, conjectures that Bacon wrote the speeches of the six councillors delivered on 3 Jan. 1595 as part of the Gesta Grayorum (q.v.).

(iii) Rowland Whyte (Sydney Papers, i. 362) describes a device on the Queen’s day (17 Nov.), 1595, in which the speeches turned on the Earl of Essex’s love for Elizabeth, who said that, ‘if she had thought there had been so much said of her, she would not have been there that night’. A draft list of tilters, of whom the challengers were led by the Earl of Cumberland and the defendants by the Earl of Essex, is in Various MSS. iv. 163, and a final one, with descriptions of their appearance, in the Anglorum Feriae of Peele (q.v.). They were Cumberland, Knight of the Crown, Essex, Sussex, Southampton, as Sir Bevis, Bedford, Compton, Carew, the three brothers Knollys, Dudley, William Howard, Drury, Nowell, John Needham, Skydmore, Ratcliffe, Reynolds, Charles Blount, Carey. The device took place partly in the tiltyard, partly after supper. Before the entry of the tilters a page made a speech and secured the Queen’s glove. A dialogue followed between a Squire on one hand, and a Hermit, a Secretary, and a Soldier, who on the entry of Essex tried to beguile him from love. A postboy brought letters, which the Secretary gave to Essex. After supper, the argument between the Squire and the three tempters was resumed. Whyte adds, ‘The old man [the Hermit] was he that in Cambridg played Giraldy; Morley played the Secretary; and he that plaid Pedantiq was the soldior; and Toby Matthew acted the Squires part. The world makes many untrue constructions of these speaches, comparing the Hermitt and the Secretary to two of the Lords [Burghley and Robert Cecil?]; and the soldier to Sir Roger Williams.’ The Cambridge reference is apparently to Laelia (q.v.) and the performers of the Hermit and Soldier were therefore George Meriton and George Mountaine, of Queen’s. Morley might perhaps be Thomas Morley, the musician, a Gentleman of the Chapel.

Several speeches, apparently belonging to this device, are preserved. Peele speaks of the balancing of Essex between war and statecraft as indicated in the tiltyard by ‘His mute approach and action of his mutes’, but they may have presented a written speech.

(a) Lambeth MS. v. 118 (copied by Birch in Sloane MS. 4457, f. 32) has, in Bacon’s hand, a speech by the Squire in the tiltyard, and four speeches by the Hermit, Soldier, Secretary, and Squire ‘in the Presence’. These are printed by Birch (1763), Nichols, Eliz. iii. 372, and Spedding, viii. 378.

(b) Lambeth MS. viii. 274 (copied by Birch in Addl. MS. 4164, f. 167) has, in Bacon’s hand, the beginning of a speech by the Secretary to the Squire, which mentions Philautia and Erophilus, and a letter from Philautia to the Queen. These are printed in Spedding, viii. 376.

(c) The Northumberland MS. ff. 47–53 (Burgoyne, 55) has ‘Speeches for my Lord of Essex at the tylt’. These deal with the attempts of Philautia to beguile Erophilus. Four of them are identical with the four speeches ‘in the Presence’ of (a); the fifth is a speech by the Hermit in the tiltyard. They were printed by Spedding, separately, in 1870, as A Conference of Pleasure composed for some festive occasion about the year 1592 by Francis Bacon; but 1592 is merely a guess which Whyte’s letter corrects.

(d) S. P. D. Eliz. ccliv. 67, 68, docketed ‘A Device made by the Earl of Essex for the Entertainment of her Majesty’, has a speech by the Squire, distinct from any in the other MSS., a speech by the Attendant on an Indian Prince, which mentions Philautia, and a draft by Edward Reynolds, servant to Essex, of a French speech by Philautia. The two first of these are printed by Spedding, viii. 388, and Devereux, Lives of the Earls of Essex, ii. 501. The references to Philautia are rather against Spedding’s view that these belong to some occasion other than that of 1595.

Sir Henry Wotton says of Essex (Reliquiae Wottonianae, 21), ‘For his Writings, they are beyond example, especially in his ... things of delight at Court ... as may be yet seen in his Impresses and Inventions of entertainment; and above all in his darling piece of love, and self love’. This, for what it is worth—and Wotton was secretary to Essex in 1595, suggests that the Earl himself, rather than Bacon, was the author of the speeches, which in fact none of the MSS. directly ascribe to Bacon. But it is hard to distinguish the literary productions of a public man from those of his staff.

(iv) The Northumberland MS. (Burgoyne, 65) has a speech of apology for absence, headed ‘ffor the Earle of Sussex at y^e tilt an: 96’, which might be Bacon’s, especially as he wrote from Gray’s Inn to the Earl of Shrewsbury on 15 Oct. 1596, ‘to borrow a horse and armour for some public show’ (Lodge, App. 79).

(v) Beaumont (q.v.) acknowledges his encouragement of the Inner Temple and Gray’s Inn mask on 20 Feb. 1613, for the Princess Elizabeth’s wedding.

(vi) He bore the expenses of the Gray’s Inn Mask of Flowers (q.v.) on 6 Jan. 1614 for the Earl of Somerset’s wedding. To this occasion probably belongs an undated letter signed ‘Fr. Bacon’, and addressed to an unknown lord (M. S. C. i. 214 from Lansdowne MS. 107, f. 13; Spedding, ii. 370; iv. 394), in which he expresses regret that ‘the joynt maske from the fowr Innes of Cowrt faileth’, and offers a mask for ‘this occasion’ by a dozen gentlemen of Gray’s Inn, ‘owt of the honor which they bear to your lordship, and my lord Chamberlayne, to whome at theyr last maske they were so much bownde’. The last mask would be (v) above, and the then Lord Chamberlain was Suffolk, prospective father-in-law of Somerset, to whom the letter may be supposed to be addressed. But it is odd that the letter is endorsed ‘M^r’ Fr. Bacon, and bound up with papers of Burghley, and it is just possible, although not, I think, likely, that the reference may be to some forgotten Elizabethan mask.

(vii) A recent attempt has been made to assign to Bacon the academic Pedantius (cf. App. K).

JOHN BADGER (c. 1575).

A contributor to the Kenilworth entertainment (cf. ch. xxiv, C). Gascoigne calls him ‘Master Badger of Oxenforde, Maister of Arte, and Bedle in the same Universitie’. A John Badger of Ch. Ch. took his M.A. in 1555, and a superior bedel of divinity of the same name made his will on 15 July 1577 (Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, i. 54).

WILLIAM BARKSTED.

For biography, cf. ch. xv (Actors), and for his share in The Insatiate Countess, s.v. Marston.

There is no reason to regard him as the ‘William Buckstead, Comedian’, whose name is at the end of a Prologue to a playe to the cuntry people in Bodl. Ashm. MS. 38 (198).

BARNABE BARNES (c. 1569–1609).

Barnes was born in Yorkshire, the son of Richard Barnes, bishop of Durham. He entered Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1586, but took no degree, accompanied Essex to France in 1591, and dedicated his poems Parthenophil and Parthenophe (1593) to William Percy (q.v.). He was a friend of Gabriel Harvey and abused by Nashe and Campion. In 1598 he was charged with an attempt at poison, but escaped from prison (Athenaeum, 1904, ii. 240). His Poems were edited by A. B. Grosart in Occasional Issues (1875). Hazlitt, Manual, 23, states that a manuscript of a play by him with the title The Battle of Hexham was sold with Isaac Reed’s books in 1807, but this, which some writers call The Battle of Evesham, has not been traced. As Barnes was buried at Durham in Dec. 1609, it is probable that The Madcap ‘written by Barnes’, which Herbert licensed for Prince Charles’s men on 3 May 1624, was by another of the name.

The Devil’s Charter. 2 Feb. 1607

S. R. 1607, Oct. 16 (Buck). ‘The Tragedie of Pope Alexander the Sixt as it was played before his Maiestie.’ John Wright (Arber, iii. 361).

1607. The Divils Charter: A Tragedie Conteining the Life and Death of Pope Alexander the sixt. As it was plaide before the Kings Maiestie, vpon Candlemasse night last: by his Maiesties Seruants. But more exactly reuewed, corrected and augmented since by the Author, for the more pleasure and profit of the Reader. G. E. for John Wright. [Dedication by Barnabe Barnes to Sir William Herbert and Sir William Pope; Prologue with dumb-show and Epilogue.]

Extracts by A. B. Grosart in Barnes’s Poems (1875), and editions by R. B. McKerrow (1904, Materialien, vi) and J. S. Farmer (1913, S. F. T.)—Dissertation: A. E. H. Swaen, G. C. Moore Smith, and R. B. McKerrow, Notes on the D. C. by B. B. (1906, M. L. R. i. 122).

DAVID, LORD BARRY (1585–1610).

David Barry was the eldest son of the ninth Viscount Buttevant, and the ‘Lo:’ on his title-page represents a courtesy title of ‘Lord’, or ‘Lording’ as it is given in the lawsuit of Androwes v. Slater, which arose out of the interest acquired by him in 1608 in the Whitefriars theatre (q.v.). Kirkman’s play-lists (Greg, Masques, ci) and Wood, Athenae Oxon. ii. 655, have him as ‘Lord’ Barrey, which did not prevent Langbaine (1691) and others from turning him into ‘Lodowick’.—Dissertations: J. Q. Adams, Lordinge (alias Lodowick) Barry (1912, M. P. ix. 567); W. J. Lawrence, The Mystery of Lodowick Barry (1917, University of North Carolina Studies in Philology, xiv. 52).

Ram Alley. 1607–8

S. R. 1610, Nov. 9 (Buck). ‘A booke called, Ramme Alley, or merry trickes. Robert Wilson (Arber, iii. 448).

1611. Ram-Alley: Or Merrie-Trickes. A Comedy Diuers times heretofore acted. By the Children of the Kings Reuels. Written by Lo: Barrey. G. Eld for Robert Wilson. [Prologue and Epilogue.]

1636; 1639.

Editions in Dodsley⁴ (1875, x) and by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. ii) and J. S. Farmer (1913, S. F. T.).

Fleay, i. 31, attempts to place the play at the Christmas of 1609, but it is improbable that the King’s Revels ever played outside 1607–8. Archer’s play-list of 1656 gives it to Massinger. There are references (ed. Dodsley, pp. 280, 348, 369) to the baboons, which apparently amused London about 1603–5 (cf. s.v. Sir Giles Goosecap), and to the Jacobean knightings (p. 272).

FRANCIS BEAUMONT (c. 1584–1616).

Beaumont was third son of Francis Beaumont, Justice of Common Pleas, sprung from a gentle Leicestershire family, settled at Grace Dieu priory in Charnwood Forest. He was born in 1584 or 1585 and had a brother, Sir John, also known as a poet. He entered Broadgates Hall, Oxford, in 1597, but took no degree, and the Inner Temple in 1600. In 1614 or 1615 he had a daughter by his marriage, probably recent, to Ursula Isley of Sundridge Hall, Kent, and another daughter was born after his death on 6 March 1616. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Beaumont contributed a humorous grammar lecture (preserved in Sloane MS. 1709, f. 13; cf. E. J. L. Scott in Athenaeum for 27 Jan. 1894) to some Inner Temple Christmas revels of uncertain date. This has allusions to ‘the most plodderly plotted shew of Lady Amity’ given ‘in this ill-instructed hall the last Christmas’, and to seeing a play at the Bankside for sixpence. His poetical career probably begins with the anonymous Salmacis and Hermaphroditus of 1602. His non-dramatic poems, of which the most important is an epistle to Elizabeth Countess of Rutland in 1612, appeared after his death in volumes of 1618, 1640, and 1653, which certainly ascribe to him much that is not his. His connexion with the stage seems to have begun about 1606, possibly through Michael Drayton, a family friend, in whose Eglogs of that year he appears as ‘sweet Palmeo’. But his first play, The Woman Hater, written independently for Paul’s, shows him under the influence of Ben Jonson, who wrote him an affectionate epigram (lv), told Drummond in 1619 that ‘Francis Beaumont loved too much himself and his own verses’ (Laing, 10), and according to Dryden (Essay on Dramatick Poesie) ‘submitted all his writings to his censure, and, ’tis thought, used his judgment in correcting, if not contriving, all his plots’. To Jonson’s Volpone (1607) commendatory verses were contributed both by Beaumont, whose own Knight of the Burning Pestle was produced in the same year, and by John Fletcher, whose names are thus first combined. Jonson and Beaumont, in their turn, wrote verses for Fletcher’s The Faithful Shepherdess, probably written in 1608 or 1609 and published in 1609 or 1610. About 1608 or 1609 it may also be supposed that the famous literary collaboration began. This, although it can only be proved to have covered some half-dozen plays, left the two names so closely associated that when, in 1647 and 1679, the actors and publishers issued collections of fifty-three pieces, in all or most of which Fletcher had had, or was supposed to have had, a hand, they described them all as ‘by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher’, and thus left to modern scholarship a task with which it is still grappling. A contemporary protest by Sir Aston Cockaine pointed out the small share of Beaumont and the large share of Massinger in the 1647 volume; and the process of metrical analysis initiated by Fleay and Boyle may be regarded as fairly successful in fixing the characteristics of the very marked style of Fletcher, although it certainly raises more questions than it solves as to the possible shares not only of Massinger, but of Jonson, Field, Tourneur, Daborne, Middleton, Rowley, and Shirley, as collaborators or revisers, in the plays as they have come down to us. Since Fletcher wrote up to his death in 1625, much of this investigation lies outside my limits, and it is fortunate that the task of selecting the plays which may, certainly or possibly, fall before Beaumont’s death in 1616 is one in which a fair number of definite data are available to eke out the slippery metrical evidence. It would seem that the collaboration began about 1608 and lasted in full swing for about four or five years, that in it Beaumont was the ruling spirit, and that it covered plays, not only for the Queen’s Revels, for whom both poets had already written independently, and for their successors the Lady Elizabeth’s, but also, and concurrently, for the King’s. According to Dryden, two or three plays were written ‘very unsuccessfully’ before the triumph of Philaster, but these may include the independent plays, of which we know that the Knight of the Burning Pestle and the Faithful Shepherdess failed. The Folios contain a copy of verses written by Beaumont to Jonson (ed. Waller, x. 199) ‘before he and M^r. Fletcher came to London, with two of the precedent Comedies then not finish’d, which deferr’d their merry meetings at the Mermaid’, but this probably relates to a temporary villeggiatura and cannot be precisely dated. It is no doubt to this period of 1608–13 that we may refer the gossip of Aubrey, i. 96, who learnt from Sir James Hales and others that Beaumont and Fletcher ‘lived together on the Banke-Side, not far from the Play-house, both batchelors; lay together; had one wench in the house between them, which they did so admire; the same cloathes and cloake, &c., betweene them’. Obviously these conditions ended when Beaumont married an heiress about 1613, and it seems probable that from this date onwards he ceased to be an active playwright, although he contributed a mask to the Princess Elizabeth’s wedding at Shrovetide of that year, and his hand can be traced, perhaps later still, in The Scornful Lady. At any rate, about 1613 Fletcher was not merely writing independent plays—a practice which, unlike Beaumont, he may never have wholly dropped—but also looking about for other contributors. There is some converging evidence of his collaboration about this date with Shakespeare; and Henslowe’s correspondence (Henslowe Papers, 66) shows him quite clearly as engaged on a play, possibly The Honest Man’s Fortune, with no less than three others, Daborne, Field, and Massinger. It is not probable that, from 1616 onwards, Fletcher wrote for any company but the King’s men. Of the fifty-two plays included in the Ff., forty-four can be shown from title-pages, actor-lists, licences by the Master of the Revels, and a Lord Chamberlain’s order of 1641 (M. S. C. i. 364) to have belonged to the King’s, six by title-pages and another Lord Chamberlain’s order (Variorum, iii. 159) to have belonged to the Cockpit theatre, and two, Wit at Several Weapons and Four Plays in One, together with The Faithful Friends, which does not appear in the Ff., cannot be assigned to any company. But some of the King’s men’s plays and some or all of the Cockpit plays had originally belonged to Paul’s, the Queen’s Revels, or the Lady Elizabeth’s, and it is probable that all these formed part of the Lady Elizabeth’s repertory in 1616, and that upon the reorganization of the company which then took place they were divided into two groups, of which one passed with Field to the King’s, while the other remained with his late fellows and was ultimately left with Christopher Beeston when their occupation of the Cockpit ended in 1625.

I classify the plays dealt with in these notes as follows: (a) Plays wholly or substantially by Beaumont—The Woman Hater, The Knight of the Burning Pestle; (b) Plays of the Beaumont-Fletcher collaboration—Philaster, A Maid’s Tragedy, A King and No King, Four Plays in One, Cupid’s Revenge, The Coxcomb, The Scornful Lady; (c) Plays wholly or substantially by Fletcher—The Woman’s Prize, The Faithful Shepherdess, Monsieur Thomas, Valentinian, Bonduca, Wit Without Money; (d) Plays of doubtful authorship and, in some cases, period—The Captain, The Honest Man’s Fortune, The Two Noble Kinsmen, The Faithful Friends, Thierry and Theodoret, Wit at Several Weapons, Love’s Cure, The Night Walker. Full treatment of The Two Noble Kinsmen, as of Henry VIII, in which Fletcher certainly had a hand, is only possible in relation to Shakespeare. I have not thought it necessary to include every play which, or a hypothetical version of which, an unsupported conjecture, generally from Mr. Oliphant, puts earlier than 1616. The Queen of Corinth, The Noble Gentleman, The Little French Lawyer, The Laws of Candy, The Knight of Malta, The Fair Maid of the Inn, The Chances, Beggar’s Bush, The Bloody Brother, Love’s Pilgrimage, Nice Valour, and Rule a Wife and Have a Wife are omitted on this principle, and I believe I might safely have extended the same treatment to some of those in my class (d).

Collections

S. R. 1646, Sept. 4 (Langley). ‘These severall Tragedies & Comedies hereunder mencioned (viz^t.) ... [thirty plays named] ... by M^r. Beamont and M^r. Flesher.’ H. Robinson and H. Moseley (Eyre, i. 244).

1660, June 29. ‘The severall Plays following, vizt.... [names] ... all six copies written by Fra: Beamont & John Fletcher.’ H. Robinson and H. Moseley (Eyre, ii. 268).

F₁, 1647. Comedies and Tragedies Written by Francis Beaumont and Iohn Fletcher Gentlemen. Never printed before, And now published by the Authours Originall Copies. For H. Robinson and H. Moseley. [Twenty-nine plays of the 1646 entry, excluding The Wildgoose Chase, and the five plays and one mask of the 1660 entry, none but the mask previously printed; Portrait of Fletcher by W. Marshall; Epistle to Philip Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, signed ‘John Lowin, Richard Robinson, Eylaerd Swanston, Hugh Clearke, Stephen Hammerton, Joseph Taylor, Robert Benfield, Thomas Pollard, William Allen, Theophilus Bird’; Epistle to the Reader, signed ‘Ja. Shirley’; The Stationer to the Readers, signed ‘Humphrey Moseley’ and dated ‘Feb. 14^th 1646’; Thirty-seven sets of Commendatory verses, variously signed; Postscript; cf. W. W. Greg in 4 Library, ii. 109.]

F₂, 1679. Fifty Comedies and Tragedies. Written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, Gentlemen. All in one Volume. Published by the Authors Original Copies, the Songs to each Play being added. J. Macock, for John Martyn, Henry Herringman, Richard Marriot. [The thirty-four plays and one mask of F₁, with eighteen other plays, all previously printed; Epistle by the Stationers to the Reader; Actor Lists prefixed to many of the plays.]

1711. The Works of B. and F. 7 vols. Jacob Tonson.

Editions by Theobald, Seward and Sympson (1750, 10 vols.), G. Colman (1778, 10 vols.; 1811, 3 vols.), H. Weber (1812, 14 vols., adding The Faithful Friends), G. Darley (1839, 2 vols.; 1862–6, 2 vols.), A. Dyce (1843–6, 11 vols.; 1852, 2 vols.).

1905–12. A. Glover and A. R. Waller. The Works of F. B. and J. F. 10 vols. (C. E. C.). [Text of F₂, with collations of F₁ and Q_q.]

1904–12 (in progress). A. H. Bullen, The Works of F. B. and J. F. Variorum Edition. 4 vols. issued. [Text based on Dyce; editions of separate plays by P. A. Daniel, R. W. Bond, W. W. Greg, R. B. McKerrow, J. Masefield, M. Luce, C. Brett, R. G. Martin, E. K. Chambers.]

Selections

1887. J. S. L. Strachey, The Best Plays of B. and F. 2 vols. (Mermaid Series). [Maid’s Tragedy, Philaster, Thierry and Theodoret, K. B. P., King and No King, Bonduca, Faithful Shepherdess, Valentinian, and later plays.]

1912. F. E. Schelling, Beaumont and Fletcher (M. E. D.). [Philaster, Maid’s Tragedy, Faithful Shepherdess, Bonduca.]

Dissertations: A. C. Swinburne, B. and F. (1875–94, Studies in Prose and Poetry), The Earlier Plays of B. and F. (1910, English Review); F. G. Fleay, On Metrical Tests as applied to Dramatic Poetry: Part ii, B., F., Massinger (1874, N. S. S. Trans. 51, 23*, 61*, reprinted, 1876–8, with alterations in Shakespeare Manual, 151), On the Chronology of the Plays of F. and Massinger (1886, E. S. ix. 12), and in B. C. (1891), i. 164; R. Boyle, B., F., and Massinger (1882–7, E. S. v. 74, vii. 66, viii. 39, ix. 209, x. 383), B., F., and Massinger (1886, N. S. S. Trans. 579), Mr. Oliphant on B. and F. (1892–3, E. S. xvii. 171, xviii. 292), Daborne’s Share in the B. and F. Plays (1899, E. S. xxvi. 352); G. C. Macaulay, F. B.: a Critical Study (1883), B. and F. (1910, C. H. vi. 107); E. H. C. Oliphant, The Works of B. and F. (1890–2, E. S. xiv. 53, xv. 321, xvi. 180); E. Koeppel, Quellen-Studien zu den Dramen Ben Jonson’s, John Marston’s und B. und F.’s (1895, Münchener Beiträge, xi); C. E. Norton, F. B.’s Letter to Ben Jonson (1896, Harvard Studies and Notes, v. 19); A. H. Thorndike, The Influence of B. and F. on Shakspere (1901); O. L. Hatcher, J. F.: a Study in Dramatic Method (1905); R. M. Alden, Introduction to B.’s Plays (1910, B. L.); C. M. Gayley, F. B.: Dramatist (1914); W. E. Farnham, Colloquial Contractions in B., F., Massinger and Shakespeare as a Test of Authorship (1916, M. L. A. xxxi. 326).

Bibliographies: A. C. Potter, A Bibl. of B. and F. (1890, Harvard Bibl. Contributions, 39); B. Leonhardt, Litteratur über B. und F. (1896, Anglia, xix. 36, 542).

The Woman Hater, c. 1606

S. R. 1607, May 20 (Buck). ‘A booke called “The Woman Hater” as it hath ben lately acted by the Children of Powles.’ Eleazar Edgar and Robert Jackson (Arber, iii. 349). [A note ‘Sir George Buckes hand alsoe to it’.]

1607. The Woman Hater. As it hath beene lately Acted by the Children of Paules. Sold by John Hodgets. [Prologue in prose.]

1607. R. R. sold by John Hodgets. [A reissue.]

S. R. 1613, April 19. Transfer of Edgar’s share to John Hodgettes (Arber, iii. 521).

1648.... As it hath beene Acted by his Majesties Servants with great Applause. Written by John Fletcher Gent. For Humphrey Moseley.

1649. The Woman Hater, or the Hungry Courtier. A Comedy ... Written by Francis Beamont and John Fletcher, Gent. For Humphrey Moseley. [A reissue. Prologue in verse, said by Fleay, i. 177, to be Davenant’s, and Epilogue, used also for The Noble Gentleman.]

Fleay, i. 177, and Gayley, 73, put the date in the spring of 1607, finding a reference in ‘a favourite on the sudden’ (I. iii) to the success of Robert Carr in taking the fancy of James at the tilt of 24 March 1607, to which Fleay adds that ‘another inundation’ (III. i) recalls a flood of 20 Jan. 1607. Neither argument is convincing, and it is not known that the Paul’s boys went on into 1607; they are last heard of in July 1606. The prologue expresses the author’s intention not to lose his ears, perhaps an allusion to Jonson’s and Chapman’s peril after Eastward Ho! in 1605. Gayley notes in II. iii what certainly looks like a reminiscence of Antony and Cleopatra, IV. xiv. 51 and xv. 87, but it is no easier to be precise about the date of Antony and Cleopatra than about that of The Woman Hater. The play is universally regarded as substantially Beaumont’s and the original prologue only speaks of a single author, but Davenant in 1649 evidently supposed it to be Fletcher’s, saying ‘full twenty yeares, he wore the bayes’. Boyle, Oliphant, Alden, and Gayley suggest among them III. i, ii; IV. ii; V. i, ii, v as scenes to which Fletcher or some other collaborator may have given touches.

The Knight of the Burning Pestle. 1607

1613. The Knight of the Burning Pestle. For Walter Burre. [Epistle to Robert Keysar, signed ‘W. B.’, Induction with Prologue, Epilogue.]

1635.... Full of Mirth and Delight. Written by Francis Beaumont and Iohn Fletcher, Gent. As it is now Acted by Her Maiesties Servants at the Private house in Drury Lane. N. O. for I. S. [Epistle to Readers, Prologue (from Lyly’s Sapho and Phaon).]

1635.... Francis Beamont....

Editions by F. W. Moorman (1898, T. D.), H. S. Murch (1908, Yale Studies, xxxiii), R. M. Alden (1910, B. L.), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).—Dissertations: R. Boyle, B. and F.’s K. B. P. (1889, E. S. xiii. 156); B. Leonhardt, Ueber B. und F.’s K. B. P. (1885, Annaberg programme), Die Text-Varianten von B. und F.’s K. B. P. (1896, Anglia, xix. 509).

The Epistle tells us that the play was ‘in eight daies ... begot and borne’, ‘exposed to the wide world, who ... utterly reiected it’, preserved by Keysar and sent to Burre, who had ‘fostred it priuately in my bosome these two yeares’. The play ‘hopes his father will beget him a yonger brother’. Burre adds, ‘Perhaps it will be thought to bee of the race of Don Quixote: we both may confidently sweare, it is his elder aboue a yeare’. The references to the actors in the induction as boys and the known connexion of Keysar with the Queen’s Revels fix the company. The date is more difficult. It cannot be earlier than 1607, since the reference to a play at the Red Bull in which the Sophy of Persia christens a child (IV. i. 46) is to Day’s Travels of Three English Brothers of that year. With other allusions, not in themselves conclusive, 1607 would agree well enough, notably with Ind. 8, ‘This seuen yeares there hath beene playes at this house’, for it was just seven years in the autumn of 1607 since Evans set up plays at the Blackfriars. The trouble is IV. i. 73, ‘Read the play of the Foure Prentices of London, where they tosse their pikes so’, for this implies that the Four Prentices was not merely produced but in print, and the earliest extant edition is of 1615. It is, however, quite possible that the play may have been in print, even as far back as 1594 (cf. s.v. Heywood). Others put it, and with it the K. B. P., in 1610, in which case the production would have been at the Whitefriars, the history of which can only be traced back two or three years and not seven years before 1610. On the whole, I think the reference to Don Quixote in the Epistle is in favour of 1607 rather than 1610. It is, of course, conceivable that Burre only meant to claim that the K. B. P. was a year older than Thomas Shelton’s translation of Don Quixote, which was entered in S. R. on 19 Jan. 1611 and published in 1612. Even this brings us back to the very beginning of 1610, and the boast would have been a fairly idle one, as Shelton states in his preface that the translation was actually made ‘some five or six yeares agoe’. Shelton’s editor, Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, has shown that it was based on the Brussels edition of 1607. If we put it in 1608 and the K. B. P. in 1607 the year’s priority of the latter is preserved. Most certainly the K. B. P. was not prior to the Spanish Don Quixote of 1605. Its dependence on Cervantes is not such as necessarily to imply that Beaumont had read the romance, but he had certainly heard of its general drift and of the particular episodes of the inn taken for a castle and the barber’s basin. Fleay, Boyle, Moorman, Murch, and Alden are inclined to assign to Fletcher some or all of the scenes in which Jasper and Luce and Humphrey take part; but Macaulay, Oliphant and Gayley regard the play, except perhaps for a touch or two, as wholly Beaumont’s. Certainly the Epistle suggests that the play had but one ‘father’.

The Faithful Shepherdess. 1608–9

N.D. The Faithfull Shepherdesse. By John Fletcher. For R. Bonian and H. Walley. [Commendatory verses by N. F. (‘Nath. Field’, Q₂), Fr. Beaumont, Ben Jonson, G. Chapman; Dedicatory verses to Sir Walter Aston, Sir William Skipwith, Sir Robert Townsend, all signed ‘John Fletcher’; Epistle to Reader, signed ‘John Fletcher’.]

S. R. 1628, Dec. 8. Transfer from Walley to R. Meighen (Arber, iv. 206).

1629.... newly corrected ... T. C. for R. Meighen.

1634.... Acted at Somerset House before the King and Queene on Twelfe night last, 1633. And divers times since with great applause at the Private House in Blacke-Friers, by his Majesties Servants.... A. M. for Meighen. [Verses to Joseph Taylor, signed ‘Shakerley Marmion’, and Prologue, both for the performance of 6 Jan. 1634.]

1656; 1665.

Editions by F. W. Moorman (1897, T. D.), W. W. Greg (1908, Bullen, iii), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).

Jonson told Drummond in the winter of 1618–19 (Laing, 17) that ‘Flesher and Beaumont, ten yeers since, hath written the Faithfull Shipheardesse, a Tragicomedie, well done’. This gives us the date 1608–9, which there is nothing to contradict. The undated Q₁ may be put in 1609 or 1610, as Skipwith died on 3 May 1610 and the short partnership of the publishers is traceable from 22 Dec. 1608 to 14 Jan. 1610. It is, moreover, in Sir John Harington’s catalogue of his plays, which was made up in 1609 or 1610 (cf. ch. xxii). The presence of Field, Chapman, and Jonson amongst the verse-writers and the mentions in Beaumont’s verses of ‘the waxlights’ and of a boy dancing between the acts point to the Queen’s Revels as the producers. It is clear also from the verses that the play was damned, and that Fletcher alone, in spite of Drummond’s report, was the author. This is not doubted on internal grounds.

The Woman’s Prize, or, The Tamer Tamed. 1604 <

1647. The Womans Prize, or The Tamer Tam’d. A Comedy. [Part of F₁. Prologue and Epilogue.]

1679. [Part of F₂.]

Fleay, i. 198, Oliphant, and Thorndike, 70, accumulate inconclusive evidence bearing on the date, of which the most that can be said is that an answer to The Taming of the Shrew would have more point the nearer it came to the date of the original, and that the references to the siege of Ostend in I. iii would be topical during or not long after that siege, which ended on 8 Sept. 1604. On the other hand, Gayley (R. E. C. iii, lxvi) calls attention to possible reminiscences of Epicoene (1609) and Alchemist (1610). I see no justification for supposing that a play written in 1605 would undergo revision, as has been suggested, in 1610–14. A revival by the King’s in 1633 got them into some trouble with Sir Henry Herbert, who claimed the right to purge even an old play of ‘oaths, prophaness, and ribaldrye’ (Variorum, iii. 208). Possibly the play is also The Woman is too Hard for Him, which the King’s took to Court on 26 Nov. 1621 (Murray, ii. 193). But the original writing was not necessarily for this company. There is general agreement in assigning the play to Fletcher alone.

Philaster > 1610

S. R. 1620, Jan. 10 (Taverner). ‘A Play Called Philaster.’ Thomas Walkley (Arber, iii. 662).

1620. Phylaster, Or Loue lyes a Bleeding. Acted at the Globe by his Maiesties Seruants. Written by Francis Baymont and Iohn Fletcher. Gent. For Thomas Walkley.

1622.... As it hath beene diuerse times Acted, at the Globe, and Blacke-friers, by his Maiesties Seruants.... The Second Impression, corrected, and amended. For Thomas Walkley. [Epistle to the Reader by Walkley. Different text of I. i; V. iv, v.]

1628. A. M. for Richard Hawkins. [Epistle by the Stationer to the Understanding Gentry.]

1634; 1639; 1652; N.D. [1663]; 1687.

Editions by J. S. L. Strachey (1887, Mermaid, i), F. S. Boas (1898, T. D.), P. A. Daniel (1904, Variorum, i), A. H. Thorndike (1906, B. L.), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).—Dissertations: B. Leonhardt, Über die Beziehungen von B. und F.’s P. zu Shakespeare’s Hamlet und Cymbeline (1885, Anglia, viii. 424) and Die Text-Varianten von B. und F.’s P. (1896, Anglia, xix. 34).

The play is apparently referred to in John Davies of Hereford, Scourge of Folly (S. R. 8 Oct. 1610), ep. 206:

If so, the date 1608–10 is suggested, and I do not think that it is possible to be more precise. No trustworthy argument can be based with Gayley, 342, on the fact that Davies’s epigram follows that praising Ostler as ‘Roscius’ and ‘sole king of actors’; and I fear that the view of Thorndike, 65, that 1608 is a ‘probable’ conjecture is biased by a desire to assume priority to Cymbeline. There were two Court performances in the winter of 1612–13, and Fleay, i. 189, suggests that the versions of I. i and V. iv, v which appear in Q₁ were made for these. The epistle to Q₂ describes them as ‘dangerous and gaping wounds ... received in the first impression’. There is general agreement that most of the play, whether Davies knew it or not, is Beaumont’s. Most critics assign V. iii, iv and some the whole or parts of I. i, ii, II. ii, iv, and III. ii to Fletcher.

The Coxcomb. 1608 < > 10

1647. The Coxcomb. [Part of F₁. Prologue and Epilogue.]

1679. [Part of F₂. ‘The Principal Actors were Nathan Field, Joseph Taylor, Giles Gary, Emanuel Read, Rich. Allen, Hugh Atawell, Robert Benfeild, Will Barcksted.’]

Dissertation: A. S. W. Rosenbach, The Curious Impertinent in English Dramatic Literature (1902, M. L. N. xvii. 179).

The play was given at Court by the Queen’s Revels on 2 or 3 Nov. 1612. It passed, doubtless, through the Lady Elizabeth’s, to whom the actor-list probably belongs, to the King’s, who took it to Court on 5 March 1622 (Murray, ii. 193) and again on 17 Nov. 1636 (Cunningham, xxiv). There was thus more than one opportunity for the prologue, which speaks of the play as having a mixed reception at first, partly because of its length, then ‘long forgot’, and now revived and shortened. The original date may be between the issue in 1608 of Baudouin’s French translation of The Curious Impertinent from Don Quixote, which in original or translation suggested its plot, and Jonson’s Alchemist (1610), IV. vii. 39, ‘You are ... a Don Quixote. Or a Knight o’ the curious coxcombe’. The prologue refers to ‘makers’, and there is fair agreement in giving some or all of I. iv, vi, II. iv, III. iii, and V. ii to Beaumont and the rest to Fletcher. Fleay, Boyle, Oliphant, and Gayley think that there has been revision by a later writer, perhaps Massinger or W. Rowley.

The Maid’s Tragedy > 1611

S. R. 1619, April 28 (Buck). ‘A play Called The maides tragedy.’ Higgenbotham and Constable (Arber, iii. 647).

1619. The Maides Tragedy. As it hath beene divers times Acted at the Blacke-friers by the King’s Maiesties Seruants. For Francis Constable.

1622.... Newly perused, augmented, and inlarged, This second Impression. For Francis Constable.

1630.... Written by Francis Beaumont, and Iohn Fletcher Gentlemen. The Third Impression, Reuised and Refined. A. M. for Richard Hawkins.

1638; 1641; 1650 [1660?]; 1661.

Editions by J. S. L. Strachey (1887, Mermaid, i), P. A. Daniel (1904, Variorum, i), A. H. Thorndike (1906, B. L.), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).—Dissertation: B. Leonhardt, Die Text-Varianten in B. und F.’s M. T. (1900, Anglia, xxiii. 14).

The play must have been known by 31 Oct. 1611 when Buck named the Second Maiden’s Tragedy (q.v.) after it, and it was given at Court during 1612–13. An inferior limit is not attainable and any date within c. 1608–11 is possible. Gayley, 349, asks us to accept the play as more mature than, and therefore later than, Philaster. Fleay, i. 192, thinks that the mask in I. ii was added after the floods in the winter of 1612, but you cannot bring Neptune into a mask without mention of floods. As to authorship there is some division of opinion, especially on II. ii and IV. iii; subject thereto, a balance of opinion gives I, II, III, IV. ii, iv and V. iv to Beaumont, and only IV. i and V. i, ii, iii to Fletcher.

An episode (I. ii) consists of a mask at the wedding of Amintor and Evadne, with an introductory dialogue between Calianax, Diagoras, who keeps the doors, and guests desiring admission. ‘The ladies are all placed above,’ says Diagoras, ‘save those that come in the King’s troop.’ Calianax has an ‘office’, evidently as Chamberlain. ‘He would run raging among them, and break a dozen wiser heads than his own in the twinkling of an eye.’

The maskers are Proteus and other sea-gods; the presenters Night, Cinthia, Neptune, Aeolus, Favonius, and other winds, who ‘rise’ or come ‘out of a rock’. There are two ‘measures’ between hymeneal songs, but no mention of taking out ladies.

In an earlier passage (I. i. 9) a poet says of masks, ‘They must commend their King, and speak in praise Of the Assembly, bless the Bride and Bridegroom, In person of some God; th’are tyed to rules Of flattery’.

A King and No King. 1611

S. R. 1618, Aug. 7 (Buck). ‘A play Called A king and noe kinge.’ Blount (Arber, iii. 631).

1619. A King and no King. Acted at the Globe, by his Maiesties Seruants: Written by Francis Beamount and Iohn Flecher. For Thomas Walkley. [Epistle to Sir Henry Nevill, signed ‘Thomas Walkley’.]

1625.... Acted at the Blacke-Fryars, by his Maiesties Seruants. And now the second time Printed, according to the true Copie.... For Thomas Walkley.

1631; 1639; 1655; 1661; 1676.

Editions by R. W. Bond (1904, Bullen, i), R. M. Alden (1910, B. L.).—Dissertation: B. Leonhardt, Die Text-Varianten von B.’s und F.’s A K. and No K. (1903, Anglia, xxvi. 313).

This is a fixed point, both for date and authorship, in the history of the collaboration. Herbert records (Var. iii. 263) that it was ‘allowed to be acted in 1611’ by Sir George Buck. It was in fact acted at Court by the King’s on 26 Dec. 1611 and again during 1612–13. A performance at Hampton Court on 10 Jan. 1637 is also upon record (Cunningham, xxv). The epistle, which tells us that the publisher received the play from Nevill, speaks of ‘the authors’ and of their ‘future labours’; rather oddly, as Beaumont was dead. There is practical unanimity in assigning I, II, III, IV. iv, and V. ii, iv to Beaumont and IV. i, ii, iii and V. i, iii to Fletcher.

Cupid’s Revenge > 1612

S. R. 1615, April 24 (Buck). ‘A play called Cupid’s revenge.’ Josias Harrison (Arber, iii. 566).

1615. Cupid’s Revenge. As it hath beene diuers times Acted by the Children of her Maiesties Reuels. By Iohn Fletcher. Thomas Creede for Josias Harrison. [Epistle by Printer to Reader.]

1630.... As it was often Acted (with great applause) by the Children of the Reuells. Written by Fran. Beaumont & Io. Fletcher. The second edition. For Thomas Jones.

1635.... The third Edition. A. M.

The play was given by the Queen’s Revels at Court on 5 Jan. 1612, 1 Jan. 1613, and either 9 Jan. or 27 Feb. 1613. It was revived by the Lady Elizabeth’s at Court on 28 Dec. 1624, and is in the Cockpit list of 1639. It cannot therefore be later than 1611–12, while no close inferior limit can be fixed. Fleay, i. 187, argues that it has been altered for Court, chiefly by turning a wicked king, queen, and prince into a duke, duchess, and marquis. I doubt if this implies revision as distinct from censorship, and in any case it does not, as Fleay suggests, imply the intervention of a reviser other than the original authors. The suggestion has led to chaos in the distribution of authorship, since various critics have introduced Daborne, Field, and Massinger as possible collaborators or revisers. The stationer speaks of a single ‘author’, meaning Fletcher, but says he was ‘not acquainted with him’. And the critics at least agree in finding both Beaumont and Fletcher, pretty well throughout.

The Captain. 1609 < > 12

1647. The Captain. [Part of F₁. Prologue and Epilogue.]

1679. The Captain. A Comedy. [Part of F₂.] ‘The principal Actors were, Richard Burbadge, Henry Condel, William Ostler, Alexander Cooke.’

The play was given by the King’s at Court during 1612–13, and presumably falls between that date and the admission of Ostler to the company in 1609. The 1679 print, by a confusion, gives the scene as ‘Venice, Spain’, but this hardly justifies the suggestion of Fleay, i. 195, that we have a version of Fletcher’s work altered for the Court by Barnes. He had formerly conjectured collaboration between Fletcher and Jonson (E. S. ix. 18). The prologue speaks of ‘the author’; Fleay thinks that the mention of ‘twelve pence’ as the price of a seat indicates a revival. Several critics find Massinger; Oliphant finds Rowley; and Boyle and Oliphant find Beaumont, as did Macaulay, 196, in 1883, but apparently not in 1910 (C. H. vi. 137).

Two Noble Kinsmen. 1613

S. R. 1634, April 8 (Herbert). ‘A Tragicomedy called the two noble kinsmen by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare.’ John Waterson (Arber, iv. 316).

1634. The Two Noble Kinsmen: Presented at the Black-friers by the Kings Maiesties servants, with great applause: Written by the memorable Worthies of their time; Mr. John Fletcher, and Mr. William Shakspeare. Gent. Tho. Cotes for Iohn Waterson. [Prologue and Epilogue.]

1679. [Part of F₂ of Beaumont and Fletcher.]

Editions by W. W. Skeat (1875), H. Littledale (1876–85, N. S. S.), C. H. Herford (1897, T. D.), J. S. Farmer (1910, T. F. T.), and with Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, Sh. Apocrypha, and sometimes Works of Shakespeare.—Dissertations: W. Spalding, A Letter on Sh.’s Authorship of T. N. K. (1833; 1876, N. S. S.); S. Hickson, The Shares of Sh. and F. in T. N. K. (1847, Westminster Review, xlvii. 59; 1874, N. S. S. Trans. 25*, with additions by F. G. Fleay and F. J. Furnivall); N. Delius, Die angebliche Autorschaft des T. N. K. (1878, Jahrbuch, xiii. 16); R. Boyle, Sh. und die beiden edlen Vettern (1881, E. S. iv. 34), On Massinger and T. N. K. (1882, N. S. S. Trans. 371); T. Bierfreund, Palamon og Arcite (1891); E. H. C. Oliphant (1892, E. S. xv. 323); B. Leuschner, Über das Verhältniss von T. N. K. zu Chaucer’s Knightes Tale (1903, Halle diss.); O. Petersen, The T. N. K. (1914, Anglia, xxxviii. 213); H. D. Sykes, The T. N. K. (1916, M. L. R. xi. 136); A. H. Cruickshank, Massinger and T. N. K. (1922).

The date of T. N. K. is fairly well fixed to 1613 by its adaptation of Beaumont’s wedding mask of Shrovetide in that year; there would be a confirmation in Jonson, Bartholomew Fair (1614), iv. 3,

did not the juxtaposition of the Arcadia suggest that the allusion may be, not to the Palamon of T. N. K. but to the Palaemon of Daniel’s The Queen’s Arcadia (1606). In spite of the evidence of the t.p. attempts have been made to substitute Beaumont, or, more persistently, Massinger, for Shakespeare as Fletcher’s collaborator. This question can only be discussed effectively in connexion with Shakespeare.

The Honest Man’s Fortune. 1613

[MS.] Dyce MS. 9, formerly in Heber collection.

1647. The Honest Mans Fortune. [Part of F₁. After play, verses ‘Upon an Honest Mans Fortune. By M^r. John Fletcher’, beginning ‘You that can look through Heaven, and tell the Stars’.]

1679. The Honest Man’s Fortune. A Tragicomedie. [Part of F₂. ‘The principal actors were Nathan Field, Joseph Taylor, Rob. Benfield, Will Eglestone, Emanuel Read, Thomas Basse.’]

Dissertation: K. Richter, H. M. F. und seine Quellen (1905, Halle diss.).

On the fly-leaf of the MS. is ‘The Honest Man’s Fortune, Plaide in the yeare 1613’, and in another hand at the end of the text, ‘This Play, being an olde one, and the Originall lost was reallow’d by mee this 8 Febru. 1624. Att the intreaty of Mr. .’ The last word is torn off, but a third hand has added ‘Taylor’. The MS. contains some alterations, partly by the licenser, partly by the stage-manager or prompter. The latter include the names of three actors, ‘G[eorge] Ver[non]’, ‘J: R Cro’ and ‘G. Rick’. The ending of the last scene in the MS. differs from that of the Ff. The endorsement is confirmed by Herbert’s entry in his diary (Variorum, iii. 229), ‘For the King’s company. An olde play called The Honest Mans Fortune, the originall being lost, was re-allowed by mee at M^r. Taylor’s intreaty, and on condition to give mee a booke [The Arcadia], this 8 Februa. 1624.’ The actor-list suggests that the original performers were Lady Elizabeth’s men, after the Queen’s Revels had joined them in March 1613. Fleay, i. 196, suggests that this is the play by Fletcher, Field, Massinger, and Daborne which is the subject of some of Henslowe’s correspondence and was finally delivered on 5 Aug. 1613 (Greg, Henslowe Papers, 65, 90). Attempts to combine this indication with stylistic evidence have led the critics to some agreement that Fletcher is only responsible for V and that Massinger is to be found in III, and for the rest into a quagmire of conjecture amongst the names of Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger, Field, Daborne, Tourneur, and Cartwright. The appended verses of the Ff. are not in the Dyce MS., but they are in Addl. MS. 25707, f. 66, and Bodl. Rawlinson Poet. MS. 160, f. 20, where they are ascribed to Fletcher, and in Beaumont’s Poems (1653).

Bonduca. 1609 < > 14

1647. Bonduca, A Tragedy. [Part of F₁.]

1679. [Part of F₂. ‘The Principal Actors were Richard Burbadge, Henry Condel, William Eglestone, Nich. Toolie, William Ostler, John Lowin, John Underwood, Richard Robinson.’]

Dissertations: B. Leonhardt, Die Text-Varianten von B. und F.’s B. (1898, Anglia, xx. 421) and Bonduca (E. S. xiii. 36).

The actor-list is of the King’s men between 1609–11 or between 1613–14, as these are the only periods during which Ecclestone and Ostler can have played together. The authorship is generally regarded as substantially Fletcher’s; and the occasional use of rhyme in II. i and IV. iv hardly justifies Oliphant’s theory of an earlier version by Beaumont, or the ascription by Fleay and Macaulay of these scenes to Field, whose connexion with the King’s does not seem to antedate 1616.

Monsieur Thomas. 1610 < > 16

S. R. 1639, Jan. 22 (Wykes). ‘A Comedy called Monsieur Thomas, by master John Fletcher.’ Waterson (Arber, iv. 451).

1639. Monsieur Thomas. A Comedy. Acted at the Private House in Blacke Fryers. The Author, Iohn Fletcher, Gent. Thomas Harper for John Waterson. [Epistle to Charles Cotton, signed ‘Richard Brome’ and commendatory verses by the same.]

N.D. [c. 1661]. Fathers Own Son. A Comedy. Formerly Acted at the Private House in Black Fryers; and now at the Theatre in Vere Street by His Majesties Servants. The Author John Fletcher Gent. For Robert Crofts. [Reissue with fresh t.p.]

Edition by R. G. Martin (1912, Bullen, iv).—Dissertations: H. Guskar, Fletcher’s Monsieur Thomas und seine Quellen (1905, Anglia, xxviii. 397; xxix. 1); A. L. Stiefel, Zur Quellenfrage von John Fletcher’s Monsieur Thomas (1906, E. S. xxxvi. 238); O. L. Hatcher, The Sources of Fletcher’s Monsieur Thomas (1907, Anglia, xxx. 89).

The title-page printed at the time of the revival by the King’s men of the Restoration enables us to identify Monsieur Thomas with the Father’s Own Son of the Cockpit repertory in 1639, and like the other plays of the Beaumont and Fletcher series in that repertory it was probably written by 1616, and either for the Queen’s Revels or for the Lady Elizabeth’s. An allusion in II. iii. 104 to ‘all the feathers in the Friars’ might indicate production at Porter’s Hall in the Blackfriars about that year. The play cannot be earlier than its source, Part ii (1610) of H. d’Urfé’s Astrée, and by 1610 the more permanent Blackfriars house had passed to the King’s, by whom the performances referred to on the original title-page must therefore have been given. Perhaps the explanation is that there had been some misunderstanding about the distribution of the Lady Elizabeth’s men’s plays between the King’s and the Cockpit, and that a revival by the King’s in 1639 led the Cockpit managers to get the Lord Chamberlain’s order of 10 Aug. 1639 (Variorum, iii. 159) appropriating their repertory to them. The authorship is ascribed with general assent to Fletcher alone.

Valentinian. 1610 < > 14

1647. The Tragedy of Valentinian. [Part of F₁. Epilogue.]

1679. [Part of F₂. ‘The principal Actors were, Richard Burbadge, Henry Condel, John Lowin, William Ostler, John Underwood.’]

Edition by R. G. Martin (1912, Bullen, iv).

The actor-list is of the King’s men before the death of Ostler on 16 Dec. 1614, and the play must fall between this date and the publication of its source, Part ii (1610) of H. d’Urfé’s Astrée. There is general agreement in assigning it to Fletcher alone.

Wit Without Money, c. 1614

S. R. 1639, April 25 (Wykes). ‘These fiue playes ... Witt without money.’ Crooke and William Cooke (Arber, iv. 464).

1639. Wit Without Money. A Comedie, As it hath beene Presented with good Applause at the private house in Drurie Lane, by her Majesties Servants. Written by Francis Beamount and John Flecher. Gent. Thomas Cotes for Andrew Crooke and William Cooke.

1661.... The Second Impression Corrected. For Andrew Crooke.

Edition by R. B. McKerrow (1905, Bullen, ii).

Allusions to the New River opened in 1613 (IV. v. 61) and to an alleged Sussex dragon of Aug. 1614 (II. iv. 53) suggest production not long after the latter date. There is general agreement in assigning the play to Fletcher alone. It passed into the Cockpit repertory and was played there both by Queen Henrietta’s men and in 1637 by Beeston’s boys (Variorum, iii. 159, 239). Probably, therefore, it was written for the Lady Elizabeth’s.

The Scornful Lady. 1613 < > 17

S. R. 1616, March 19 (Buck). ‘A plaie called The scornefull ladie written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher.’ Miles Partriche (Arber, iii. 585).

1616. The Scornful Ladie. A Comedie. As it was Acted (with great applause) by the Children of Her Maiesties Reuels in the Blacke-Fryers. Written by Fra. Beaumont and Io. Fletcher, Gent. For Miles Partriche.

1625.... As it was now lately Acted (with great applause) by the Kings Maiesties seruants, at the Blacke-Fryers.... For M. P., sold by Thomas Jones.

1630, 1635, 1639, 1651 (bis).

Edition by R. W. Bond (1904, Bullen, i).

References to ‘talk of the Cleve wars’ (V. iii. 66) and ‘some cast Cleve captain’ (V. iv. 54) cannot be earlier than 1609 when the wars broke out after the death of the Duke of Cleves on 25 March, and there can hardly have been ‘cast’ captains until some time after July 1610 when English troops first took part. Fleay, i. 181, calls attention to an allusion to the binding by itself of the Apocrypha (I. ii. 46) which was discussed for the A. V. and the Douay Version, both completed in 1610; and Gayley to a reminiscence (IV. i. 341) of Epicoene which, however, was acted in 1609, not, as Gayley thinks, 1610. None of these indications, however, are of much importance in view of another traced by Gayley (III. ii. 17):

Don Diego Sarmiento’s negotiations for a Spanish match with Prince Charles began on 27 May 1613. The play must therefore be 1613–16. In any case the ‘Blackfriars’ of the title-page must be the Porter’s Hall house of 1615–17. Even if the end of 1609 were a possible date, Murray, i. 153, is wrong in supposing that the Revels were then at Blackfriars. There is fair unanimity in assigning I, the whole or part of II, and V. ii to Beaumont, and the rest to Fletcher, but Bond and Gayley suggest that III. i, at least, might be Massinger’s.

Thierry and Theodoret (?)

1621. The Tragedy of Thierry King of France, and his Brother Theodoret. As it was diuerse times acted at the Blacke-Friers by the Kings Maiesties Seruants. For Thomas Walkley.

1648.... Written by John Fletcher Gent. For Humphrey Moseley.

1649.... Written by Fracis Beamont and John Fletcher Gent. For Humphrey Moseley. [A reissue, with Prologue and Epilogue, not written for the play; cf. Fleay, i. 205.]

Dissertation: B. Leonhardt, Die Text-Varianten von B. und F.’s T. and T. (1903, Anglia, xxvi. 345).

Fleay, i. 205, dates the play c. 1617, supposing it to be a satire on the French Court, and the name De Vitry to be that of the slayer of the Maréchal d’Ancre. Thorndike, 79, has little difficulty in disposing of this theory, although it may be pointed out that the Privy Council did in fact intervene to suppress a play about the Maréchal in 1617 (Gildersleeve, 113); but he is less successful in attempting to show any special plausibility in a date as early as 1607. A former conjecture by Fleay (E. S. ix. 21) that III and V. i are fragments of the anonymous Branholt of the Admiral’s in 1597 may also be dismissed with Greg (Henslowe, ii. 188). Most critics find, in addition to Fletcher, Massinger, as collaborator or reviser, according to the date given to the play, and some add Field or Daborne. Oliphant and Thorndike find Beaumont. So did Macaulay, 196, in 1883, but apparently not in 1910 (C. H. vi. 138).

The Nightwalker or The Little Thief (?)

S. R. 25 April 1639 (Wykes). ‘These fiue playes ... Night walters.... Crooke and William Cooke (Arber, iv. 464).

1640. The Night-Walker, or the Little Theife. A Comedy, As it was presented by her Majesties Servants, at the Private House in Drury Lane. Written by John Fletcher. Gent. Tho. Cotes for Andrew Crooke and William Cooke. [Epistle to William Hudson, signed ‘A. C.’.]

1661. For Andrew Crook.

Herbert licensed this as ‘a play of Fletchers corrected by Sherley’ on 11 May 1633 and it was played at Court by Queen Henrietta’s men on 30 Jan. 1634 (Variorum, iii. 236). The only justification for placing Fletcher’s version earlier than 1616 is the suspicion that the only plays of Beaumont or Fletcher which passed to the Cockpit repertory were some of those written for the Queen’s Revels or the Lady Elizabeth’s before that date.

Four Plays in One (?)

1647. Four Plays, or Moral Representations in One. [Part of F₁. Induction with 2 Prologues, The Triumph of Honour, the Triumph of Love with Prologue, the Triumph of Death with Prologue, the Triumph of Time with Prologue, Epilogue.]

Dissertation: W. J. Lawrence, The Date of F. P. in O. (T. L. S. 11 Dec. 1919).

This does not seem to have passed to the King’s men or the Cockpit, and cannot be assigned to any particular company. It has been supposed to be a boys’ play, presumably because it has much music and dancing. It has also much pageantry in dumb-shows and so forth and stage machinery. Conceivably it might have been written for private performance in place of a mask. Time, in particular, has much the form of a mask, with antimask. But composite plays of this type were well known on the public stage. There is no clear indication of date. Fleay, i. 179, suggested 1608 because The Yorkshire Tragedy, printed that year, is also described in its heading as ‘one of the Four Plays in One’, but presumably it belonged to another series. Thorndike, 85, points out that the antimask established itself in Court masks in 1608. Gayley, 301, puts Death and Time in 1610, because he thinks that they fall stylistically between The Faithfull Shepherdess and Philaster, and the rest in 1612, because he thinks they are Field’s and that they cannot be before 1611, since they are not mentioned, like Amends for Ladies, as forthcoming in the epistle to Woman a Weathercock in that year. This hardly bears analysis, and indeed Field is regarded as the author of the Induction and Honour only by Oliphant and Gayley and of Love only by Gayley himself. All these are generally assigned to Beaumont, and Death and Time universally to Fletcher. Lawrence’s attempt to attach the piece to the wedding festivities of 1612–13 does not seem to me at all convincing.

Love’s Cure; or, The Martial Maid (?)

1647. Loves Cure, or the Martial Maid. [Part of F₁. A Prologue at the reviving of this Play. Epilogue.]

1679. Loves Cure, or the Martial Maid A Comedy. [Part of F₂.]

Dissertation: A. L. Stiefel, Die Nachahmung spanischer Komödien in England (1897, Archiv, xcix. 271).

The prologue, evidently later than Fletcher’s death in 1625, clearly assigns the authorship to Beaumont and Fletcher, although the epilogue, of uncertain date, speaks of ‘our author’. This is the only sound reason for thinking that the original composition was in Beaumont’s lifetime. The internal evidence for an early date cited by Fleay, i. 180, and Thorndike, 72, becomes trivial when we eliminate what merely fixes the historic time of the play to 1604–9, and proves nothing as to the time of composition. On the other hand, II. ii,

points to a date later than the winter of 1621, as I cannot trace any earlier great frost in which a Muscovite embassy can have been in London (S. P. D. Jac. I, cxxiii, 11, 100; cxxiv. 40). Further, the critics seem confident that the dominant hand in the play as it exists is Massinger’s, and that Beaumont and Fletcher show, if at all, faintly through his revision. The play belonged to the repertory of the King’s men by 1641 (M. S. C. i. 364).

Wit at Several Weapons (?)

1647. Wit at several weapons. A Comedy. [Part of F₁. The epilogue at the reviving of this Play.]

1679. [Part of F₂.]

The history of the play is very obscure. It is neither in the Cockpit repertory of 1639 nor in that of the King’s in 1641, and the guesses of Fleay, i. 218, that it may be The Devil of Dowgate or Usury Put to Use, licensed by Herbert for the King’s on 17 Oct. 1623, and The Buck is a Thief, played at Court by the same men on 28 Dec. 1623, are unsupported and mutually destructive. The epilogue, clearly written after the death of Fletcher, tells us that ‘’twas well receiv’d before’ and that Fletcher ‘had to do in’ it, and goes on to qualify this by adding—

The critics find varying amounts of Fletcher, with work of other hands, which some of them venture to identify as those of Middleton and Rowley. Oliphant, followed by Thorndike, 87, finds Beaumont, and the latter points to allusions which are not inconsistent with, but certainly do not prove, 1609–10, or even an earlier date. Macaulay, 196, also found Beaumont in 1883, but seems to have retired upon Middleton and Rowley in 1910 (C. H. vi. 138).

The Faithful Friends (?)

[MS.] Dyce MS. 10, formerly in the Heber collection.

S. R. 1660, June 29. ‘The Faithfull Friend a Comedy, by Francis Beamont & John Fletcher’. H. Moseley (Eyre, ii. 271).

Edition by A. Dyce in Works (1812).

Fleay in 1889 (E. S. xiii. 32) saw evidence of a date in 1614 in certain possible allusions (I. i. 45–52, 123–6) to the Earl of Somerset and his wedding on 26 Dec. 1613, and suggested Field and Daborne as the authors. In 1891 (i. 81, 201) he gave the whole to Daborne, except IV. v, which he thought of later date, and supposed it to be the subject of Daborne’s letter of 11 March 1614 to Henslowe, which was in fact probably The Owl (Greg, Henslowe Papers, 82). Oliphant thinks it a revision by Massinger and Field in 1614 of a play by Beaumont and Fletcher, perhaps as early as 1604. With this exception no critic seems much to believe in the presence of Beaumont or Fletcher, and Boyle, who suggests Shirley, points out that the allusion in I. i. 124 to the relation between Philip III and the Duke of Lerma as in the past would come more naturally after Philip’s death in 1621 or at least after Lerma’s disgrace in 1618. The MS. is in various hands, one of which has made corrections. Some of these seem on internal evidence to have been due to suggestions of the censor, others to play-house exigencies.

Lost Play

Among plays entered in S. R. by Humphrey Moseley on 29 June 1660 (Eyre, ii. 271) is ‘The History of Madon King of Brittain, by F. Beamont’. Madan is a character in Locrine, but even Moseley can hardly have ascribed that long-printed play to Beaumont.

Inner Temple and Gray’s Inn Mask. 20 Feb. 1613

S. R. 1613, Feb. 27 (Nidd). ‘A booke called the [description] of the maske performed before the kinge by the gent. of the Myddle temple and Lincolns Inne with the maske of Grayes Inne and the Inner Temple.’ George Norton (Arber, iii. 516).

N.D. The Masque of the Inner Temple and Grayes Inn: Grayes Inne and the Inner Temple, presented before his Maiestie, the Queenes Maiestie, the Prince, Count Palatine and the Lady Elizabeth their Highnesses, in the Banquetting-house at Whitehall on Saturday the twentieth day of Februarie, 1612. F. K. for George Norton. [Epistle to Sir Francis Bacon and the Benchers.]

N.D. ... By Francis Beaumont, Gent. F. K. for George Norton.

1647. [Part of F₁.]

1653. Poems: by Francis Beaumont, Gent. [&c.] for Laurence Blaiklock. [The Masque is included.]

1653. Poems ... for William Hope. [A reissue.]

1660. Poems. The golden remains of those so much admired dramatick poets, Francis Beaumont & John Fletcher, Gent. [&c.] for William Hope. [A reissue.]

1679. [Part of F₂.]

The texts of 1647–79 give a shorter description than the original Q_q, and omit the epistle.

Edition in Nichols, James (1828), ii. 591.

For general notices of the wedding masks, see ch. xxiv and the account of Campion’s Lords’ Mask; but it may be noted that the narrative in the Mercure François gives a very inaccurate description of Beaumont’s work as left to us, introducing an Atlas and an Aletheia who find no places in the text.

The maskers, in carnation, were fifteen knights of Olympia; the musicians twelve priests of Jove; the presenters Mercury and Iris. There were two antimasks, Mercury’s of four Naiads, five Hyades, four Cupids, and four Statues, ‘not of one kinde or liverie (because that had been so much in use heretofore)’, and Iris’s of a ‘rurall company’ consisting of a Pedant, a May Lord and Lady, a Servingman and Chambermaid, a Country Clown or Shepherd and Country Wench, a Host and Hostess, a He Baboon and She Baboon, and a He Fool and She Fool ‘ushering them in’.

The locality was the Banqueting House at Whitehall. The Hall was originally appointed, and on Shrove-Tuesday, 16 Feb., the mask came by water from Winchester House in the royal barge, attended by many gentlemen of the Inns in other barges. They landed at the Privy Stairs, watched by the King and princes from the Privy Gallery, and were conducted to the Vestry. But the actual mask was put off until 20 Feb., in view of the press in the Hall, and then given in Banqueting House. Beaumont’s description passes lightly over this contretemps, but cf. infra.

The ‘fabricke’ was a mountain, with separate ‘traverses’ discovering its lower and its higher slopes. From the former issued the presenters and antimasks, whose ‘measures’ were both encored by the King, but unluckily ‘one of the Statuaes by that time was undressed’. The latter bore the ‘maine masque’ in two pavilions before the altar of Jupiter. The maskers descended, danced two measures, then took their ladies to dance galliards, durets, corantoes, &c., then danced ‘their parting measure’ and ascended.

Phineas Pett, Master of the Shipwrights’ Company in 1613, relates (Archaeologia, xii. 266) that he was

‘intreated by divers gentlemen of the inns of business, whereof Sir Francis Bacon was chief, to attend the bringing of a mask by water in the night from St. Mary Over’s to Whitehall in some of the gallies; but the tide falling out very contrary and the company attending the maskers very unruly, the project could not be performed so exactly as was purposed and expected. But yet they were safely landed at the plying stairs at Whitehall, for which my paines the gentlemen gave me a fair recompence.’

Chamberlain (Birch, i. 227) says:

‘On Tuesday it came to Gray’s Inn and the Inner Temple’s turn to come with their mask, whereof Sir Francis Bacon was the chief contriver; and because the former came on horseback and in open chariots, they made choice to come by water from Winchester Place, in Southwark, which suited well with their device, which was the marriage of the river of Thames to the Rhine; and their show by water was very gallant, by reason of infinite store of lights, very curiously set and placed, and many boats and barges, with devices of light and lamps, with three peals of ordnance, one at their taking water, another in the Temple garden, and the last at their landing; which passage by water cost them better than three hundred pounds. They were received at the Privy Stairs, and great expectation there was that they should every way excel their competitors that went before them; both in device, daintiness of apparel, and, above all, in dancing, wherein they are held excellent, and esteemed for the properer men. But by what ill planet it fell out, I know not, they came home as they went, without doing anything; the reason whereof I cannot yet learn thoroughly, but only that the hall was so full that it was not possible to avoid it, or make room for them; besides that, most of the ladies were in the galleries to see them land, and could not get in.

But the worst of all was, that the King was so wearied and sleepy, with sitting up almost two whole nights before, that he had no edge to it. Whereupon, Sir Francis Bacon adventured to entreat of his majesty that by this difference he would not, as it were, bury them quick; and I hear the King should answer, that then they must bury him quick, for he could last no longer, but withal gave them very good words, and appointed them to come again on Saturday. But the grace of their mask is quite gone, when their apparel hath been already showed, and their devices vented, so that how it will fall out God knows, for they are much discouraged and out of countenance, and the world says it comes to pass after the old proverb, the properer man the worse luck.’

In a later letter (Birch, i. 229) Chamberlain concludes the story:

‘And our Gray’s Inn men and the Inner Templars were nothing discouraged, for all the first dodge, but on Saturday last performed their parts exceeding well and with great applause and approbation, both from the King and all the company.’

In a third letter, to Winwood (iii, 435), he describes the adventures of the mask more briefly, and adds the detail that the performance was

‘in the new bankquetting house, which for a kind of amends was granted to them, though with much repining and contradiction of their emulators.’

Chamberlain refers to the ‘new’ room of 1607, and not to that just put up for the wedding. This was used for the banquet. Foscarini reports (V. P. xii. 532) that:

‘After the ballet was over their Majesties and their Highnesses passed into a great Hall especially built for the purpose, where were long tables laden with comfits and thousands of mottoes. After the King had made the round of the tables, everything was in a moment rapaciously swept away.’

The records of the Inns throw light on the finance and organization of the mask. From those of the Inner Temple (Inderwick, ii. 72, 76, 81, 92, 99) we learn that the Inn’s share of the cost was ‘not so little as 1200^li’, that there were payments to Lewis Hele, Nicholas Polhill, and Fenner, and for ‘scarlet for the marshal of the mask’, that there was a rehearsal for the benchers at Ely House, and that funds were raised up to 1616 by assessments of £2 and £1 and by assigning the revenue derived from admission fees to chambers. Those of Gray’s Inn (Fletcher, 201–8) contain an order for such things to be bought ‘as M^r. Solicitor [Bacon] shall thinke fitt’. One Will Gerrard was appointed Treasurer, and an assessment of from £1 to £4 according to status was to be made for a sum equal to that raised by the Inner Temple. There was evidently some difficulty in liquidating the bills. In May 1613 an order was made ‘that the gent. late actors in the maske at the court shall bring in all ther masking apparrel w^ch they had of the howse charge ... or else the value therof’. In June a further order was drafted and then stayed, calling attention to the ‘sad contempts’ of those affected by the former, ‘albeit none of them did contribute anything to the charge’. Each suit had cost 100 marks. The offenders were to be discommonsed. In November and again in the following February it was found necessary to appropriate admission fees towards the debt.

RICHARD BERNARD (1568–1641).

The translator was born at Epworth, Lincolnshire, took his M.A. from Christ’s, Cambridge, in 1598, and became incumbent successively of Worksop, Notts., and Batcombe, Somerset.

Terence in English > 1598

1598. Terence in English. Fabulae comici facetissimi et elegantissimi poetae Terentii omnes Anglice factae primumque hac nova forma nunc editae: opera ac industria R. B. in Axholmiensi insula Lincolnsherii Epwortheatis. John Legat, Cambridge. [Epistle to Christopher and other sons of Sir W. Wray and nephews of Lady Bowes and Lady St. Paul, signed by ‘Richard Bernard’, and dated from Epworth, 30 May; Epistle to Reader. Includes Adelphi, Andria, Eunuchus, Heautontimorumenus, Hecyra, Phormio.]

1607.... Secunda editio multo emendatior ... John Legat.

1614, 1629, 1641.

WILLIAM BIRD (>1597–1619<).

One of the Admiral’s men (cf. ch. xiii), who collaborated with S. Rowley (q.v.) in Judas (1601) and in additions to Dr. Faustus in 1602.

RICHARD BOWER (?-1561).

On his Mastership of the Chapel, cf. ch. xii. He has been supposed to be the R. B. who wrote Apius and Virginia, and his hand has also been sought in the anonymous Clyomon and Clamydes and Common Conditions.

SAMUEL BRANDON (?-?).

Beyond his play, nothing is known of him.

The Virtuous Octavia. 1594 < > 8

S. R. 1598, Oct. 5. ‘A booke, intituled, The Tragicomoedye of the vertuous Octavia, donne by Samuell Brandon.’ Ponsonby (Arber, iii. 127).

1598. The Tragicomoedi of the vertuous Octauia. Done by Samuel Brandon. For William Ponsonby. [Verses to Lady Lucia Audelay; All’autore, signed ‘Mia’; Prosopopeia al libro, signed ‘S. B.’; Argument. After text, Epistle to Mary Thinne, signed ‘S. B.’; Argument; verse epistles Octavia to Antonius and Antonius to Octavia.’]

Editions by R. B. McKerrow (1909, M. S. R.) and J. S. Farmer (1912, S. F. T.).

This is in the manner of Daniel’s Cleopatra (1594), and probably a closet drama.

NICHOLAS BRETON (c. 1545–c. 1626).

A poet and pamphleteer, who possibly contributed to the Elvetham entertainment (cf. ch. xxiv, C) in 1591.

ANTHONY BREWER (c. 1607).

Nothing is known of Brewer beyond his play, unless, as is possible, he is the ‘Anth. Brew’ who was acting c. 1624 at the Cockpit (cf. F. S. Boas, A Seventeenth Century Theatrical Repertoire in 3 Library for July 1917).

The Lovesick King. c. 1607

S. R. 1655, June 20. ‘A booke called The Lovesick King, an English tragicall history with the life & death of Cartis Mundy the faire Nunne of Winchester. Written by Anthony Brewer, gent.’ John Sweeting (Eyre, i. 486).

1655. The Lovesick King, An English Tragical History: With The Life and Death of Cartesmunda, the fair Nun of Winchester. Written by Anth. Brewer, Gent. For Robert Pollard, and John Sweeting.