Act 5 — THE SPANISH GIPSY.

The Spanish Gipsie. As it was Acted (with great Applause) at the Privat House in Drury-Lane, and Salisbury Court.

Written by Thomas Midleton and William Rowley Gent.

Never Printed before. London, Printed by J. G. for Richard Marriot in St. Dunstans Church-yard, Fleetstreet, 1653. 4to.

Another ed. appeared in 1661. 4to.

The Spanish Gipsy has been reprinted in the 4th vol. of A Continuation of Dodsley’s Old Plays, 1816.

I have met with no earlier mention of it than that which occurs under a “Note of such playes as were acted at court in 1623 and 1624,” in Sir Henry Herbert’s office-book; “Upon the fifth of November att Whitehall, the prince being there only, The Gipsye, by the Cockpitt company.” Malone’s Shakespeare (by Boswell), vol. iii. p. 227.

“The Story of Roderigo and Clara,” says Langbaine, “has a near resemblance with (if it be not borrow’d from) a Spanish Novel, writ by Miguel de Cervantes, call’d The Force of Blood.” Acc. of Engl. Dram. Poets, p. 373. The editor of 1816 chooses to “think it not improbable that the other plot was suggested to our writers by the Beggar’s Bush of Fletcher, and the play-scene by the similar one in the Hamlet of Shakespeare.”

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

Fernando de Azevida, corregidor of Madrid.

Pedro de Cortes.

Francisco de Carcomo.

Roderigo, son to Fernando.

Louis de Castro.

Diego, his friend.

John, son to Francisco.

Sancho, ward to Pedro.

Soto, his man.

Alvarez de Castilla, disguised as the father of the gipsies.

Carlo Antonio and others, disguised as gipsies.

Servants.

Maria, wife to Pedro.

Clara, their daughter.

Guiamara, wife to Alvarez and sister to Fernando, disguised as the mother of the gipsies, and called by the name of Eugenia.

Constanza, daughter to Fernando, disguised as a gipsy, and called by the name of Pretiosa.

Christiana, disguised as a gipsy.

Cardochia, hostess to Alvarez and his companions.

Scene, Madrid^[169] and its neighbourhood.

103THE SPANISH GIPSY.