Part 2 / Act 5 — THE WIDOW.

339The Widdow A Comedie. As it was Acted at the private House in Black-Fryers, with great Applause, by His late Majesties Servants.

Written by { Ben: Johnson. John Fletcher. Tho: Middleton. } Gent.

Printed by the Originall Copy. London, Printed for Humphrey Moseley and are to be Sold at his Shop, at the Sign of the Princes Arms in St. Pauls Church-yard. 1652. 4to.

On the title-page of a copy of the 4to, in my possession, “Ben: Johnson” and “John Fletcher” are drawn through with a pen, and the word “alone” is written, in an old hand, after “Tho: Middleton.”

This drama has been reprinted in the various editions of Dodsley’s Old Plays (vol. vi. of the first ed. and vol. xii. of the last two eds.); also in Weber’s edition of Beaumont and Fletcher’s Works, vol. xiv.

Malone, by mistake, has stated that “Middleton wrote The Widow with Fletcher and Massinger:” Life of Shakespeare, p. 434—(Sh. by Boswell, vol. ii.)

“He [Ben Jonson] is said to have assisted Middleton and Fletcher in writing The Widow, which must have appeared about this time [i. e. soon after 1621]. This comedy was very popular, and not undeservedly, for it has a considerable degree of merit. I cannot, however, discover many traces of Jonson in it. The authors’ names rest, I believe, on the authority of the editor, A. Gough, who sent the play to the press in 1652.” Such is Gifford’s note on Memoirs of B. Jonson, p. cxliv. But in a note on Jonson’s New Inn (Works, vol. v. p. 433), he says, that The Widow “appeared on the stage so early as 1618.”

The last editor of Dodsley’s Old Plays thinks “there is internal evidence that Ben Jonson contributed to The Widow, and it is rather surprising that Mr. Gifford did not trace his pen through the whole of the fourth act.”

The mention of “yellow bands” as “hateful” (see act v. sc. 1, and note), in consequence of Mrs. Turner’s execution, November 1615, shews that The Widow was written after that period: but in all probability it was produced very soon after, 340for a play, entitled The Honest Lawyer, by S. S., and printed in 1616, contains a manifest imitation of a passage in act iv. sc. 2: vide note. We can hardly suppose that the author (or authors) of The Widow would have borrowed from the dramatist just mentioned.

We learn from Sir Henry Herbert’s papers that The Widow was one of the stock-pieces belonging to the Red Bull actors, who afterwards became the king’s servants, and that it was played in 1660: see Malone’s Hist. Acc. of the English Stage, pp. 273-5 (Shakespeare, by Boswell, vol. iii.). Downes also mentions that it was performed at a somewhat later period: vide Roscius Anglicanus, p. 17, ed. Waldron. And Langbaine says, “It was reviv’d not many years ago, at the King’s House, with a new Prologue and Epilogue, which the Reader may find in London Drollery, p. 11, 12.” Acc. of Engl. Dram. Poets, p. 298.

341TO THE READER.

Considering how the curious pay some part of their esteem to excellent persons in the careful preservation but of their defaced statues; instead of decayed medals of the Romans’ greatness, I believed it of more value to present you this lively piece, drawn by the art of Jonson, Fletcher, and Middleton, which is thought to have a near resemblance to the portraiture we have in Terence of those worthy minds, where the great Scipio and Lælius strove to twist the poet’s ivy with the victor’s bays. As the one was deserved by their work in subduing their country’s enemies, so the other by their recreation and delight, which was to banish that folly and sadness that were worse than Hannibal or all the monsters and venom of Africa. Since our own countrymen are not in any thing inferior, it were to be wished they had but so much encouragement, that the past license and abuses charged on the stage might not ever be thought too unpardonable to pass in oblivion, and so good laws and instructions for manners, uncapable of being regulated, which, if but according to this pattern, certainly none need think himself the less a good Christian for owning the same desire as

Your humble servant,

ALEXANDER GOUGH.^[576]

343

PROLOGUE.

A sport only for Christmas is the play

This hour presents t’ you; to make you merry^[577]

Is all th’ ambition 't has, and fullest aim

Bent at your smiles, to win itself a name;

And if your edge be not quite taken off,

Wearied with sports, I hope 'twill make you laugh.

344DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

Brandino, a justice.

Martino, his clerk.

Francisco.

Attilio.

Ricardo, suitor to Valeria.

Two Old Men, suitors to Valeria.

Latrocinio, Occulto, Silvio, Stratio, Fiducio, Servellio. Thieves.

Officers, Servants.

Valeria, a widow.

Philippa, her sister, wife to Brandino.

Martia, daughter to one of Valeria’s suitors, and disguised as Ansaldo.

Violetta, waiting-maid to Philippa.

Scene, Capo d'Istria and the neighbouring country.

345THE WIDOW.