Volume 3 / Book 5 — BOOK V PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS (continued 8)

Blount’s badge was the sun, Carey’s a burning heart, Cooke’s a hand and heart,

The three Knowles brothers bore golden boughs. A final section of the poem describes how, after the running, Sir Henry Lee, ‘knight of the Crown’, unarmed himself in a pavilion of Vesta, and petitioned the Queen to allow him to yield his ‘honourable place’ to Cumberland, to whom he gave his armour and lance, vowing to betake himself to orisons.

Segar gives a fuller account of Lee’s fantasy. He had vowed, ‘in the beginning of her happy reigne’, to present himself yearly in arms on the day of Elizabeth’s accession. The courtiers, incited by his example, had yearly assembled, ‘not vnlike to the antient Knighthood della Banda in Spaine’, but in 1590, ‘being now by age ouertaken’, Lee resigned his office to Cumberland. The ceremony took place ‘at the foot of the staires vnder her gallery-window in the Tilt-yard at Westminster’, where Elizabeth sat with the French ambassador, Viscount Turenne. A pavilion, representing the Temple of the Vestal Virgins, arose out of the earth. Within was an altar, with gifts for the queen; before the door a crowned pillar, embraced by an eglantine, and bearing a complimentary inscription. As the knights approached, ‘M. Hales her maiesties seruant’ sang verses beginning:

The vestals then gave the Queen a veil and a cloak and safeguard, the buttons of which bore the ‘emprezes’ or ‘badges’ of many nobles, friends of Lee, each fixed to an embroidered pillar, the last being ‘like the character of &c.’ Finally Lee doffed his armour, presented Cumberland, armed and horsed him, and himself donned a side-coat of black velvet and a buttoned cap of the country fashion. ‘After all these ceremonies, for diuers dayes hee ware vpon his cloake a crowne embrodered, with a certaine motto or deuice, but what his intention therein was, himselfe best knoweth.’

The Queen appointed Lee to appear yearly at the exercises, ‘to see, suruey, and as one most carefull and skilfull to direct them’. Segar dwells on Lee’s virtues and valour, and concludes by stating that the annual actions had been performed by 1 Duke, 19 Earls, 27 Barons, 4 Knights of the Garter, and above 150 other Knights and Esquires.

On 20 Nov. 1590 Richard Brakinbury wrote to Lord Talbot (Lodge, ii. 419): ‘These sports were great, and done in costly sort, to her Majesty’s liking, and their great cost. To express every part, with sundry devices, is more fit for them that delight in them, than for me, who esteemeth little such vanities, I thank God.’

P. A. Daniel (Athenaeum for 8 Feb. 1890) notes that a suit of armour in Lord Hothfield’s collection, which once belonged to Cumberland and is represented in certain portraits of him, is probably the identical suit given him by Lee, as it bears a monogram of Lee’s name.

There has been some controversy about the authorship of the verses sung by ‘M. Hales’, who was Robert Hales, a lutenist. They appear, headed ‘A Sonnet’, and unsigned, on a page at the end of Polyhymnia, and have therefore been ascribed to Peele. The evidence, though inconclusive, is better than the wanton conjecture which led Mr. Bond to transfer them to Lyly (Works, i. 410). But a different version in Rawl. Poet. MS. 148, f. 19, is subscribed ‘q^d S^r Henry Leigh’, and some resemblances of expression are to be found in other verses assigned to Lee in R. Dowland, Musicall Banquet (1610), No. 8 (Bond, i. 517; Fellowes, 459). It is not impossible that Lee himself may have been the author. One of the pieces in the Ferrers MS. (vide p. 406 infra) refers to his ‘himmes & songes’. If the verses, which also appear anonymously in J. Dowland, First Booke of Songs or Ayres (1597, Fellowes, 418), are really Lee’s, Wyatt’s nephew was no contemptible poet. Finally, there are echoes of the same theme in yet another set of anonymous verses in J. Dowland, Second Book of Airs (1600, Fellowes, 422), which are evidently addressed to Lee.

The Second Woodstock Entertainment, 20 Sept. 1592, and Other Fragments

[MSS.] (a) Ferrers MS., a collection made by Henry Ferrers of Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire (1549–1633).

(b) Inner Temple Petyt MS. 538, 43, ff. 284–363.

[A collection of verses by Lady Pembroke, Sir John Harington, Francis Bacon (q.v.) and others, bound as part of a composite MS.]

(c) Viscount Dillon kindly informs me that a part of the entertainment, dated ‘20 Sept.’, is in his possession.

Editions (Ferrers MS. only) by W. Hamper, Masques: Performed before Queen Elizabeth (1820), and in Kenilworth Illustrated (1821), Nichols, Eliz.² iii. 193 (1828), and R. W. Bond, Lyly, i. 412, 453 (1902).

The Ferrers MS. seems to contain ten distinct pieces, separated from each other only by headings, to which I have prefixed the numbers.

(i) ‘A Cartell for a Challeng.’

Three ‘strange forsaken knightes’ offer to maintain ‘that Loue is worse than hate, his Subiectes worse than slaues, and his Rewarde worse than naught: And that there is a Ladie that scornes Loue and his power, of more vertue and greater bewtie than all the Amorouse Dames that be at this day in the worlde’. This cannot be dated. Sir Robert Carey (Memoirs, 33) tilted as a ‘forsaken knight’ on 17 Nov. 1593 (not 1592, as stated by Brotanek, 60), but he was not a challenger, and was alone. The tone resembles that of Sir Henry Lee, and if he took part, the date must be earlier than 1590.

(ii) ‘Sir Henry Lee’s challenge before the Shampanie.’

A ‘strange knight that warres against hope and fortune’ will maintain the cause of Despair in a green suit.

Hamper explained ‘Shampanie’ as ‘the lists or field of contention, from the French campagne’; but Segar, Honor, Military and Ciuill, 197, records, from an intercepted letter of ‘Monsieur de Champany ... being ambassador in England for causes of the Low Countreys’, an occasion on which Sir Henry Lee, ‘the most accomplished cavaliero I had euer seene’, broke lances with other gentlemen in his honour at Greenwich. M. de Champagny was an agent of the native Flemish Catholics, and visited England in 1575 and 1585 (Froude, x. 360; xii. 39). As his letter named ‘Sir’ C. Hatton, who was knighted in 1578, the visit of 1585 must be in question. The Court was at Greenwich from March to July of that year.

(iii) ‘The Supplication of the Owld Knight.’

A speech to the ‘serveres of this English Holiday, or rather Englandes Happie Daye’, in which a knight disabled by age, ‘yet once (thowe unwoorthie) your fellowe in armes, and first celebrator, in this kinde, of this sacred memorie of that blessed reigne’, begs them to ‘accepte to your fellowshippe this oneley sonne of mine’.

This is evidently a speech by Lee, on some 17 Nov. later than 1590. Lee’s own sons died in childhood; probably the ‘son’ introduced was a relative, but possibly only a ‘son’ in chivalry.

(iv) ‘The Message of the Damsell of the Queene of Fayries.’

An ‘inchanted knight’ sends the Queen an image of Cupid. She is reminded how ‘at the celebrating the joyfull remembraunce of the most happie daye of your Highnes entrance into Gouerment of this most noble Islande, howe manie knightes determined, not far hence, with boulde hartes and broken launces, to paye there vowes and shewe theire prowes’. The ‘inchanted knight’ could not ‘chardge staffe, nor strike blowe’, but entered the jousts, and bore the blows of others.

If this has reference to the first celebration of 17 Nov., it may be of near date to the Woodstock Entertainment of 1575 in which the fairy queen appeared. The knight, ‘full hardie and full haples’, is enchanted, but is not said to be old.

(v) ‘The Olde Knightes Tale.’

‘Not far from hence, nor verie long agoe,’ clearly in 1575, ‘the fayrie Queene the fayrest Queene saluted’, and the pleasures included ‘justes and feates of armed knightes’, and ‘enchaunted pictures’ in a bower. The knight was bidden by the fairy queen to guard the pictures and keep his eyes on the crowned pillar. He became ‘a stranger ladies thrall’, neglected this duty, and was cast into a deadly sleep. Now he is freed, apparently through the intervention of Elizabeth, to whom the verses are addressed.

(vi) ‘The Songe after Dinner at the two Ladies entrance.’

Celebrates the setting free by a prince’s grace, of captive knights and ladies, and bids farewell to inconstancy.

(vii) ‘The Ladies Thankesgeuing for theire Deliuerie from Unconstancie.’

A speech to the Queen, in the same vein as (vi), followed by a dialogue between Li[berty], or Inconstancy, and Constancy. This is datable in 1592 from another copy printed in The Phoenix Nest (1593), with the title ‘An Excellent Dialogue betweene Constancie and Inconstancie: as it was by speech presented to her maiestie, in the last Progresse at Sir Henrie Leighes house’. Yet another copy, in Inner Temple Petyt MS. 538, 43, f. 299. ‘A Dialogue betweene Constancie and Inconstancie spoken before the Queenes Majestie at Woodstock’ is ascribed to ‘Doctor Edes’.

(viii) ‘The last Songe.’

A rejoicing on the coming of Eliza, with references to constancy and inconstancy, the aged knight, and the pillar and crown.

(ix) ‘The second daies woorke where the Chaplayne maketh this Relation.’

An Oration to the Queen by the chaplain of Loricus, ‘an owlde Knight, now a newe religiouse Hermite’. The story of Loricus was once told [in 1575] ‘by a good father of his owne coate, not farr from this coppies’. Once he ‘rann the restles race of desire.... Sometymes he consorted with couragious gentelmen, manifesting inward joyes by open justes, the yearly tribute of his dearest Loue. Somtimes he summoned the witnesse of depest conceiptes, Himmes & Songes & Emblemes, dedicating them to the honor of his heauenlye mistres’. Retiring, through envy and age, to the country, he found the speaker at a homely cell, made him his chaplain, and built for their lodging and that of a page ‘the Crowne Oratory’, with a ‘Piller of perpetual remembraunce’ as his device on the entrance. Here he lies, at point of death, and has addressed his last testament to the Queen. This is in verse, signed ‘Loricus, columnae coronatae custos fidelissimus’, and witnessed by ‘Stellatus, rectoriae coronatae capellanus’, and ‘Renatus, equitis coronatae servus obseruantissimus’.

(x) ‘The Page bringeth tydings of his Maister’s Recouerie & presenteth his Legacie.’

A further address to the Queen, with a legacy in verse of the whole Mannor of Loue, signed by Loricus and witnessed by Stellatus and Renatus.

This exhausts the Ferrers MS., but I can add from the Petyt MS. f. 300^v—

(xi) ‘The melancholie Knights complaint in the wood.’

This, like (vii), is ascribed in the MS. to ‘Doctor Edes’. It consists of 35 lines in 6 stanzas of 6 lines each (with one line missing) and begins:

Allusions to the freeing of enchanted knights and ladies and to constancy and inconstancy connect it closely with (vi)-(viii).

Obviously most of these documents, and therefore probably all, belong to devices presented by Sir Henry Lee. But they are of different dates, and not demonstrably in chronological order. A single occasion accounts for (vi)-(viii) and (xi), and a single occasion, which the mention of ‘the second daie’ suggests may have been the same, for (ix) and (x); and probably Mr. Bond is justified in regarding all these as forming part with (vii) of the entertainment at Lee’s house in the progress of 1592. But I do not see his justification for attaching (iv) and (v) to them, and I think that these are probably fragments of the Woodstock Entertainment of 1575, or not far removed from that in time. Nor has he any evidence for locating the entertainment of 1592 at Quarrendon, which was only one of several houses belonging to Sir Henry Lee, and could not be meant by the ‘coppies’ near Woodstock of (ix). It was doubtless, as the Petyt MS. version of (vii) tells us, at Woodstock, either at one of Lee’s lodges, or at Ditchley, during the royal visit to Woodstock of 18–23 Sept. 1592. I learn from Viscount Dillon that a MS. of part of this entertainment, dated 20 Sept., is still at Ditchley. Finally, Bond’s attribution of all the pieces (i)-(x) to Lyly is merely guesswork. Hamper assigned them to George Ferrers, probably because the owner of his MS. was a Ferrers. George Ferrers did in fact help in the Kenilworth Entertainment of 1575, and might therefore have helped in that at Woodstock; but he died in 1579, too early for (vi)-(xi). No doubt (vii) and (xi) are by Richard Edes (q.v.). He may have written the whole of this Woodstock Entertainment. On the other hand, a phrase in (ix) suggests that Lee may have penned some of his own conceits. Brotanek, 62, suggests that the two ladies of (vi) are Lee’s wife and his mistress Anne Vavasour, and that Elizabeth came to Lee’s irregular household to set it in order. This hardly needs refuting, but in fact Lee’s wife died in 1590 and his connexion with Anne Vavasour was probably of later date.

ROBERT LEE.

For his career as an actor, see ch. xv.

He may have been, but was not necessarily, the author of The Miller which the Admiral’s bought from him for £1 on 22 Feb. 1598 (Greg, Henslowe, ii. 191).

THOMAS LEGGE (1535–1607).

Of Norwich origin, Legge entered Corpus Christi, Cambridge, in 1552, and took his B.A. in 1557, his M.A. in 1560, and his LL.D. in 1575. After migration to Trinity and Jesus, he had become Master of Caius in 1573. In 1593 he was Vice-Chancellor, and in that capacity took part in the negotiations of the University with the Privy Council for a restraint of common plays in Cambridge (M. S. C. i. 200). His own reputation as a dramatist is acknowledged by Meres, who in 1598 placed him among ‘our best for Tragedie’, and added that, ‘as M. Anneus Lucanus writ two excellent Tragedies, one called Medea, the other de Incendio Troiae cum Priami calamitate: so Doctor Leg hath penned two famous tragedies, y^e one of Richard the 3, the other of The destruction of Ierusalem’.

Richardus Tertius. March 1580

[MSS.] Cambridge Univ. Libr. MS. M^m iv. 40, ‘Thome Legge legum doctoris Collegij Caiogonevilensis in Academia Cantabrigiensi magistri ac Rectoris Richardus tertius Tragedia trivespera habita Collegij divi Johannis Evangeliste Comitiis Bacchelaureorum Anno Domini 1579 Tragedia in tres acciones diuisa.’ [Argumentum to each Actio; Epilogue.]

Emmanuel, Cambridge, MS. 1. 3. 19, with date ‘1579’ and actor-list.

Clare, Cambridge, MS. Kk, 3, 12, with date ‘1579’.

Caius, Cambridge, MS. 62, ‘tragoedia trium vesperum habita in collegio Divi Johannis Evangelistae, Comitiis Bacchalaureorum Anno 1573.’

Bodl. Tanner MS. 306, including first Actio only, with actor-list and note, ‘Acted in St. John’s Hall before the Earle of Essex’, to which has been apparently added later, ‘17 March, 1582’.

Bodl. MS. 29448, dated α, φ, π, γ (= 1583).

Harl. MS. 6926, a transcript by Henry Lacy, dated 1586.

Harl. MS. 2412, a transcript dated 1588.

Hatton MS. (cf. Hist. MSS. i. 32).

Editions by B. Field (1844, Sh. Soc.) and W. C. Hazlitt (1875, Sh. L. ii. 1).—Dissertation: G. B. Churchill, Richard III bis Shakespeare (1897, 1900).

The names in the actor-lists, which agree, confirm those MSS. which date a production in March 1580 (Boas, 394), and as Essex left Cambridge in 1581, the date in the Tanner MS., in so far as it relates to a performance before him, is probably an error. It does not seem so clear to me that the Caius MS. may not point to an earlier production in 1573. And it is quite possible that there may have been revivals in some or all of the later years named in the MSS. The reputation of the play is indicated, not only by the notice of it by Meres (vide supra), but also by allusions in Harington’s Apologie of Poetrie (1591); cf. App. C, No. xlv. and Nashe’s Have With You to Saffron Walden (1596, Works, iii. 13). It may even, directly or indirectly, have influenced Richard III. The argument to the first Actio is headed ‘Chapman, Argumentum primae actionis’, but it seems difficult to connect George Chapman with the play.

Lost Play

The Destruction of Jerusalem

Meres calls this tragedy ‘famous’. Fuller, Worthies (1662), ii. 156, says that ‘Having at last refined it to the purity of the publique standard, some Plageary filched it from him, just as it was to be acted’. Apparently it was in English and was printed, as it appears in the lists of Archer and Kirkman (Greg, Masques, lxii). It can hardly have been the Jerusalem revived by Strange’s in 1592 (Greg, Henslowe, ii. 155). Can any light be thrown on Fuller’s story by the fact that in 1584 a ‘new Play of the Destruction of Jerusalem’ was adopted by the city of Coventry as a craft play in place of the old Corpus Christi cycle, and a sum of £13 6s. 8d. paid to John Smythe of St. John’s, Oxford, ‘for hys paynes for writing of the tragedye’ (Mediaeval Stage, ii. 361; H. Craig, Coventry Corpus Christi Plays (E. E. T. S.), 90, 92, 93, 102, 103, 109)?

THOMAS LODGE (c. 1557–1625).

Lodge, who uses the description ‘gentleman’, was son of Sir Thomas Lodge, a Lord Mayor of London. His elder brother, William, married Mary, daughter of Thomas Blagrave, Clerk of the Revels (cf. ch. iii). He entered Merchant Taylors in 1571, Trinity College, Oxford, in 1573, whence he took his B.A. in 1577, and Lincoln’s Inn in 1578. In 1579 (cf. App. C, No. xxiii) he plunged into controversy with a defence of the stage in reply to Stephen Gosson’s Schoole of Abuse. Gosson speaks slightingly of his opponent as ‘hunted by the heavy hand of God, and become little better than a vagrant, looser than liberty, lighter than vanity itself’, and although Lodge took occasion to defend his moral character from aspersion, it is upon record that he was called before the Privy Council ‘to aunswere certen maters to be by them objected against him’, and was ordered on 27 June 1581 to give continued attendance (Dasent, xiii. 110). By 1583 he had married. His literary work largely took the form of romances in the manner of Lyly and Greene. Rosalynde: Euphues’ Golden Legacy, published (S. R. 6 Oct. 1590) on his return from a voyage to Terceras and the Canaries with Captain Clarke, is typical and was Shakespeare’s source for As You Like It. His acknowledged connexion with the stage is slight; and the attempt of Fleay, ii. 43, to assign to him a considerable share in the anonymous play-writing of his time must be received with caution, although he was still controverting Gosson in 1583 (cf. App. C, No. xxxv), and too much importance need not be attached to his intention expressed in Scylla’s Metamorphosis (S. R. 22 Sept. 1589):

He is less likely than Nashe to be the ‘young Juvenal, that biting satirist, that lastly with me together writ a Comedy’ of Greene’s Groats-worth of Wit epistle in 1592 (cf. App. C, No. xlviii). I should not cavil at the loose description of A Looking Glass for London and England as a comedy; but ‘biting satirist’ hardly suits Lodge; and at the time of Greene’s last illness he was out of England on an expedition led by Thomas Cavendish to South America and the Pacific, which started on 26 Aug. 1591 and returned on 11 June 1593. After his return Lodge essayed lyric in Phillis (1593) and satire in A Fig for Momus (1595); but he cannot be shown to have resumed writing for the stage, although the Dulwich records make it clear that he had relations with Henslowe, who had in Jan. 1598 to satisfy the claims which Richard Topping, a tailor, had made against him before three successive Lord Chamberlains, as Lodge’s security for a long-standing debt (Greg, Henslowe Papers, 44, 172). Lodge himself was then once more beyond the seas. One of the documents was printed by Collier, Memoirs of Alleyn, 45, with forged interpolations intended to represent Lodge as an actor, for which there is no other evidence. Subsequently Lodge took a medical degree at Avignon, was incorporated at Oxford in 1602, and obtained some reputation as a physician. He also became a Catholic, and had again to leave the country for recusancy, but was allowed to return in Jan. 1610 (cf. F. P. Wilson in M. L. R. ix. 99). About 1619 he was engaged in legal proceedings with Alleyn, and for a time practised in the Low Countries, returning to London before his death in 1625. Small, 50, refutes the attempts of Fleay, i. 363, and Penniman, War, 55, 85, to identify him with Fungoso in E. M. O. and Asotus in Cynthia’s Revels. Fleay, ii. 158, 352, adds Churms and Philomusus in the anonymous Wily Beguiled and Return from Parnassus.

Collection

1878–82. E. Gosse, The Works of Thomas Lodge (Hunterian Club). [Introduction reprinted in E. Gosse, Seventeenth Century Studies (1883).]

Dissertations: D. Laing, L.’s Defence of Poetry, Music, and Stage Plays (1853, Sh. Soc.); C. M. Ingleby, Was T. L. an Actor? (1868) and T. L. and the Stage (1885, 6 N. Q. xi, 107, 415); R. Carl, Ueber T. L.’s Leben und Werke (1887, Anglia, x. 235); E. C. Richard, Ueber T. L.’s Leben und Werke (1887, Leipzig diss.).

The Wounds of Civil War. c. 1588

S. R. 1594, May 24. ‘A booke intituled the woundes of Civill warre lively sett forthe in the true Tragedies of Marius and Scilla.’ John Danter (Arber, ii. 650).

1594. The Wounds of Ciuill War. Liuely set forth in the true Tragedies of Marius and Scilla. As it hath beene publiquely plaide in London, by the Right Honourable the Lord high Admirall his Seruants. Written by Thomas Lodge Gent. John Danter.

Editions in Dodsley^{3, 4} (1825–75) and by J. D. Wilson (1910, M. S. R.).

The play contains a clear imitation of Marlowe’s Tamburlaine in the chariot drawn by four Moors of Act III, and both Fleay, ii. 49, and Ward, i. 416, think that it was written shortly after its model, although not on very convincing grounds. No performance of it is recorded in Henslowe’s diary, which suggests a date well before 1592.

A Looking Glass for London and England, c. 1590

With Robert Greene (q.v.).

Doubtful Plays

Lodge’s hand has been sought in An Alarum for London, Contention of York and Lancaster, George a Greene, Leire, Mucedorus, Selimus, Sir Thomas More, Troublesome Reign of King John, and Warning for Fair Women (cf. ch. xxiv), and in Greene’s James IV and Shakespeare’s Henry VI.

JANE, LADY LUMLEY (c. 1537–77).

Jane, daughter of Henry Fitzalan, 12th Earl of Arundel, married John, Lord Lumley, c. 1549.

Iphigenia (?)

[MS.] Brit. Mus. MS. Reg. 15 A. ix, ‘The doinge of my Lady Lumley dowghter to my L. Therle of Arundell ... [f. 63] The Tragedie of Euripides called Iphigeneia translated out of Greake into Englisshe.’

Editions by H. H. Child (1909, M. S. R.) and G. Becker (1910, Jahrbuch, xlvi. 28).

The translation is from the Iphigenia in Aulis. It is likely to be pre-Elizabethan, but I include it here, as it is not noticed in The Mediaeval Stage.

THOMAS LUPTON (?-?).

Several miscellaneous works by Lupton appeared during 1572–84. He may be the ‘Mr. Lupton’ whom the Corporation of Worcester paid during the progress of 1575 (Nichols, i. 549) ‘for his paynes for and in devising [and] instructing the children in their speeches on the too Stages’.

All For Money. 1558 < > 77

S. R. 1577, Nov. 25. ‘An Enterlude intituled all for money.’ Roger Ward (Arber, ii. 321).

1578. A Moral and Pitieful Comedie, Intituled, All for Money. Plainly representing the manners of men, and fashion of the world noweadayes. Compiled by T. Lupton. Roger Ward and Richard Mundee.

Editions by J. O. Halliwell (1851, Literature of Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries), E. Vogel (1904, Jahrbuch, xl. 129), J. S. Farmer (1910, T. F. T.).

A final prayer for the Queen who ‘hath begon godly’ suggests an earlier date than that of Lupton’s other recorded work. Fleay, ii. 56, would identify the play with The Devil and Dives named in the anonymous Histriomastix, but Dives only appears once, and not with Satan.

JOHN LYLY (1554?-1606).

Lyly was of a gentle Hampshire family, the grandson of William, high master of St. Paul’s grammar school, and son of Peter, a diocesan official at Canterbury, where he was probably born some seventeen years before 8 Oct. 1571, when he matriculated from Magdalen College, Oxford. He took his B.A. in 1573 and his M.A. in 1575, after a vain attempt in 1574 to secure a fellowship through the influence of Burghley. He went to London and dwelt in the Savoy. By 1578, when he published Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit, he was apparently in the service of Lord Delawarr, and by 1580 in that of Burghley’s son-in-law, Edward, Earl of Oxford. It is a pleasing conjecture that he may have been the author of ‘the two prose books played at the Belsavage, where you shall find never a word without wit, never a line without pith, never a letter placed in vain’, thus praised in The Schoole of Abuse (1579) of his fellow euphuist, Stephen Gosson. He incurred the enmity of Gabriel Harvey by suggesting to Oxford that he was aimed at in the Speculum Tuscanismi of Harvey’s Three Letters (1580). In 1582 he had himself incurred Oxford’s displeasure, but the trouble was surmounted, and about 1584 he held leases in the Blackfriars (cf. ch. xvii), one at least of which he obtained through Oxford, for the purposes of a theatrical speculation, in the course of which he took to Court a company which bore Oxford’s name, but was probably made up of boys from the Chapel and St. Paul’s choirs. Presumably the speculation failed, for in June 1584 Lyly, who on 22 Nov. 1583 had married Beatrice Browne of Mexborough, Yorks., was in prison for debt, whence he was probably relieved by a gift from Oxford, in reward for his service, of a rent-charge which he sold for £250. His connexion with the stage was not, however, over, for he continued to write for the Paul’s boys until they stopped playing about 1591. Harvey calls Lyly the ‘Vicemaster of Paules and the Foolemaster of the Theatre’. From this it has been inferred that he held an ushership at the Paul’s choir school. But ‘vice’ is a common synonym for ‘fool’ and ‘vicemaster’, like ‘foolemaster’, probably only means ‘playwright’. Nothing written by Lyly for the Theater in particular or for any adult stage is known to exist, but he seems to have taken part with Nashe in the retorts of orthodoxy during 1589 and 1590 to the Martin Marprelate pamphleteers, probably writing the tract called Pappe with a Hatchett (1589), and he may have been responsible for some of the plays which certainly formed an element in that retort. Lyly’s ambitions were in the direction of courtly rather than of academic preferment. He seems to have had some promise of favour from Elizabeth about 1585 and to have been more definitely ‘entertained her servant’ as Esquire of the Body, probably ‘extraordinary’, in or about 1588, with a hint to ‘aim his courses at the Revels’, doubtless at the reversion of the Mastership, then held by Edmund Tilney. Mr. R. W. Bond bases many conjectures about Lyly’s career on a theory that he actually held the post of Clerk Comptroller in the Revels Office, but the known history of the post (cf. ch. iii) makes this impossible. From 1596 he is found living in the parish of St. Bartholomew the Less. He seems to have ceased writing plays for some while in 1590, and may be the ‘pleasant Willy’ spoken of as ‘dead of late’ and sitting ‘in idle Cell’ in Spenser’s Tears of the Muses (1591), although it is possible that Tarlton (q.v.) is intended. But The Woman in the Moon at least is of later date, and it is possible that both the Chapel and the Paul’s boys were again acting his old plays by the end of the century. In 1595 he was lamenting the overthrow of his fortunes, and by about 1597 the reversion of the Mastership of the Revels had been definitely promised to George Buck. There exist several letters written by Lyly to the Queen and to Sir Robert Cecil between 1597 and 1601, in which he complains bitterly of the wrong done him. Later letters of 1603 and 1605 suggest that at last he had obtained his reward, possibly something out of the Essex forfeitures for which he was asking in 1601. In any case, he did not live to enjoy it long, as the register of St. Bartholomew’s the Less records his burial on 30 Nov. 1606.

Collections

S. R. 1628, Jan. 9 (by order of a full court). ‘Sixe playes of Peter Lillyes to be printed in one volume ... viz^t. Campaste, Sapho, and Phao. Galathea: Endimion Midas and Mother Bomby.’ Blount (Arber, iv. 192). [‘Peter’ is due to a confusion with Lyly’s brother, a chaplain of the Savoy, who had acted as licenser for the press.]

1632. Sixe Court Comedies. Often Presented and Acted before Queene Elizabeth, by the Children of her Maiesties Chappell, and the Children of Paules. Written by the onely Rare Poet of that Time. The Witie, Comicall, Facetiously-Quicke and vnparalelld: Iohn Lilly, Master of Arts. William Stansby for Edward Blount. [Epistles to Viscount Lumley and to the Reader, both signed ‘Ed. Blount’. This edition adds many songs not in the Qq, and W. W. Greg (M. L. R. i. 43) argues that they are not by Lyly, but mid-seventeenth-century work and possibly by Dekker.]

1858. F. W. Fairholt, The Dramatic Works of J. L. 2 vols. (Library of Old Authors).

1902. R. W. Bond, The Complete Works of J. L. 3 vols.

Dissertations: H. Morley, Euphuism (1861, Quarterly Review, cix); W. L. Rushton, Shakespeare’s Euphuism (1871); R. F. Weymouth, On Euphuism (1870–2, Phil. Soc. Trans.); C. C. Hense, J. L. und Shakespeare (1872–3, Jahrbuch, vii. 238; viii. 224); F. Landmann, Der Euphuismus, sein Wesen, seine Quelle, seine Geschichte (1881), Shakespeare and Euphuism (1880–5, N. S. S. Trans. 241); J. Goodlet, Shakespeare’s Debt to J. L. (1882, E. S. v. 356); K. Steinhäuser, J. L. als Dramatiker (1884); J. M. Hart, Euphuism (1889, Ohio College Trans.); C. G. Child, J. L. and Euphuism (1894); J. D. Wilson, J. L. (1905); W. W. Greg, The Authorship of the Songs in L.’s Plays (1905, M. L. R. i. 43); A. Feuillerat, J. L. (1910); F. Brie, L. und Greene (1910, E. S. xlii. 217).

Campaspe. 1584

(a) 1584. A moste excellent Comedie of Alexander, Campaspe, and Diogenes. Played before the Queenes Maiestie on twelfe day at night by her Maiesties Children and the Children of Poules. For Thomas Cadman. [Huth Collection. Prologue and Epilogue at the Blackfriars; Prologue and Epilogue at Court. Running title, ‘A tragical Comedie of Alexander and Campaspe’.]

(b) 1584. Campaspe, Played ... on newyeares day at night, by her Maiesties Children.... For Thomas Cadman. [Dyce Collection.]

(c) 1584. Campaspe, Played ... on newyeares day at night, by her Maiesties Childrẽ.... For Thomas Cadman. [B.M.; Bodleian.]

1591. Campaspe, Played ... on twelfe day.... Thomas Orwin for William Broome.

S. R. 1597, Apr. 12 (in full court). ‘Sapho and Phao and Campaspe ... the which copies were Thomas Cadmans.’ Joan Broome (Arber, iii. 82).

1601, Aug. 23 (in full court). ‘Copies ... which belonged to Mystres Brome ... viz. Sapho and Phao, Campaspe, Endimion, Mydas, Galathea.’ George Potter (Arber, iii. 191).

Editions in Dodsley^1–3 (1825, ii), and by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. i), J. M. Manly (1897, Specimens, ii. 273), G. P. Baker (1903, R. E. C.)—Dissertations: R. Sprenger, Zu J. L.’s C. (1892, E. S. xvi. 156); E. Koeppel, Zu J. L.’s A. und C. (1903, Archiv, cx).

The order of the 1584 prints is not quite clear; (c) follows (b), but the absence of any collation of (a) leaves its place conjectural. I conjecture that it came first, partly because a correction in the date of Court performance is more likely to have been made after one inaccurate issue than after two, partly because its abandoned t.p. title serves as running title in all three issues. I do not think the reversion to ‘twelfe day’ in 1591, when the facts may have been forgotten, carries much weight. If so, the Court production was on a 1 Jan., and although the wording of the t.p. suggests, rather than proves, that it was 1 Jan. in the year of publication, this date fits in with the known facts of Lyly’s connexion with the Blackfriars (cf. ch. xvii). The Chamber Accounts (App. B) give the performers on this day as Lord Oxford’s servants, but I take this company to have been a combination of Chapel and Paul’s children (cf. chh. xii, xiii). Fleay, ii. 39, and Bond, ii. 310, with imperfect lists of Court performances before them, suggest 31 Dec. 1581, taking ‘newyeares day at night’, rather lamely, for New Year’s Eve. So does Feuillerat, 574, but I am not sure that his view will have survived his Blackfriars investigations. In any case, the play must have been written later than Jan. 1580, as Lyly uses Sir T. North’s English translation of Plutarch, of which the preface is dated in that month. In a prefatory note by N. W. to S. Daniel, The Worthy Tract of Paulus Jovius (1585), that work is commended above ‘Tarlton’s toys or the silly enterlude of Diogenes’ (Grosart, Daniel, iv. 8).

Sapho and Phao. 3 Mar. 1584

S. R. 1584, Apr. 6. ‘Yt is graunted vnto him yat yf he gett ye comedie of Sappho laufully alowed vnto him, then none of this cumpanie shall interrupt him to enjoye yt’ (in margin ‘Lyllye’). Thomas Cadman (Arber, ii. 430).

1584. Sapho and Phao, Played beefore the Queenes Maiestie on Shrouetewsday, by her Maiesties Children, and the Boyes of Paules. Thomas Dawson for Thomas Cadman. [Prologues ‘at the Black fryers’ and ‘at the Court’, and Epilogue.]

1591. Thomas Orwin for William Broome.

S. R. 1597, Apr. 12 vide supra s.v. Campaspe.

1601, Aug. 23

I date the Court production on the Shrove-Tuesday before the S. R. entry, on which day Oxford’s boys, whom I regard as made up of Chapel and Paul’s boys, played under Lyly (cf. App. B). Fleay, ii. 40, Bond, ii. 367, and Feuillerat, 573, prefer Shrove-Tuesday (27 Feb.) 1582.

Galathea. 1584 < > 88

S. R. 1585, Apr. 1. ‘A Commoedie of Titirus and Galathea’ (no fee recorded). Gabriel Cawood (Arber, ii. 440).

1591, Oct. 4 (Bp. of London). ‘Three Comedies plaied before her maiestie by the Children of Paules thone called Endimion, thother Galathea and thother Midas.’ Widow Broome (Arber, ii. 596).

1592. Gallathea. As it was playde before the Queenes Maiestie at Greenewiche, on Newyeeres day at Night. By the Chyldren of Paules. John Charlwood for Joan Broome. [Prologue and Epilogue.]

The only performance by Paul’s, on a 1 Jan. at Greenwich, which can be referred to in the t.p. is that of 1588 (cf. App. B), and in III. iii. 41 is an allusion to the approaching year octogesimus octavus, which would of course begin on 25 March 1588. Fleay, ii. 40, and Feuillerat, 575, accept this date. Bond, ii. 425, prefers 1586 or 1587, regardless of the fact that the New Year plays in these years were by the Queen’s men. A phrase in V. iii. 86 proves it later than Sapho and Phao. But if, as seems probable, the 1585 entry in the Stationers’ Register was of this play, the original production must have been at least as early as 1584–5, and that of 1588 a revival.

Endymion. 1588

S. R. 1591, Oct. 4. Vide supra s.v. Galathea.

1591. Endimion, The Man in the Moone. Playd before the Queenes Maiestie at Greenewich on Candlemas Day at night, by the Chyldren of Paules. John Charlwood for Joan Broome. [Epistle by the Printer to the Reader; Prologue and Epilogue.]

Editions by C. W. Dilke (1814, O. E. P. ii), G. P. Baker (1894) and W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).—Dissertations: N. J. Halpin, Oberon’s Vision in M. N. D. Illustrated by a Comparison with L.’s E. (1843, Sh. Soc.); J. E. Spingarn, The Date of L.’s E. (1894, Athenaeum, ii. 172, 204); P. W. Long, The Purport of L.’s E. (1909, M. L. A. xxiv. 1), L.’s E., an Addendum (1911, M. P. viii. 599).

The prologue and epilogue were evidently for the Court. The epistle describes this as the first of certain comedies which had come into the printer’s hands ‘since the plays in Pauls were dissolved’. Baker, lxxxiii, suggested a date of composition in the autumn of 1579, while Spingarn, Bond, iii. 11, and Feuillerat, 577, take the Candlemas of the t.p. to be that of 1586, but the only available Candlemas performance by the Paul’s boys is that of 1588 (cf. App. B). With Long I find no conviction in the attempts of Halpin, Baker, Bond, and Feuillerat to trace Elizabeth’s politics and amours in the play. If Lyly had meant half of what they suggest, he would have ruined his career in her service at the outset.

Midas. 1589–90

S. R. 1591, Oct. 4. Vide supra, s.v. Galathea.

1592. Midas. Plaied before the Queenes Maiestie upon Twelfe day at night. By the Children of Paules. Thomas Scarlet for J. B. [Prologue ‘in Paules’.]

Edition by C. W. Dilke (1814, O. E. P. i).

Internal allusions suggest a date as late as 1589, and the Twelfth Night of the t.p. must therefore be 6 Jan. 1590. Fleay, ii. 42, and Bond, iii. 111, accept this date. Feuillerat, 578, prefers 6 Jan. 1589, because Gabriel Harvey alludes to the play in his Advertisement to Pap-Hatchet, dated 5 Nov. 1589. But there was no Court performance on that day, and Harvey may have seen the play ‘in Paules’.

Mother Bombie. 1587 < > 90

S. R. 1594, June 18. ‘A booke intituled mother Bumbye beinge an enterlude.’ Cuthbert Burby (Arber, ii. 654).

1594. Mother Bombie. As it was sundrie times plaied by the Children of Powles. Thomas Scarlet for Cuthbert Burby.

1598. Thomas Creede for Cuthbert Burby.

Edition by C. W. Dilke (1814, O. E. P. i).

The play doubtless belongs to the Paul’s series of 1587–90. It seems hardly possible to date it more closely. Feuillerat, 578, thinks it later in style than Midas.

Love’s Metamorphosis. 1589–90 (?)

S. R. 1600, Nov. 25 (Pasfield). ‘A booke Called Loves metamorphesis wrytten by master John Lylly and playd by the Children of Paules.’ William Wood (Arber, iii. 176).

1601. Loves Metamorphosis. A Wittie and Courtly Pastorall. Written by M^r Iohn Lyllie. First playd by the Children of Paules, and now by the Children of the Chapell. For William Wood.

F. Brie (E. S. xlii. 222) suggests that the play borrowed from Greene’s Greenes Metamorphosis (S. R. 9 Dec. 1588). Probably the Paul’s boys produced it c. 1589–90, and the Chapel revived it in 1600–1.

The Woman in the Moon. 1590 < > 5 (?)

S. R. 1595, Sept. 22. ‘A booke intituled a woman in the moone.’ Robert Fynche (Arber, iii. 48).

1597. The Woman in the Moone. As it was presented before her Highnesse. By Iohn Lyllie Maister of Arts. William Jones. [Prologue.]

The prologue says:

This has been taken as indicating that the play was Lyly’s first; but it need only mean that it was his first in verse. All the others are in prose. The blank verse is that of the nineties, rather than that of the early eighties. There is nothing to show who were the actors, but it is not unlikely that, after the plays in Paul’s were dissolved, Lyly tried his hand in a new manner for a new company. Feuillerat, 232, 580, suggests that Elizabeth may have taken the satire of women amiss and that the ‘overthwartes’ of Lyly’s fortunes of which he complained in Jan. 1595 may have been the result. He puts the date, therefore, in 1593–4.

Doubtful Work

Lyly has been suggested as the author of Maid’s Metamorphosis and A Warning for Fair Women (cf. ch. xxiv) and of several anonymous entertainments and fragments of entertainments (ibid., and supra, s.vv. Cecil, Clifford, Lee).

LEWIS MACHIN (fl. c. 1608).

Nothing is known of Machin’s personality. He is probably the L. M. who contributed ‘eglogs’ to the Mirrha (1607) of the King’s Revels actor William Barksted (q.v.). A Richard Machin was an actor in Germany, 1600–6. There is no traceable connexion between either Richard or Lewis and Henry Machyn the diarist.

Machin collaborated with Gervase Markham in The Dumb Knight (q.v.).

The anonymous Every Woman in Her Humour and Fair Maid of the Exchange have also been ascribed to him (cf. ch. xxiv).

GERVASE MARKHAM (c. 1568–1637).

There were two Gervase Markhams, as to both of whom full details are given in C. R. Markham, Markham Memorials (1913). The dramatist was probably the third son of Robert Markham of Cotham, Notts., a soldier and noted horseman, whose later life was devoted to an industrious output of books, verses, romance, translations, and treatises on horsemanship, farming, and sport. He was, said Jonson to Drummond in 1619, ‘not of the number of the faithfull, i.e. Poets, and but a base fellow’ (Laing, 11). Fleay, ii. 58, suggested, on the basis of certain phrases in his Tragedy of Sir Richard Grenville (1595), which has a dedication, amongst others, to the Earl of Southampton, that he might be the ‘rival poet’ of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. The other Gervase Markham was of Sedgebrook and later of Dunham, Notts., and is not known to have been a writer. C. W. Wallace thinks he has found a third in an ‘adventurer’ whose wagers with actors and others on the success of an intended walk to Berwick in 1618 led to a suit in the Court of Requests (Jahrbuch, xlvi. 345). But as he, like Markham of Cotham, had served in Ireland, the two may conceivably be identical, although the adventurer had a large family, and it is not known that Markham of Cotham had any. Markham of Dunham, who had also served in Ireland, had but two bastards. Conceivably Markham wrote for the Admiral’s in 1596–7 (cf. vol. ii, p. 145). Beyond the period dealt with, he collaborated with William Sampson in Herod and Antipater (1622) acted by the Revels company at the Red Bull.

The Dumb Knight. 1607–8

S. R. 1608, Oct. 6 (Buck). ‘A playe of the Dumbe Knight.’ John Bache (Arber, iii. 392).

1610. Nov. 19. Transfer from Bache to Robert Wilson (Arber, iii. 449).

1608. The dumbe Knight. A pleasant Comedy, acted sundry times by the children of his Maiesties Reuels. Written by Iaruis Markham. N. Okes for J. Bache. [Epistle to Reader, signed ‘Lewes Machin’. There were two reissues of 1608 with altered t.ps. Both omit the ascription to Markham. One has ‘A historicall comedy’; the other omits the description.]

1633. A. M. for William Sheares.

Editions in Dodsley^1–4 (1744–1875) and by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. ii).—Dissertation: J. Q. Adams, Every Woman in Her Humour and The Dumb Knight (1913, M. P. x. 413).

The Epistle says that ‘Rumour ... hath made strange constructions on this Dumb Knight’, and that ‘having a partner in the wrong whose worth hath been often approved ... I now in his absence make this apology, both for him and me’. Presumably these ‘constructions’ led to the withdrawal of Markham’s name from the title-page. Fleay, ii. 58, assigned him the satirical comedy of the underplot, but Adams points out that Markham’s books reveal no humour, and that the badly linked underplot was probably inserted by Machin. It borrows passages from the anonymous unprinted Every Woman in Her Humour (q.v.). The production of a King’s Revels play is not likely to be before 1607, but Herz, 102, thinks that an earlier version underlies the Vom König in Cypern of Jacob Ayrer, who died 1605. A later German version also exists, and was perhaps the Philole und Mariana played at Nuremberg in 1613.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1564–93).

Marlowe, whose name was also spelt Marley and Marlin, was the son of John and Catherine Marlowe of Canterbury. He was born 6 Feb. 1564. John Marlowe was a shoemaker and subsequently became parish clerk of St. Mary’s. He entered the King’s School, Canterbury, in 1579 and in March 1581 matriculated with a pension on Abp. Parker’s foundation at Corpus Christi or Benet’s College, Cambridge. He took his B.A. in 1584 and his M.A. in 1587. In this year he probably began his literary career in London, with Tamburlaine. A ballad, printed by Collier, which represents him as a player and breaking his leg in a lewd scene on the stage of the Curtain, is now discredited. There are satirical allusions to him in the preface to the Perimedes (S. R. 29 March 1588) and in the Menaphon (23 Aug. 1589) of Robert Greene, but it is very doubtful whether, as usually assumed, Nashe had him especially in mind when he criticized certain tragic poets of the day in his epistle to the latter pamphlet (cf. App. C, No. xlii). On 1 Oct. 1588 ‘Christofer Marley, of London, gentleman,’ had to give bail to appear at the next Middlesex Sessions. The exact nature of the charge is unknown; but it cannot be doubted that his personal reputation, even in the free-living Elizabethan London, did not stand high. He is clearly the ‘famous gracer of tragedians’ reproved for atheism in Greene’s Groats-worth of Wit (1592) and it is probably to him that Chettle alludes in his apology when he says, ‘With neither of them that take offence was I acquainted and with one of them I care not if I never be’ (cf. App. C, Nos. xlviii, xlix). The charge of atheism doubtless arose from Marlowe’s association with the group of freethinkers which centred round Sir Walter Raleigh. In 1593 these speculative tendencies brought him into trouble. About 1591, while writing for the players of a certain lord, as yet unidentified, he had shared a room with Thomas Kyd (q.v.), who was then in the service of the same lord. Certain theological notes of his got amongst Kyd’s papers and were found there when Kyd was arrested on a charge of libel on 12 May 1593. On 18 May the Privy Council sent a messenger to the house of Thomas Walsingham, at Scadbury in Kent, to arrest Marlowe, and on 20 May he was ordered to remain in attendance on the Council. There exists a ‘Note’ drawn up at this time by one Richard Baines or Bame, containing a report of some loose conversation of Marlowe’s which their Lordships could hardly be expected to regard as anything but blasphemous. But, so far as Marlowe was concerned, the proceedings were put a stop to by his sudden death. The register of St. Nicholas, Deptford, records that he was ‘slain by Francis Archer’ and buried there on 1 June 1593. Francis Meres’s Palladis Tamia (1598) tells us that he was ‘stabbed to death by a bawdy servingman, a rival of his in his lewde love’. Somewhat different versions of the story are given by Thomas Beard, The Theater of God’s Judgments (1597), and William Vaughan, The Golden Grove (1600), both of whom use Marlowe’s fate to point the moral against atheism. There are some rather incoherent allusions to the event in verses affixed by Gabriel Harvey to his A New Letter of Notable Contents, which is dated 16 Sept. 1593:

Harvey seems to have thought in error that Marlowe died of the plague. I do not infer from the allusions to ‘Powles’ that Marlowe wrote for the Paul’s boys; but rather that Tamburlaine, like Nashe’s pamphlets, was sold by the booksellers in St. Paul’s Churchyard. The ‘second Shakerley’ is certainly Nashe. Surely ‘Scanderbeg’, who is ‘left behinde’, must also be Nashe, and I do not see how Fleay, ii. 65, draws the inference that Marlowe was the author of the lost play entered on the Stationers’ Register by Edward Allde on 3 July 1601 as ‘the true historye of George Scanderbarge, as yt was lately playd by the right honorable the Earle of Oxenford his servantes’ (Arber, iii. 187). There is much satire both of Marlowe and of Nashe in the body of A New Letter (Grosart, Harvey, i. 255).

Collections

1826. [G. Robinson] The Works of C. M. 3 vols.

1850. A. Dyce, The Works of C. M. 3 vols. [Revised 1858, and in 1 vol. 1865, &c.]

1870. F. Cunningham, The Works of C. M.

1885. A. H. Bullen, The Works of C. M. 3 vols.

1885–9. H. Breymann and A. Wagner, C. M. Historisch-kritische Ausgabe. 3 parts. [Tamburlaine, Dr. Faustus, Jew of Malta only issued.]

1887. H. Ellis, The Best Plays of C. M. (Mermaid Series). [Tamburlaine, Dr. Faustus, Jew of Malta, Edward II.]

1910. C. F. Tucker Brooke, The Works of C. M. [Larger edition in progress.]

1912. W. L. Phelps. Marlowe [M. E. D.]. [Tamburlaine, Dr. Faustus, Jew of Malta, Edward II.]

Dissertations: H. Ulrici, C. M. und Shakespeare’s Verhältniss zu ihm (1865, Jahrbuch, i. 57); J. Schipper, De versu Marlowii (1867); T. Mommsen, M. und Shakespeare (1886); A. W. Verity, M.’s Influence on Shakespeare (1886); E. Faligan, De Marlovianis Fabulis (1887); O. Fischer, Zur Charakteristik der Dramen M.’s (1889); J. G. Lewis, C. M.: Outlines of his Life and Works (1891); F. S. Boas, New Light on M. (1899, Fortnightly Review, lxxi, 212); J. H. Ingram, C. M. and his Associates (1904); H. Jung, Das Verhältniss M.’s zu Shakespeare (1904); W. L. Courtney, C. M. (Fortnightly Review, 1905, ii. 467, 678); A. Marquardsen, C. M.’s Kosmologie (1905, Jahrbuch, xli. 54); J. Le G. Brereton, The Case of Francis Ingram (Sydney Univ. Publ. v); G. C. Moore Smith, Marlowe at Cambridge (1909, M. L. R. iv. 167); F. C. Danchin, Études critiques sur C. M. (1912–13, Revue Germanique, viii. 23; ix. 566); C. Crawford, The Marlowe Concordance (1911, Materialien, xxxiv, pt. i only); F. K. Brown, M. and Kyd (T. L. S., 2 June, 1921).

Tamburlaine. c. 1587

S. R. 1590, Aug. 14 (Hartwell). ‘The twooe commicall discourses of Tomberlein the Cithian shepparde.’ Richard Jones (Arber, ii. 558).

1590. Tamburlaine the Great. Who, from a Scythian Shephearde by his rare and wonderfull Conquests became a most puissant and mightye Monarque. And (for his tyranny, and terrour in Warre) was tearmed, The Scourge of God. Deuided into two Tragicall Discourses, as they were sundrie times shewed vpon Stages in the Citie of London, By the right honorable the Lord Admyrall, his seruantes. Now first, and newlie published. Richard Jones [8vo]. [Epistle to the Readers, signed ‘R. I. Printer’; Prologues to both Parts. See Greg, Plays, 66; Masques, cxxv. Ingram, 281, speaks of two 4tos and one 8vo of 1590, probably through some confusion.]

1592. R. Jones. [Greg, Masques, cxxv, thinks that the date may have been altered in the B.M. copy from 1593. Langbaine mentions an edition of 1593.]

1597. [An edition apparently known to Collier; cf. Greg, Masques, cxxv.]

1605. For Edward White. [Part i.]

1606. E. A. for E. White. [Part ii.]

Editions by A. Wagner (1885) and K. Vollmöller (1885) and of Part i by W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).—Dissertations: C. H. Herford, The Sources of M.’s T. (Academy, 20 Oct. 1883); L. Frankel, Zum Stoffe von M.’s T. (1892, E. S. xvi. 459); E. Köppel in Englische Studien, xvi. 357; E. Hübner, Der Einfluss von M.’s Tamburlaine auf die zeitgenössischen und folgenden Dramatiker (Halle diss. 1901); F. G. Hubbard, Possible Evidence for the Date of T. (1918, M. L. A. xxxiii. 436).

There is no real doubt as to Marlowe’s authorship of Tamburlaine, but the direct evidence is very slight, consisting chiefly of Greene’s (q.v.) Perimedes coupling of ‘that atheist Tamburlan’ with ‘spirits as bred of Merlin’s race’, and Harvey’s allusion to its author as dying in 1593. Thomas Heywood, in his prologue to The Jew of Malta, speaks of Alleyn’s performance in the play. The entry printed by Collier in Henslowe’s Diary of a payment to Dekker in 1597 ‘for a prolog to Marloes tambelan’ is a forgery (Warner, 159; Greg, Henslowe, i. xxxix). The Admiral’s produced ‘Tamberlan’ on 30 Aug. 1594. Henslowe marks the entry ‘j’, which has been taken as equivalent to ‘n. e.’, Henslowe’s symbol for a new play, and as pointing to a revision of the play. I feel sure, however (cf. M. L. R. iv. 408), that ‘j’ only means ‘First Part’. ‘Tamberlen’ was given fifteen times from 30 Aug. 1594 to 12 Nov. 1595, and the ‘2 pt. of tamberlen’ seven times from 19 Dec. 1594 to 13 Nov. 1595 (Henslowe, ii. 167). Tamburlaine’s cage, bridle, coat, and breeches are included in the inventories of the Admiral’s men in 1598 (Henslowe Papers, 116).

Greene’s Perimedes reference suggests 1587 or early 1588 as the probable date of Tamburlaine. In his preface to the 1590 edition Richard Jones says that he has omitted ‘some fond and frivolous gestures’, but does not say whether these were by the author of the tragic stuff. The numerous references to the play in contemporary literature often indicate its boisterous character; e.g. T. M. The Black Book (Bullen, Middleton, viii. 25), ‘The spindle-shank spiders ... went stalking over his head as if they had been conning of Tamburlaine’; T. M. Father Hubburd’s Tales (ibid. viii. 93), ‘The ordnance playing like so many Tamburlaines’.

Dr. Faustus, c. 1588

S. R. 1592, Dec. 18. Herbert-Ames, Typographical Antiquities, ii. 1160, records the following decision of the Stationers’ Company not printed by Arber, ‘If the book of D^r. Faustus shall not be found in the Hall Book entered to R^d. Oliff before Abell Jeffes claymed the same, which was about May last, That then the said copie shall remayne to the said Abell his proper copie from the tyme of his first clayme’. [This can hardly refer to the prose History of Faustus, of which the earliest extant, but probably not the first, edition was printed by T. Orwin for Edward White in 1592.]

1601, Jan. 7 (Barlowe). ‘A booke called the plaie of Doctor Faustus.’ Thomas Bushell (Arber, iii. 178).

1610, Sept. 13. Transfer from Bushell to John Wright of ‘The tragicall history of the horrible life and Death of Doctor Faustus, written by C. M.’ (Arber, iii. 442).

1604. The tragicall History of D. Faustus. As it hath bene Acted by the Right Honorable the Earle of Nottingham his seruants. Written by Ch. Marl. V. S. for Thomas Bushell.

1609. G. E. for John Wright.

1616. For John Wright. [An enlarged and altered text.]

1619.... With new Additions. For John Wright.

1620; 1624; 1631.

1663.... Printed with New Additions as it is now Acted. With several New Scenes, together with the Actors names. For W. Gilbertson. [A corrupt text.]

Breymann mentions an edition of 1611 not now known, and Heinemann quotes from foreign writers mentions of editions of 1622, 1626, 1636, 1651, 1690 (1884, Bibliographer).

Editions by C. W. Dilke (1814, O. E. P. i), A. Reidl (N.D. [1874]), W. Wagner (1877), A. W. Ward (1878, 1887, 1891, 1901), Anon. (1881, Zurich), H. Morley (1883), H. Breymann (1889), I. Gollancz (1897, T. D.), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.), J. S. Farmer (1914, S. F. T.).—Dissertations: G. Herzfeld, Zu M.’s Dr. F. (1905, Jahrbuch, xli. 206); H. R. O. De Vries, Die Überlieferung und Entstehungsgeschichte von M.’s Dr. F. (1909); K. R. Schröder, Textverhältnisse und Entstehungsgeschichte von M.’s F. (1909); R. Rohde, Zu M.’s D. F. (1913, Morsbach-Festschrift); P. Simpson, The 1604 Text of M.’s D. F. (1921, Essays and Studies, vii); with much earlier literature summarized in Ward’s edition, to which also (1887, ed. 2) Fleay’s excursus on The Date and Authorship of Dr. F. was contributed.

The Admiral’s men played ‘Docter ffostose’ for Henslowe twenty-four times from 2 Oct. 1594 to Oct. 1597 (Henslowe, ii. 168). Their 1598 inventories include ‘j dragon in fostes’ (Henslowe Papers, 118). Alleyn (q.v.) played the title-rôle. The entry printed by Collier from Henslowe’s Diary of a payment to Dekker on 20 Dec. 1597 ‘for adycyons to ffostus’ is a forgery (Warner, 159; Greg, Henslowe, i. xxxix), but Henslowe did pay £4 to William Bird and Samuel Rowley ‘for ther adicyones in doctor fostes’ on 22 Nov. 1602 (Henslowe, i. 172). Probably, therefore, the Admiral’s revived the play about 1602–3. These additions are doubtless the comic passages which appear for the first time in the 1616 text, although that may also contain fragments of the original text omitted from the 1,485 lines of 1604. The source of the play seems to be the German Faustbuch (1587) through the English History of Dr. Johann Faustus, of which an edition earlier than the extant 1592 one is conjectured. A probable date is 1588–9. On 28 Feb. 1589 ‘a ballad of the life and deathe of Doctor Faustus the great Cungerer’ was entered on S. R. (Arber, ii. 516). There are apparent imitations of the play in Taming of A Shrew (q.v.).

The reference in The Black Book (vide infra) can hardly be taken as evidence that the original production was at the Theatre.

Greg (Henslowe, ii. 168) gives some support to the view of Fleay (Ward, clxvii) that Marlowe is only responsible for part even of the 1604 text, and that the rest, including the comic matter, may have been contributed by Dekker. But he doubts whether Dekker worked upon the play before the date of a revision in 1594, for which there is some evidence, such as an allusion in xi. 46 to Dr. Lopez. Fleay thought Dekker to have been also an original collaborator, which his age hardly permits.

The play seems to have formed part of the English repertories in Germany in 1608 and 1626 (Herz, 66, 74).

It became the centre of a curious mythos, which was used to point a moral against the stage (cf. ch. viii). Of this there are several versions:

(a) 1604. T. M. The Black Book (Bullen, Middleton, viii. 13), ‘Hee had a head of hayre like one of my Diuells in Dr. Faustus when the old Theater crackt and frighted the audience.’

(b) 1633. Prynne, Histriomastix, f. 556, ‘The visible apparition of the Devill on the stage at the Belsavage Play-house, in Queen Elizabeths dayes (to the great amazement both of the actors and spectators) while they were there prophanely playing the History of Faustus (the truth of which I have heard from many now alive, who well remember it) there being some distracted with that feareful sight.’

(c) N.D. ‘J. G. R.’ from manuscript note on ‘the last page of a book in my possession, printed by Vautrollier’ (1850, 2 Gent. Mag. xxxiv. 234), ‘Certaine Players at Exeter, acting upon the stage the tragical storie of Dr. Faustus the Conjurer; as a certain nomber of Devels kept everie one his circle there, and as Faustus was busie in his magicall invocations, on a sudden they were all dasht, every one harkning other in the eare, for they were all perswaded, there was one devell too many amongst them; and so after a little pause desired the people to pardon them, they could go no further with this matter; the people also understanding the thing as it was, every man hastened to be first out of dores. The players (as I heard it) contrarye to their custome spending the night in reading and in prayer got them out of the town the next morning.’

(d) c. 1673. John Aubrey, Natural History and Antiquities of Surrey (1718–19), i. 190, ‘The tradition concerning the occasion of the foundation [of Dulwich College] runs thus: that Mr. Alleyne, being a Tragedian and one of the original actors in many of the celebrated Shakespear’s plays, in one of which he played a Demon, with six others, and was in the midst of the play surpriz’d by an apparition of the Devil, which so work’d on his Fancy, that he made a Vow, which he perform’d at this Place’.

The Jew of Malta, c. 1589

S. R. 1594, May 17. ‘The famouse tragedie of the Riche Jewe of Malta.’ Nicholas Ling and Thomas Millington (Arber, ii. 650). [On 16 May ‘a ballad intituled the murtherous life and terrible death of the riche Jew of Malta’ had been entered to John Danter.]

1632, Nov. 20 (Herbert). ‘A Tragedy called the Jew of Malta.’ Nicholas Vavasour (Arber, iv. 288).

1633. The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Iew of Malta. As it was played before the King and Queene, in his Majesties Theatre at White-Hall, by her Majesties Servants at the Cockpit. Written by Christopher Marlo. I. B. for Nicholas Vavasour. [Epistle to Thomas Hammon of Gray’s Inn, signed ‘Tho. Heywood’; Prologues and Epilogues at Court and at Cockpit by Heywood; Prologue by Machiavel as presenter.]

Editions in Dodsley^{2, 3}, viii (1780–1827), and by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. i), Reynell and Son (publ. 1810), S. Penley (1813), A. Wagner (1889), and W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).—Dissertations: J. Kellner, Die Quelle von M.’s J. of M. (1887, E. S. x. 80); M. Thimme, M.’s J. of M. (1921).

An allusion in Marlowe’s prologue to the death of the Duc de Guise gives a date of performance later than 23 Dec. 1588. Strange’s men gave the play for Henslowe seventeen times from 26 Feb. 1592 to 1 Feb. 1593. Probably it belonged to Henslowe, as it was also played for him by Sussex’s men on 4 Feb. 1594, by Sussex and the Queen’s together on 3 and 8 April 1594, by the Admiral’s on 14 May 1594, by either the Admiral’s or the Chamberlain’s on 6 and 15 June 1594, and thirteen times by the Admiral’s from 25 June 1594 to 23 June 1596 (Henslowe, ii. 151). The 1598 inventories of the latter company include ‘j cauderm for the Jewe’ (Henslowe Papers, 118). On 19 May 1601 Henslowe advanced them money to buy ‘things’ for a revival of the play (Henslowe, i. 137). Heywood’s epistle and Cockpit prologue name Marlowe and Alleyn as writer and actor of the play. Fleay, i. 298, suggests that Heywood wrote the Bellamira scenes (III. i; IV. iv, v; V. i), the motive of which he used for the plot of his Captives, and Greg agrees that the play shows traces of two hands, one of which may be Heywood’s. The Dresden repertory of 1626 included a ‘Tragödie von Barabas, Juden von Malta’, but this was not necessarily the play ‘von dem Juden’ given by English actors at Passau in 1607 and Graz in 1608 (Herz, 66, 75).

Edward the Second. c. 1592

S. R. 1593, July 6 (Judson). ‘A booke, Intituled The troublesom Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, king of England, with the tragicall fall of proud Mortymer.’ William Jones (Arber, ii. 634).

1593? [C. F. Tucker Brooke (1909, M. L. N. xxiv. 71) suggests that a manuscript t.p. dated 1593 and sig. A inserted in Dyce’s copy of 1598 may be from a lost edition, as they contain textual variants.]

1594. The troublesome raigne and lamentable death of Edward the second, King of England: with the tragicall fall of proud Mortimer. As it was sundrie times publiquely acted in the honourable citie of London, by the right honourable the Earl of Pembroke his servants. Written by Chri. Marlow. Gent. For William Jones.

1598. Richard Bradocke for William Jones. [With an additional scene.]

1612. For Roger Barnes.

1622.... As it was publikely Acted by the late Queenes Maiesties Servants at the Red Bull in S. Iohns streete.... For Henry Bell.

Editions in Dodsley^1–3, ii (1744–1825), and by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. i), W. Wagner (1871), F. G. Fleay (1873, 1877), O. W. Tancock (1877, etc.), E. T. McLaughlin (1894), A. W. Verity (1896, T. D.), and W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).—Dissertations: C. Tzschaschel, M.’s Edward II und seine Quellen (1902, Halle diss.); M. Dahmetz, M.’s Ed. II und Shakespeares Rich. II (1904).

Pembroke’s men seem only to have had a footing at Court in the winter of 1592–3, and this is probably the date of the play. Greg (Henslowe, ii. 224) suggests that it may have had some ‘distant connexion’ with Chettle and Porter’s The Spencers and an anonymous Mortimer of the Admiral’s men in 1599 and 1602 respectively. But I think Mortimer is a slip of Henslowe’s for Vortigern.

The Massacre at Paris. 1593

[MS.] Collier, ii. 511, prints a fragment of a fuller text than that of the edition, but it is suspect (cf. Tucker Brooke, 483).

N.D. The Massacre at Paris: With the Death of the Duke of Guise. As it was plaide by the right honourable the Lord high Admirall his Seruants. Written by Christopher Marlow. E. A. for Edward White.

Strange’s men produced ‘the tragedey of the gvyes’ as ‘n.e.’ on 26 Jan. 1593. The Admiral’s men also played it for Henslowe as ‘the Gwies’ or ‘the masacer’ ten times from 21 June to 27 Sept. 1594. Possibly in Nov. 1598 and certainly in Nov. 1601 Henslowe advanced sums for costumes for a revival of the play by the Admiral’s. The insertion by Collier of Webster’s name in one of these entries is a forgery and whether the lost Guise of this writer (q.v.) bore any relation to Marlowe’s play is wholly unknown. On 18 Jan. 1602 Henslowe paid Alleyn £2 for the ‘boocke’ of ‘the massaker of france’ on behalf of the company (Henslowe, i. xlii; ii. 157). For the offence given in France by this play, cf. ch. x.

Dido Queen of Carthage > 1593

With Thomas Nashe.

1594. The Tragedie of Dido Queene of Carthage: Played by the Children of her Maiesties Chappell. Written by Christopher Marlowe, and Thomas Nash. Gent. Widow Orwin for Thomas Woodcock.

S. R. 1600, June 26. Transfer from Paul Lynley to John Flasket, ‘Cupydes Journey to hell with the tragedie of Dido’ (Arber, iii. 165). [Perhaps another book.]

Editions in Old English Drama (1825, ii), by J. S. Farmer (1914, S. F. T.), and with Works of Nashe.—Dissertations: J. Friedrich, Didodramen des Dolce, Jodelle, und M. (1888); B. Knutowski, Das Dido-Drama von M. und Nash (1905, Breslau diss.).

Tanner, Bibl. Britanniae (1748), says, ‘Petowius in praefatione ad secundam partem Herois et Leandri multa in Marlovii commendationem adfert; hoc etiam facit Tho. Nash in Carmine Elegiaco tragediae Didonis praefixo in obitum Christoph. Marlovii, ubi quatuor eius tragediarum mentionem facit, necnon et alterius de duce Guisio’. The existence of this elegy is confirmed by Warton, who saw it either in 1734 or 1754 (Hist. Eng. Poet. iv. 311; cf. McKerrow, ii. 335). It was ‘inserted immediately after the title-page’, presumably not of all copies, as it is not in the three now known. Whether Nashe’s own share in the work was as collaborator, continuator, or merely editor, remains uncertain. Fleay, ii. 147, gives him only I. i. 122 to end, III. i, ii, iv; IV. i, ii, v; Knutowski regards him as responsible for only a few trifling passages. As, moreover, the play has affinities both to early and to late work by Marlowe, it cannot be dated. Beyond its title-page and that of the anonymous Wars of Cyrus there is nothing to point to any performances by the Chapel between 1584 and 1600. It is true that Tucker Brooke, 389, says, ‘The one ascertained fact concerning the history of this company during the ten years previous to 1594 seems to be that they acted before the Queen at Croydon in 1591, under the direction of N. Giles, and Mr. Fleay assumes, apparently with no further evidence, that Dido was presented on this ‘occasion’. But this only shows what some literary historians mean by an ‘ascertained fact’. A company played Summers Last Will and Testament (q.v.) at Croydon in 1592 and said that they had not played for a twelvemonth. But the Queen was not present, and they are not known to have been the Chapel, whose master was not then Nathaniel Giles. Nor did they necessarily play twelve months before at Croydon; and if they did, there is nothing to show that they played Dido. There is nothing to connect the play with the Admiral’s Dido and Aeneas of 1598 (Greg, Henslowe, ii. 189).

Lust’s Dominion. c. 1600 (?)

1657. Lusts Dominion; Or, The Lascivious Queen. A Tragedie. Written by Christopher Marlowe, Gent. For F. K., sold by Robert Pollard.

Editions by C. W. Dilke (1814, O. E. P. i) and in Dodsley⁴, xiv (1875).

The attribution of the play, as it stands, to Marlowe is generally rejected. Fleay, i. 272, supported by Greg (Henslowe, ii. 211), suggests an identification with The Spanish Moor’s Tragedy, which Day, Dekker, and Haughton were writing for the Admiral’s in Feb. 1600, although the recorded payment does not show that this was finished. They think that a play in which Marlowe had a hand may perhaps underlie it, and attempt, not wholly in agreement with each other, to distribute the existing scenes amongst the collaborators.

Lost Play

The Maiden’s Holiday

Entered on the Stationers’ Register on 8 April 1654 (Eyre, i. 445) by Moseley as ‘A comedie called The Maidens Holiday by Christopher Marlow & John Day’, and included in Warburton’s list of burnt plays (3 Library, ii. 231) as ‘The Mayden Holaday by Chri[~s]. Marlowe’.

Doubtful Plays

Marlowe’s hand has been sought in An Alarum for London, Contention of York and Lancaster, Edward III, Locrine, Selimus, Taming of A Shrew, and Troublesome Reign of King John (cf. ch. xxiv), and in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, Henry VI, and Richard III.

JOHN MARSTON (c. 1575–1634).

Marston was son of John Marston, a lawyer of Shropshire origin, who had settled at Coventry, and his Italian wife Maria Guarsi. He matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford, aged 16, on 4 Feb. 1592, and took his degree on 6 Feb. 1594. He joined the Middle Temple, and in 1599 his father left law-books to him, ‘whom I hoped would have profited by them in the study of the law but man proposeth and God disposeth’. He had already begun his literary career, as a satirist with The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion’s Image and Certain Satires (1598) and The Scourge of Villainy (1598). For these he took the pseudonym of W. Kinsayder. Small, 64, has refuted the attempts to find in them attacks on Jonson, and H. C. Hart (9 N. Q. xi. 282, 342) has made it plausible that by ‘Torquatus’ was meant, not Jonson, but Gabriel Harvey. This view is now accepted by Penniman (Poetaster, xxiii). On 28 Sept. 1599 Henslowe paid £2, on behalf of the Admiral’s, for ‘M^r Maxton the new poete’. The interlineated correction ‘M^r Mastone’ is a forgery (Greg, Henslowe, i. xlii; ii. 206), but probably Marston was the poet. The title of the play was left blank, and there was no further payment. It seems clearer to me than it does to Dr. Greg that the £2 was meant to make up a complete sum of £6 10s. for The King of Scots, and that Marston was the ‘other Jentellman’ who collaborated with Chettle, Dekker, and Jonson on that lost play. The setting up of the Paul’s boys in 1599 saved Marston from Henslowe. For them he successively revised the anonymous Histriomastix (q.v.), wrote the two parts of Antonio and Mellida and Jack Drum’s Entertainment, helped Dekker with Satiromastix, and finally wrote What You Will. This probably accounts for all his dramatic work during Elizabeth’s reign. In the course of it he came into conflict with Jonson, who told Drummond in 1619 (according to the revision of the text of Laing, 20, suggested by Penniman, War, 40, and Small, 3) that ‘He had many quarrells with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his Poetaster on him; the beginning of them were, that Marston represented him in the stage’. Marston’s representation of Jonson as Chrysoganus in Histriomastix was complimentary, that as Brabant senior in Jack Drum’s Entertainment offensive; and it was doubtless the latter that stirred Jonson to retaliate on Marston, perhaps as Hedon in Cynthia’s Revels, certainly as Crispinus in The Poetaster. Marston’s final blow was with Lampatho Doria in What You Will. When the theatres reopened in 1604 Marston seems to have left the Paul’s boys and taken a share in the syndicate formed to exploit the Queen’s Revels, for whom the rest of his plays were written. He was now on friendly terms with Jonson, to whom he dedicated his Malcontent and for whose Sejanus he wrote congratulatory verses. Possibly further friction arose over the unfortunate collaboration of Jonson, Marston, and Chapman in Eastward Ho!, for the chief indiscretion in which Marston seems to have been responsible, and may have stimulated a sarcasm on Jonson in the Epistle to Sophonisba. In 1608 Marston’s career as a dramatist abruptly terminated. An abstract of the Privy Council Register has the brief note on 8 June, ‘John Marston committed to Newgate’ (F. P. Wilson from Addl. MS. 11402, f. 141, in M. L. R. ix. 99). I conjecture that he was the author of the Blackfriars play (cf. ch. xii, s.v. Chapel) which hit at James’s explorations after Scottish silver. He disappeared, selling his interest in the Blackfriars company, then or in 1605, to Robert Keysar, and leaving The Insatiate Countess unfinished. He had taken orders by 10 Oct. 1616 when he obtained the living of Christchurch, Hampshire. This he resigned on 13 Sept. 1631. In 1633 he was distant from London, but died on 25 June 1634 in Aldermanbury parish. He had married Mary, probably the daughter of William Wilkes, one of James’s chaplains, of whom Jonson said in 1619 (Laing, 16) that ‘Marston wrott his Father-in-lawes preachings, and his Father-in-law his Commedies’. If we trust the portrait of Crispinus in The Poetaster, he had red hair and little legs. A letter from Marston to Sir Gervase Clifton, endorsed ‘Poet Marston’, is calendared in Hist. MSS. Various Coll. vii. 389; it is undated, but must, from the names used, be of 1603–8.

Collections

1633. Tragedies and Comedies collected into one volume. Viz. 1. Antonio and Mellida. 2. Antonio’s Revenge. 3. The Tragedie of Sophonisba. 4. What You Will. 5. The Fawne. 6. The Dutch Courtezan. A. M. for William Sheares. [Epistle to Viscountess Falkland, signed ‘William Sheares’.]

1633. The Workes of Mr. Iohn Marston, Being Tragedies and Comedies, Collected into one Volume. For William Sheares. [Another issue.]

1856. J. O. Halliwell, The Works of John Marston. 3 vols. [Contains all the works, except Jack Drum’s Entertainment.]

1879. A. B. Grosart, The Poems of John Marston. [Contains Pygmalion’s Image and the satires.]

1887. A. H. Bullen, The Works of John Marston. 3 vols. [Contains all the works, except Jack Drum’s Entertainment.]

Dissertations: W. von Scholten, Metrische Untersuchungen zu Marston’s Trauerspielen (1886, Halle diss.); P. Aronstein, John Marston als Dramatiker (E. S. xx. 377; xxi. 28); W. v. Wurzbach, John Marston (1897, Jahrbuch, xxxiii. 85); C. Winckler, John Marston’s litterarische Anfänge (1903, Breslau diss.) and Marston’s Erstlingswerke und ihre Beziehungen zu Shakespeare (1904, E. S. xxxiii. 216).

PLAYS

Antonio and Mellida. 1599

S. R. 1601, Oct. 24. ‘A booke called The ffyrst and second partes of the play called Anthonio and Melida provided that he gett laufull licence for yt.’ Matthew Lownes and Thomas Fisher (Arber, iii. 193).

1602. The History of Antonio and Mellida. The first part. As it hath beene sundry times acted, by the Children of Paules. Written by I. M. For Mathew Lownes and Thomas Fisher. [Epistle to Nobody, signed ‘J. M.’, Induction, Prologue, and Epilogue.]

1602. Antonio’s Reuenge. The second part. As it hath beene sundry times acted, by the children of Paules. Written by I. M. For Thomas Fisher. [Prologue.]

Editions by C. W. Dilke (1814, O. E. P. ii) and W. W. Greg (1921, M. S. R.).

In V. i of Part i a painter brings in two pictures, one dated ‘Anno Domini, 1599’, the other ‘Aetatis suae 24’. I agree with Small, 92, that these are probably real dates and that the second indicates Marston’s own age. As he must have completed his twenty-fourth year by 3 Feb. 1600 at latest, Part i was probably produced in 1599. The prologue of Part ii speaks of winter as replacing summer, and probably therefore Part i is to be dated in the summer, and Part ii in the early winter of 1599. Clearly the painter scene cannot, as Fleay, ii. 75, suggests, be motived by a casual allusion to a painter in Cynthia’s Revels (F₁) 2673 or the painter scene added on revision to Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy, since both are later. The ‘armed Epilogue’ of Part i seems to me clearly a criticism of the armed prologue of Jonson’s Poetaster (1601); it may have been an addition of 1601. Part ii, prol. 13, 23, calls the theatre ‘round’ and ‘ring’.

What You Will. 1601

S. R. 1607, Aug. 6 (Buck). ‘A commedie called What you will.’ Thomas Thorp (Arber, iii. 358).

1607. What You Will. By Iohn Marston. G. Eld for Thomas Thorpe. [Induction and Prologue.]

Edition by C. W. Dilke (1814, O. E. P. ii).—Dissertation: F. Holthausen, Die Quelle von Marston’s W. Y. W. (1905, Jahrbuch, xli. 186).

Bullen, Fleay, ii. 76, Small, 101, and Aronstein agree in regarding the play as written in 1601 by way of answer to Cynthia’s Revels, and they are probably right. Small shows that, in spite of the fact that Quadratus calls Lampatho Doria a ‘Don Kynsader’ (II. i. 134), Lampatho must stand for Jonson, and Quadratus to some extent for Marston himself. Perhaps Simplicius Faber is the unidentified Asinius Bubo of Satiromastix. Both Fleay and Small think that the play has been revised before publication, partly because of confusion in the names of the characters, and partly because of the absence of the kind of Marstonian language which Jonson satirized. Small goes so far as to suggest that the seventeen untraceable words vomited by Crispinus in The Poetaster came from What You Will, and that Marston rewrote the play and eliminated them. The rest of Fleay’s conjectures about the play seem to me irresponsible. If the play dates from 1601, it may reasonably be assigned to the Paul’s boys. The induction, with its allusions to the small size of the stage and the use of candles, excludes the possibility of an adult theatre.

The Dutch Courtesan. 1603–4

S. R. 1605, June 26. ‘A booke called the Dutche Curtizan, as yt was latelie presented at the Blackeffryers Provyded that he gett sufficient Aucthoritie before yt be prynted.’ John Hodgettes (Arber, iii. 293). [A further note, ‘This is alowed to be printed by Aucthoritie from Master Hartwell’.]

1605. The Dutch Courtezan. As it was played in the Blacke-Friars. by the Children of her Maiesties Reuels. Written by Iohn Marston, T. P. for John Hodgets. [Prologue.]

S. R. 1613, April 19. Transfer to Hodgettes of Eleazer Edgar’s interest in the play (Arber, iii. 520).

As a Queen’s Revels play, this must have been on the stage at least as late as 1603, and the clear proof of Crawford, ii. 1, that several passages are verbal imitations of Florio’s translation of Montaigne, published in that year, make it difficult to put it earlier, although Wallace, ii. 75, says that he has evidence, which he does not give, for production in 1602. On the other hand, C. R. Baskervill (M. L. A. xxiv. 718) argues that the plot influenced that of The Fair Maid of Bristow, which was performed at Court during the winter of 1603–4. The play is referred to with Eastward Ho! (q.v.) as bringing trouble on Marston by A. Nixon, The Black Year (1606). It was revived for the Court by the Lady Elizabeth’s on 25 Feb. 1613, under the name of Cockle de Moye from one of the characters, and repeated on 12 Dec. 1613 (cf. App. B).

The Malcontent. 1604

S. R. 1604, July 5 (Pasfield). ‘An Enterlude called the Malecontent, Tragicomoedia.’ William Aspley and Thomas Thorpe (Arber, iii. 266, 268). [Entry made on the wrong page and re-entered.]

1604. The Malcontent. By Iohn Marston. V. S. for William Aspley. [Two editions. Inscription ‘Beniamino Jonsonio, poetae elegantissimo, gravissimo, amico suo, candido et cordato, Iohannes Marston, Musarum alumnus, asperam hanc suam Thaliam D.D.’ and Epistle to Reader.]

1604. The Malcontent. Augmented by Marston. With the Additions played by the Kings Maiesties servants. Written by Ihon Webster. V. S. for William Aspley. [A third edition, with the Induction, which is headed ‘The Induction to the Malcontent, and the additions acted by the Kings Maiesties servants. Written by Iohn Webster’, and the insertions I. i. 146–88, 195–212, 256–303; I. iii; II. ii. 34, 57–71; III. i. 33–156; IV. ii. 123–37; V. i; V. ii. 10–39, 164–94, 212–26; V. iii. 180–202.]

Editions by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. ii) and W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.); and with Works of Webster (q.v.).—Dissertation: E. E. Stoll, John Webster (1905), 55, and Shakspere, Marston, and the Malcontent Type (1906, M. P. iii. 281).

The induction, in which parts are taken by Sly, Sinklo, Burbadge, Condell, and Lowin, explains the genesis of the enlarged edition.

Sly. ... I would know how you came by this play?

Condell. Faith, sir, the book was lost; and because ’twas pity so good a play should be lost, we found it and play it.

Sly. I wonder you would play it, another company having interest in it.

Condell. Why not Malevole in folio with us, as Jeronimo in decimosexto with them? They taught us a name for our play; we call it One for Another.

Sly. What are your additions?

Burbadge. Sooth, not greatly needful; only as your salad to your great feast, to entertain a little more time, and to abridge the not-received custom of music in our theatre.

Stoll, 57, rightly argues that Small, 115, is not justified in ignoring the evidence of the title-page and assigning the insertions, as well as the induction, to Webster rather than Marston. On the other hand, I think he himself ignores the evidence of Burbadge’s speech in the induction, when he takes the undramatic quality of the insertions as proof that Marston did not write them first in 1604, but revived them from his original text, which the boy actors had shortened. He puts this original text in 1600, because of the allusion in one of the insertions (I. iii. 20) to a ‘horn growing in the woman’s forehead twelve years since’. This horn was described in a pamphlet of 1588. I do not share his view that ‘twelve’ must be a precise and not a round number. Sly says in the induction:

‘This play hath beaten all your gallants out of the feathers: Blackfriars hath almost spoiled Blackfriars for feathers.’

It is clear therefore that the original actors were the Blackfriars boys, and there is nothing else to suggest a connexion between Marston and these boys during Elizabeth’s reign. Small, 115, points out a reference to the Scots in V. iii. 24 which should be Jacobean. I think that this is Marston’s first play for the Queen’s Revels after the formation of the syndicate early in 1604, and that the revision followed later in the same year. It is not necessary to assume that the play was literally ‘lost’ or that Marston was not privy to the adoption of it by the King’s. Importance is attached to the date by parallels to certain plays of Shakespeare, where Stoll thinks that Shakespeare was the borrower. I do not see how it can be so. The epilogue speaks of the author’s ‘reformed Muse’ and pays a compliment to ‘another’s happier Muse’ and forthcoming ‘Thalia’, perhaps Jonson’s Volpone.

The Fawn. 1604 < > 6

S. R. 1606, March 12. ‘A playe called the ffaune provided that he shall not put the same in prynte before he gett alowed lawfull aucthoritie.’ William Cotton (Arber, iii. 316).

1606. Parasitaster, Or The Fawne, As it hath bene diuers times presented at the blacke Friars, by the Children of the Queenes Maiesties Reuels. Written by Iohn Marston. T. P. for W. C. [Epistle to the Equal Reader, signed ‘Jo. Marston’, Prologue, and Epilogue.]

1606.... and since at Paules.... And now corrected of many faults, which by reason of the Author’s absence were let slip in the first edition. T. P. for W. C. [A further Epistle to the Reader states that the writer has ‘perused this copy’ and is about to ‘present ... to you’ the tragedy of Sophonisba.]

Modern edition by C. W. Dilke (1814, O. E. P. ii).

As a Queen’s Revels play, this must date from 1604 or 1605; presumably it was transferred to Paul’s by Edward Kirkham, when he took charge of them for the Christmas of 1605–6. Small, 116, refutes Aronstein’s suggested allusion to Jonson’s Volpone of 1605 or 1606. Bolte, Danziger Theater, 177, prints from a seventeenth-century Dantzig MS. a German play, Tiberius von Ferrara und Annabella von Mömpelgart, which is in part derived from The Fawn (Herz, 99). If, as the titles suggest, the performances of Annabella, eines Hertzogen Tochter von Ferrara at Nördlingen in 1604, of Annabella, eines Markgraffen Tochter von Montferrat at Rothenburg in 1604, and of Herzog von Ferrara at Dresden in 1626 (Herz, 65, 66), indicate intermediate links, The Fawn cannot be later than 1604. Yet I find it impossible not to attach some value to the argument of Stoll, Webster, 17, for a date later than the execution of Sir Everard Digby on 30 Jan. 1606 (Stowe, Annales, 881), which appears to be alluded to in IV. i. 310, ‘Nay, heed me, a woman that will thrust in crowds,—a lady, that, being with child, ventures the hope of her womb,—nay, gives two crowns for a room to behold a goodly man three parts alive, quartered, his privities hackled off, his belly lanched up’. It is true that there were also quarterings for treason on 29 Nov. 1603 (Stowe, Annales, ed. Howes, 831), but these were in Winchester; also that contemporary notices, such as that in Stowe and the narratives in J. Morris, Catholics under James I, 216, and in Somers Tracts (1809), ii. 111, which describes the victims as ‘proper men, in shape’, afford no confirmation of indecent crowds in 1606, but the cumulative effect of the quadruple allusions here, in Day’s Isle of Gulls (q.v.), in Sharpham’s Fleir (q.v.), and in Middleton’s Michaelmas Term (q.v.) is pretty strong. The passage quoted by Crawford, ii. 40, from Montaigne is hardly particular enough to explain that in the Fawn. I do not like explaining discrepancies by the hypothesis of a revision, but if Kirkham revived the Fawn at Paul’s in 1606, he is not unlikely to have had it written up a bit. The epistle refers to ‘the factious malice and studied detractions’ of fellow-dramatists, perhaps an echo of Marston’s relations with Jonson and Chapman over Eastward Ho!

The Wonder of Women, or Sophonisba. 1606

S. R. 1606, March 17 (Wilson). ‘A booke called the wonder of woemen, or the Tragedie of Sophonisba, &c.’ Eleazar Edgar (Arber, iii. 316).

1606. The Wonder of Women Or the Tragedie of Sophonisba, as it hath beene sundry times Acted at the Blacke-Friers. Written by Iohn Marston. John Windet. [Epistle to the General Reader by the author, but unsigned, Argumentum, Prologue, and Epilogue.]

S. R. 1613, April 19. Transfer from Edgar to John Hodgettes (Arber, iii. 521).

The mention of Blackfriars without the name of a company points to a performance after Anne’s patronage had been withdrawn from the Revels boys, late in 1605 or early in 1606, not, as Fleay, ii. 79, suggests, to one by the Chapel in 1602–3. Some features of staging (cf. ch. xxi) raise a suspicion that the play may have been taken over from Paul’s. The resemblance of the title to that of Wonder of a Woman produced by the Admiral’s in 1595 is probably accidental. The epistle glances at Jonson’s translations in Sejanus (1603).

The Insatiate Countess. c. 1610

1613. The Insatiate Countesse. A Tragedie: Acted at White-Fryers. Written by Iohn Marston. T. S. for Thomas Archer.

1616. N. O. for Thomas Archer.

1631.... Written by William Barksteed. For Hugh Perrie.

1631.... Written by Iohn Marston. I. N. for Hugh Perrie. [A reissue.]

Dissertation: R. A. Small, The Authorship and Date of the Insatiate Countess in Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, v (Child Memorial Volume), 277.

It is generally supposed that Marston began the play and that Barksted (q.v.) finished it. Two lines (V. ii. 244–5) appear verbatim in Barksted’s Mirrha (1607). Small traces several other clear parallels with both Mirrha and Hiren, as well as stylistic qualities pointing to Barksted rather than to Marston, and concludes that the play is Barksted’s on a plot drafted by Marston. It may be conjectured that Marston left the fragment when he got into trouble for the second time in 1608, and that the revision was more probably for the Queen’s Revels at Whitefriars in 1609–11 than for the conjoint Queen’s Revels and Lady Elizabeth’s in 1613. Hardly any of the suggestions on the play in Fleay, ii. 80, bear analysis.

Lost Plays

On The King of Scots, vide supra. Rogers and Ley’s list of 1656 (Greg, Masques, lxxii) ascribes to Marston a Guise, which other publishers’ lists transfer to Webster (q.v.). Collier, Memoirs of Alleyn, 154, assigns to Marston a Columbus, on the basis of a forgery.

Doubtful Plays

Marston doubtless had a hand in revising the anonymous Histriomastix and in Jack Drum’s Entertainment, and attempts have been made to find him in An Alarum for London, Charlemagne, London Prodigal, Puritan (cf. ch. xxiv), and as a collaborator in Dekker’s Satiromastix.

MASKS

Ashby Entertainment. Aug. 1607

[MSS.] (a) Bridgewater House, with title, ‘The honorable Lorde & Lady of Huntingdons Entertainment of their right Noble Mother Alice: Countesse Dowager of Darby the first night of her honors arrivall att the house of Ashby’. [Verses to Lady Derby signed ‘John Marston’; includes a mask of Cynthia and Ariadne.]

(b) B.M. Sloane 848, f. 9. [Speech of Enchantress only, with date Aug. 1607.]

Extracts in H. J. Todd, Works of Milton, v. 149 (1801), and Nichols, James, ii. 145 (1828).

On arrival, in the park, at an ‘antique gate’ with complimentary inscriptions, were speeches by Merimna an enchantress, and Saturn; at the top of the stairs to the great chamber another speech by Merimna and a gift of a waistcoat.

Later in the great chamber was a mask by four knights and four gentlemen, in carnation and white, and vizards like stars, representing sons of Mercury, with pages in blue, and Cynthia and Ariadne as presenters. A traverse ‘slided away’, and disclosed the presenters on clouds. Later a second traverse ‘sank down’, and the maskers appeared throned at the top of a wood. They danced ‘a new measure’, then ‘presented their shields’, and took out the ladies for measures, galliards, corantos and lavoltas. ‘The night being much spent’, came their ‘departing measure’.

At departure were an eclogue by a shepherd and a nymph, and a gift of a cabinet by Niobe in the little park.

Mountebank’s Mask. 1618 (?)

The ascription to Marston of this Gray’s Inn mask rests on an unverifiable assertion by Collier (cf. Bullen, Marston, iii. 418; Brotanek, 356), and the known dates of Marston’s career render it extremely improbable.

JOHN MASON (1581–2—?).

The degree boasted on his title-page leads to the identification of Mason as a son of Richard Mason, priest, of Cavendish, Suffolk, and pupil of Bury St. Edmunds school, who matriculated from Caius College, Cambridge, as a sizar at the age of fourteen on 6 July 1596, and took the degree of B.A. in 1601 and M.A. in 1606 from St. Catharine’s Hall. He was a member of the King’s Revels syndicate in 1608, and nothing further is known of him, since the combination of names is too common to justify his identification with the schoolmaster of Camberwell, Surrey, whose school-play is described in Princeps Rhetoricus (1648; cf. C. S. Northup in E. S. xlv. 154).

The Turk. 1607–8

S. R. 1609, March 10 (Segar). ‘A booke called The tragedy of the Turke with the death of Borgias by John Mason gent.’ John Busby (Arber, iii. 403).

1610. The Turke. A Worthie Tragedie. As it hath bene diuers times acted by the Children of his Maiesties Reuels. Written by Iohn Mason Maister of Artes. E. A. for John Busbie. [Prologue and Epilogue.]

1632. An excellent Tragedy of Mulleasses the Turke, and Borgias Governour of Florence. Full of Interchangeable variety; beyond expectation.... T. P. for Francis Falkner.

Edition by J. Q. Adams (1913, Materialien, xxxvii).—Dissertation: G. C. Moore Smith, John Mason and Edward Sharpham (1913, M. L. R. viii. 371).

As a King’s Revels play this may be put in 1607–8. An earlier date has been thought to be indicated by Eastward Ho! (1605), II. ii. 41, ‘Via, the curtaine that shaddowed Borgia’, but if the reference is to a play, Borgia may well have figured in other plays. A play ‘Vom Turcken’ was taken by Spencer to Nuremberg in 1613 (Herz, 66).

CHARLES MASSEY.

For his career as an actor, cf. ch. xv.

He apparently wrote Malcolm King of Scots for the Admiral’s, to which he belonged, in April 1602, and began The Siege of Dunkirk, with Alleyn the Pirate in March 1603. Neither play survives.

PHILIP MASSINGER (1583–1640).