Part 1

is doubtless represented by the extant _Sir Thomas Wyatt_ of Dekker (q.v.) and Webster, in which nothing is at all obviously traceable to Smith.

(xii), (xiii) _1, 2 The Black Dog of Newgate._

With Day, Hathway, and another, Nov. 1602–Feb. 1603.

(xiv) _The Unfortunate General._

With Day and Hathway, Jan. 1602.

(xv) _The Italian Tragedy._

March 1603.

EDMUND SPENSER (1552–99).

The only record of Spenser’s dramatic experiments, unless they are buried amongst the anonymous plays of the Revels Accounts, is to be found in his correspondence of April 1580 with Gabriel Harvey, who wrote, ‘I imagine your Magnificenza will hold us in suspense ... for your nine English Commedies’, and again, ‘I am void of all judgment if your Nine Comedies, whereunto in imitation of Herodotus, you give the names of the Nine Muses (and in one mans fancy not unworthily) come not nearer Ariosto’s Comedies, either for the fineness of plausible elocution, or the rareness of Poetical Invention, than that Elvish Queen doth to his Orlando Furioso’ (_Two other Very Commendable Letters_, in Harvey’s _Works_, i. 67, 95). I can hardly suppose that the manuscript play of ‘Farry Queen’ in Warburton’s list (_3 Library_, ii. 232) had any connexion with Spenser’s comedies.

ROD. STAFFORD.

Probably the ‘Rod. Staff.’ who collaborated with Robert Wilmot (q.v.) in the Inner Temple play of _Gismond of Salerne_.

WILLIAM STANLEY, EARL OF DERBY (1561–1642).

Derby seems to have had players from 1594 to 1618, who presumably acted the comedies which he was said to be ‘penning’ in June 1599 (cf. ch. xiii), but none of these can be identified, although the company’s anonymous _Trial of Chivalry_ (1605) needs an author. A fantastic theory that his plays were for the Chamberlain’s, and that he wrote them under the name of William Shakespeare, was promulgated by J. Greenstreet in _The Genealogist_, n.s. vii. 205; viii. 8, 137, and has been elaborately developed by A. Lefranc in _Sous le Masque de ‘William Shakespeare’_ (1919) and later papers in _Le Flambeau_ and elsewhere. _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ was not impossibly written for his wedding on 26 Jan. 1595 (cf. App. A and _Shakespeare Homage_, 154).

JOHN STEPHENS (> 1611–1617 <).

A Gloucester man, who entered Lincoln’s Inn in 1611, but is only known by his slight literary performances, of which the most important are his _Essayes_ of 1615 (cf. App. C, No. lx).

_Cynthia’s Revenge > 1613_

1613. Cinthias Revenge: or Maenanders Extasie. Written by John Stephens, Gent. _For Roger Barnes._ [There are two variant t.ps. of which one omits the author’s name. Epistle to Io. Dickinson, signed ‘I. S.’; Epistle to the Reader; Argument; Commendatory Verses, signed ‘F. C.’, ‘B. I.’, ‘G. Rogers’, ‘Tho. Danet’.]

_Dissertation_: P. Simpson, _The Authorship and Original Issue of C. R._ (1907, _M. L. R._ ii. 348).

The epistle to the reader says that the author’s name is ‘purposly concealed ... from the impression’, which accounts for the change of title-page. Stephens claims the authorship in the second edition of his _Essayes_ (1615). Kirkman (Greg, _Masques_, lxii) was misled into assigning it to ‘John Swallow’, by a too literal interpretation of F. C.’s lines:

One Swallow makes no Summer, most men say, But who disproues that Prouerbe, made this Play.

JOHN STUDLEY (_c._ 1545–_c._ 1590).

Translator of Seneca (q.v.).

ROBERT TAILOR (_c._ 1613).

Tailor also published settings to _Sacred Hymns_ (1615) and wrote commendatory verses to John Taylor’s _The Nipping or Snipping of Abuses_ (1614).

_Hog Hath Lost His Pearl. 1613_

_S. R._ 1614, May 23, 1614 (Taverner and Buck). ‘A play booke called Hogge hath lost his pearle.’ _Richard Redmer_ (Arber, iii. 547).

1614. The Hogge hath lost his Pearle. A Comedy. Divers times Publikely acted, by certaine London Prentices. By Robert Tailor. _For Richard Redmer._ [Prologue and Epilogue.]

_Editions_ in Dodsley^{1–4} (1744–1875) and by W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ iii).

Sir H. Wotton wrote to Sir Edmund Bacon (Wotton, ii. 13): ‘On Sunday last at night, and no longer, some sixteen apprentices (of what sort you shall guess by the rest of the story) having secretly learnt a new play without book, intituled _The Hog hath lost his Pearl_, took up the White-Fryers for their theatre: and having invited thither (as it should seem) rather their mistresses than their masters; who were all to enter _per bullettini_ for a note of distinction from ordinary comedians, towards the end of the play the sheriffs (who by chance had heard of it) came in (as they say) and carried some six or seven of them to perform the last act at Bridewel; the rest are fled. Now it is strange to hear how sharp-witted the City is, for they will needs have Sir John Swinerton, the Lord Mayor, be meant by the Hog, and the late Lord Treasurer [Lord Salisbury] by the Pearl.’ Swinnerton was Lord Mayor in 1612–13. The letter is only dated ‘Tuesday’, but refers to the departure of the King, which was 22 Feb. 1613, as on the previous day. This would give the first Sunday in Lent (21 Feb.) for the date of production. The phrase (I. i) ‘Shrove-Tuesday is at hand’ suggests 14 Feb., but the date originally intended was very likely altered. The Prologue refers to the difficulties of the producers. The play had been ‘toss’d from one house to another’. It does not grunt at ‘state-affairs’ or ‘city vices’. There had been attempts to ‘prevent’ it, but it ‘hath a Knight’s license’, doubtless Sir George Buck’s. In I. i is some chaff, apparently directed at Garlic and the Fortune, and an interview between a player and one Haddit, who writes a jig called _Who Buys my Four Ropes of Hard Onions_ for four angels, and a promise of a box for a new play. Fleay, ii. 256, identifies Haddit with Dekker, but his reasons do not bear analysis, and Haddit is no professional playwright, but a gallant who has run through his fortune. A passage in Act III (Dodsley, p. 465) bears out the suggestion of satire on the house of Cecil.

RICHARD TARLTON (?-1588).

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

_The Seven Deadly Sins. 1585_

[_MS._] _Dulwich MS._ xix, ‘The platt of The secound parte of the Seuen Deadlie sinns.’ [This was found pasted inside the boards forming the cover to a manuscript play of the seventeenth century, _The Tell Tale_ (_Dulwich MS._ xx).]

The text is given by Malone, _Supplement_ (1780), i. 60; Steevens, _Variorum_ (1803), iii. 404; Boswell, _Variorum_ (1821), iii. 348; Collier, iii. 197; Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 129; and a photographic facsimile by W. Young, _History of Dulwich_ (1889), ii. 5.

The ‘platt’ names a number of actors and may thereby be assigned to a revival by the Admiral’s or Strange’s men about 1590 (cf. ch. xiii). The play consisted of three episodes illustrating Envy, Sloth, and Lechery, together with an Induction. This renders plausible the conjecture of Fleay, 83, supported by Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 153, that it is the _Four Plays in One_ revived by Strange’s for Henslowe on 6 March 1592. And if so, the original two parts may be traceable in the _Five Plays in One_ and the _Three Plays in One_ of the Queen’s men in 1585. Tarlton was of course a Queen’s man, and evidence of his authorship is furnished by Gabriel Harvey, who in his _Four Letters_ (1592, _Works_, i. 194) attacks Nashe’s _Pierce Penilesse_ (1592) as ‘not Dunsically botched-vp, but right-formally conueied, according to the stile, and tenour of Tarletons president, his famous play of the seauen Deadly sinnes; which most deadly, but most liuely playe, I might haue seene in London; and was verie gently inuited thereunto at Oxford by Tarleton himselfe’. Nashe defends himself against the charge of plagiarism in his _Strange News_ (1592, _Works_, i. 304, 318), and confirms the indication of authorship.

_Doubtful Play_

Tarlton has been suggested as the author of the anonymous _Famous Victories of Henry V_ (cf. ch. xxiv).

JOHN TAYLOR (1580–1653).

Known as the Water Poet. His description of the festivities at the wedding of Princess Elizabeth in 1613 (cf. ch. xxiv, C) is only one of innumerable pamphlets in verse and prose, several of which throw light on stage history. Many of these were collected in his folio _Workes_ of 1630, reprinted with others of his writings by the Spenser Society during 1868–78. There is also a collection by C. Hindley (1872).

CHARLES TILNEY (_ob._ 1586).

Said, on manuscript authority alleged by Collier, to be the author of _Locrine_ (cf. ch. xxiv).

THOMAS TOMKIS (> 1597–1614 <).

Tomkis entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1597, took his B.A. in 1600 and his M.A. in 1604, and became Fellow of Trinity in the same year. He has been confused by Fleay, ii. 260, and others with various members of a musical family of Tomkins.

_Lingua. 1602 < > 7_

_S. R._ 1607, Feb. 23 (Wilson). ‘A Commedie called Lingua.’ _Simon Waterson_ (Arber, iii. 340).

1607. Lingua: Or The Combat of the Tongue, And the fiue Senses. For Superiority. _G. Eld for Simon Waterson._ [Prologue.]

1617; 1622; n.d.; 1632; 1657.

_Editions_ in Dodsley^{1–4} (1744–1874) and by W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ ii) and J. S. Farmer (1913, _S. F. T._).--_Dissertation_: F. S. Boas, _Macbeth and L._ (1909, _M. L. R._ iv. 517).

Winstanley (1687) assigned the play to Antony Brewer, but Sir J. Harington, in a memorandum printed by F. J. Furnivall from _Addl. MS._ 27632 in _7 N. Q._ ix. 382, notes ‘The combat of Lingua made by Thom. Tomkis of Trinity colledge in Cambridge’, and this is rendered plausible by the resemblance of the play to _Albumazar_. It is clearly of an academic type. As to the date there is less certainty. G. C. Moore Smith (_M. L. R._ iii. 146) supports 1602 by a theory that a compliment (IV. vii) to Queen Psyche is really meant for Elizabeth, and contains allusions to notable events of her reign. I do not find his interpretations very convincing, although I should not like to say that they are impossible. Fleay, ii. 261, starting from a tradition handed down by the publisher of 1657 that Oliver Cromwell acted in the play, conjectures that the play formed part of Sir Oliver Cromwell’s entertainment of James at Hinchinbrook on 27–9 April 1603, and that his four-year-old nephew took the four-line part of Small Beer (_IV._ v). Either date would fit in with the remark in _III._ v, ‘About the year 1602 many used this skew kind of language’. Boas, however, prefers a date near that of publication, on account of similarities to passages in _Macbeth_. The play was translated as _Speculum Aestheticum_ for Maurice of Hesse-Cassel in 1613 by Johannes Rhenanus, who probably accompanied Prince Otto to England in 1611; cf. P. Losch, _Johannes Rhenanus_ (1895).

_Albumazar. 1615_

_S. R._ 1615, April 28 (Nidd). ‘Albumazar a comedie acted before his Maiestie at Cambridg 10^o Martii 1614.’ _Nicholas Okes_ (Arber, iii. 566).

1615. Albumazar. A Comedy presented before the Kings Maiestie at Cambridge, the ninth of March, 1614. By the Gentlemen of Trinitie Colledge. _Nicholas Okes for Walter Burre._ [Prologue.]

1615. _Nicholas Okes for Walter Burre._ [Another edition with the same t.p.]

1634.... Newly revised and corrected by a speciall Hand. _Nicholas Okes._

1634. _Nicholas Okes._

1668.... As it is now Acted at His Highness the Duke of York’s Theatre. _For Thomas Dring._ [Prologue by Dryden.]

_Editions_ in Dodsley^{1–4} (1744–1875) and by W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ ii).

The play is assigned to ‘M^r Tomkis, Trinit.’ in an account of the royal visit given by S. Pegge from Sir Edward Dering’s MS. in _Gent. Mag._ xxvi. 224, and a bursar’s account-book for 1615 has the entry, ‘Given M^r. Tomkis for his paines in penning and ordering the Englishe Commedie at our Masters appoyntment, xx^{ll}’ (_3 N. Q._ xii. 155). Chamberlain wrote to Carleton (Birch, i. 304) that ‘there was no great matter in it more than one good clown’s part’. It is an adaptation of Giambattista Porta’s _L’Astrologo_ (1606). No importance is to be attached to the suggestion of H. I. in _3 N. Q._ ix. 178, 259, 302, that Shakespeare was the author and wrote manuscript notes in a copy possessed by H. I. Dryden regards the play as the model of Jonson’s _Alchemist_ (1610):

Subtle was got by our Albumazar, That Alchymist by our Astrologer.

Unless Dryden was mistaken, the performance in 1615 was only a revival, but the payment for ‘penning’ makes this improbable.

_Doubtful Later Play_

G. C. Moore Smith (_M. L. R._ iii. 149) supports the attribution by Winstanley to Tomkis of _Pathomachia or the Battle of Affections_ (1630), also called in a running title and in _Bodl. MS. Eng. Misc._ e. 5 _Love’s Load-stone_, a University play of _c._ 1616, in which there are two references to ‘Madame Lingua’.

CYRIL TOURNEUR (?-1626).

Tourneur, or Turnor, first appears as the author of a satire, _The Transformed Metamorphosis_ (1600), but his history and relationships to the Cecils and to Sir Francis Vere suggest that he was connected with a Richard Turnor who served in the Low Countries as water-bailiff and afterwards Lieutenant of Brill during 1585–96. His career as a dramatist was over by 1613, and from December of that year to his death on 28 Feb. 1626 he seems himself to have been employed on foreign service, mainly in the Low Countries but finally at Cadiz, where he was secretary to the council of war under Sir Edward Cecil in 1625. He died in Ireland and left a widow Mary.

_Collections_

1878. J. C. Collins, _The Plays and Poems of C. T._ 2 vols.

1888. J. A. Symonds, _Webster and Tourneur_ (_Mermaid Series_).

_Dissertations_: G. Goodwin in _Academy_ (9 May 1891); T. Seccombe in _D. N. B._ (1899).

_The Atheist’s Tragedy. 1607 < > 11_

_S. R._ 1611, Sept. 14 (Buck). ‘A booke called, The tragedy of the Atheist.’ _John Stepneth_ (Arber, iii. 467).

1611. The Atheist’s Tragedie: Or The honest Man’s Reuenge, As in diuers places it hath often beene Acted. Written by Cyril Tourneur. _For John Stepneth and Richard Redmer._

1612. _For John Stepneth and Richard Redmer._ [Another issue.]

Fleay, ii. 263, attempts to date the play before the close of the siege of Ostend in 1604, but, as E. E. Stoll, _John Webster_, 210, points out, this merely dates the historic action and proves nothing as to composition. Stoll himself finds some plausible reminiscences of _King Lear_ (1606) and suggests a date near that of publication.

LOST PLAYS

_The Nobleman. c. 1612_

_S. R._ 1612, Feb. 15 (Buck). ‘A play booke beinge a Trage-comedye called, The Noble man written by Cyril Tourneur.’ _Edward Blount_ (Arber, iii. 478).

1653, Sept. 9. ‘The Nobleman, or Great Man, by Cyrill Tourneur.’ _Humphrey Moseley_ (Eyre, i. 428).

The play was acted by the King’s at Court on 23 Feb. 1612 and again during the winter of 1612–13. Warburton’s list of plays burnt by his cook (_3 Library_, ii. 232) contains distinct entries of ‘The Great Man T.’ and ‘The Nobleman T. C. Cyrill Turñuer’. Hazlitt, _Manual_, 167, says (1892): ‘Dr. Furnivall told me many years ago that the MS. was in the hands of a gentleman at Oxford, who was editing Tourneur’s Works; but I have heard nothing further of it. Music to a piece called The Nobleman is in _Addl. MS. B.M._ 10444.’

For _The Arraignment of London_ (1613) v.s. Daborne.

_Doubtful Plays_

Tourneur’s hand has been sought in the _Honest Man’s Fortune_ of the Beaumont (q.v.) and Fletcher series, and in _Charlemagne_, _Revenger’s Tragedy_, and _Second Maiden’s Tragedy_ (cf. ch. xxiv).

NICHOLAS TROTTE (_c._ 1588).

A Gray’s Inn lawyer, who wrote an ‘Introduction’ for the _Misfortunes of Arthur_ of Thomas Hughes (q.v.) in 1588.

RICHARD VENNAR (_c._ 1555–1615?).

Vennar (Vennard), who has often been confused with William Fennor, a popular rhymer, was of Balliol and Lincoln’s Inn, and lived a shifty life, which ended about 1615 in a debtor’s prison. Its outstanding feature was the affair of _England’s Joy_, but in 1606 he is said (_D. N. B._) to have been in trouble for an attempt to defraud Sir John Spencer of £500 towards the preparation of an imaginary mask under the patronage of Sir John Watts, the Lord Mayor.

_England’s Joy. 1602_

[_Broadsheet_] The Plot of the Play, called England’s Joy. To be Played at the Swan this 6 of Nouember, 1602. [No. 98 in collection of Society of Antiquaries.]

_Reprints_ by W. Park in _Harleian Miscellany_ (1813), x. 198; S. Lee (1887, _vide infra_); W. Martin (1913, _vide infra_); W. J. Lawrence (1913, _vide infra_).--_Dissertations_: S. Lee, _The Topical Side of the Elizabethan Drama_ (_N. S. S. Trans._ 1887–92, 1); T. S. Graves, _A Note on the Swan Theatre_ (1912, _M. P._ ix. 431), _Tricks of Elizabethan Showmen_ (_South Atlantic Quarterly_, April 1915); W. Martin, _An Elizabethan Theatre Programme_ (1913, _Selborne Magazine_, xxiv. 16); W. J. Lawrence (ii. 57), _The Origin of the Theatre Programme_.

The document appears to be a ‘bill’. It is 12¾ by 7¾ inches, and contains a synopsis under nine heads, beginning with the civil wars from Edward III to Mary ‘induct by shew and in Action’, and continuing with episodes from the reign of Elizabeth, who is England’s Joy. In sc. viii ‘a great triumph is made with fighting of twelue Gentlemen at Barriers’, and in sc. ix Elizabeth ‘is taken vp into Heauen, when presently appeares, a Throne of blessed Soules, and beneath vnder the Stage set forth with strange fireworkes, diuers blacke and damned Soules, wonderfully discribed in their seuerall torments’. Apart from the bill, Vennar must have given it out that the performers were to be amateurs. Chamberlain, 163, writes to Carleton on 19 Nov. 1602:

‘And, now we are in mirth, I must not forget to tell you of a cousening prancke of one Venner, of Lincolns Inne, that gave out bills of a famous play on Satterday was sevenight on the Banckeside, to be acted only by certain gentlemen and gentlewomen of account. The price at cumming in was two shillings or eighteen pence at least; and when he had gotten most part of the mony into his hands, he wold have shewed them a faire paire of heeles, but he was not so nimble to get up on horse-backe, but that he was faine to forsake that course, and betake himselfe to the water, where he was pursued and taken, and brought before the Lord Chiefe Justice, who wold make nothing of it but a jest and a merriment, and bounde him over in five pound to appeare at the sessions. In the meane time the common people, when they saw themselves deluded, revenged themselves upon the hangings, curtains, chairs, stooles, walles, and whatsoever came in theire way, very outragiously, and made great spoile; there was great store of good companie, and many noblemen.’

Similarly John Manningham in his _Diary_, 82, 93, notes in Nov. 1602, how

‘Vennar, a gent. of Lincolnes, who had lately playd a notable cunni-catching tricke, and gulled many under couller of a play to be of gent. and reuerens, comming to the court since in a blacke suit, bootes and golden spurres without a rapier, one told him he was not well suited; the golden spurres and his brazen face uns[uited].’

On 27 Nov. he adds, ‘When one said that Vennar the graund connicatcher had golden spurres and a brazen face, “It seemes”, said R. R. “he hath some mettall in him.”’ Vennar’s own account of ‘my publique default of the Swan, where not a collier but cals his deere 12 pense to witnesse the disaster of the day’ was given many years later in ‘_An Apology_: Written by Richard Vennar, of Lincolnes Inne, abusively called Englands Joy. 1614’, printed by Collier in _Illustrations_ (1866), iii. It vies in impudence with the original offence. He had been in prison and was in debt, and ‘saw daily offering to the God of pleasure, resident at the Globe on the Banke-side’. This suggested his show, ‘for which they should give double payment, to the intent onely, men of ability might make the purchase without repentance’. He continues:

‘My devise was all sorts of musique, beginning with chambers, the harpe of war, and ending with hounds, the cry of peace, of which I was doubly provided for Fox and Hare. The report of gentlemen and gentlewomens actions, being indeed the flagge to our theater, was not meerely falcification, for I had divers Chorus to bee spoken by men of good birth, schollers by profession, protesting that the businesse was meerely abused by the comming of some beagles upon mee that were none of the intended kennell: I meane baylifes, who, siezing mee before the first entrance, spoke an Epilogue instead of a Prologue. This changed the play into the hunting of the fox, which, that the world may know for a verity, I heere promise the next tearme, with the true history of my life, to bee publiquely presented, to insert, in place of musicke for the actes, all those intendments prepared for that daies enterteinment.’

Later on he says, ‘I presented you with a dumbe show’, and jests on getting ‘so much mony for six verses’, which, I suppose, means that the performance was intended to be a spoken one, but was broken off during the prologue. Apparently the new entertainment contemplated by Vennar in 1614 was in fact given, not by him but by William Fennor, to whom John Taylor writes in his _A Cast Over Water_ (1615):

Thou brag’st what fame thou got’st upon the stage. Indeed, thou set’st the people in a rage In playing England’s Joy, that every man Did judge it worse than that was done at Swan.

* * * * *

Upon S. George’s day last, sir, you gave To eight Knights of the Garter (like a knave), Eight manuscripts (or Books) all fairelie writ, Informing them, they were your mother wit: And you compil’d them; then were you regarded, And for another’s wit was well rewarded. All this is true, and this I dare maintaine, The matter came from out a learned braine: And poor old _Vennor_ that plaine dealing man, Who acted England’s Joy first at the Swan, Paid eight crowns for the writing of these things. Besides the covers, and the silken strings.

Robin Goodfellow, in Jonson’s _Love Restored_ (_1612_), calls the absence of a mask ‘a fine trick, a piece of England’s Joy’, and three characters in the _Masque of Augurs_ (_1622_) are said to be ‘three of those gentlewomen that should have acted in that famous matter of England’s Joy in six hundred and three’--apparently a slip of Jonson’s as to the exact date. Other allusions to the ‘gullery’ are in Saville, _Entertainment of King James at Theobalds_ (1603); R. Brathwaite, _The Poet’s Palfrey_ (_Strappado for the Devil_, ed. J. W. Ebsworth, 160); J. Suckling, _The Goblins_ (ed. Hazlitt, ii. 52); W. Davenant, _Siege of Rhodes_, Pt. ii, prol. It may be added that Vennar’s cozenage was perhaps suggested by traditional stories of similar tricks. One is ascribed to one Qualitees in _Merry Tales, Wittie Questions and Quick Answeres_, cxxxiii (1567, Hazlitt, _Jest Books_, i. 145). In this bills were set up ‘vpon postes aboute London’ for ‘an antycke plaie’ at Northumberland Place and ‘all they that shoulde playe therin were gentilmen’. Another is the subject of one of the _Jests_ of George Peele (Bullen, ii. 389). W. Fennor, _The Compters Commonwealth_ (1617), 64, tells of an adventure of ‘one M^r. Venard (that went by the name of Englands Joy)’ in jail, where he afterwards died.

EDWARD DE VERE, EARL OF OXFORD (1550–1604).

Meres (1598) includes the earl in his list of ‘the best for Comedy amongst vs’ but although Oxford had theatrical servants at intervals from 1580 to 1602 (cf. ch. xiii), little is known of their plays, and none can be assigned to him, although the anonymous _The Weakest Goeth to the Wall_ (1600) calls for an author. J. T. Looney, _Shakespeare Identified_ (1920), gives him Shakespeare’s plays, many of which were written after his death.

FRANCIS VERNEY (1584–1615).

Francis, the eldest son of Sir Edmund Verney of Penley, Herts., and Claydon, Bucks., entered Trinity College, Oxford, in 1600, and was knighted on 14 March 1604. As a result of family disputes, he left England about 1608, and became a pirate in the Mediterranean, dying at Messina on 6 Sept. 1615 (_Verney Memoirs^2_, i. 47). G. C. Moore Smith (_M. L. R._ iii. 151) gives him the following play.

_Antipoe. 1603 < > 8_

[_MS._] _Bodl. MS._ 31041, ‘The tragedye of Antipoe with other poetical verses written by mee Nic^o. Leatt Jun. in Allicant In June 1622’, with Epistles to James and the Reader by ‘Francis Verney’. Presumably Verney was the author, and Nicolas only a scribe.

ANTONY WADESON (_c._ 1601).

Henslowe made payments to him on behalf of the Admiral’s in June and July 1601 for a play called _The Honourable Life of the Humorous Earl of Gloucester, with his Conquest of Portugal_, but these only amounted to 30_s._, so that possibly the play was not finished.

_Doubtful Play_

The anonymous _Look About You_ (cf. ch. xxiv) has been ascribed to Wadeson.

LEWIS WAGER (_c._ 1560).

Wager became Rector of St. James Garlickhithe on 28 March 1560. Some resemblance of his style to that of W. Wager has led to an assumption that they were related. He was a corrector of books.

_The Life and Repentance of Mary Magdalene > 1566_

_S. R._ 1566–7. ‘An interlude of the Repentaunce of Mary Magdalen.’ _John Charlwood_ (Arber, i. 335).

1566. A new Enterlude, neuer before this tyme imprinted, entreating of the Life and Repentaunce of Marie Magdalene: not only godlie, learned and fruitefull, but also well furnished with pleasaunt myrth and pastime, very delectable for those which shall heare or reade the same. Made by the learned clarke Lewis Wager. _John Charlwood._ [Prologue.]

1567. _John Charlwood._ [Probably a reissue. Two manuscript copies in the Dyce collection seem to be made from this edition.]

_Editions_ by F. I. Carpenter (1902, 1904, _Chicago Decennial Publications_, ii. 1) and J. S. Farmer (1908, _T. F. T._).

A play of Protestant tone, with biblical and allegorical characters, including ‘Infidelitie the Vice’, intended for four [five] actors. There is a Prologue, intended for actors who have ‘vsed this feate at the vniuersitie’ and will take ‘half-pence or pence’ from the audience. Carpenter dates the play _c._ 1550; but his chief argument that the prologue recommends obedience ‘to the kyng’ is not very convincing.

See also W. Wager, s.v. _The Cruel Debtor._

W. WAGER (_c._ 1559).

Nothing is known of him beyond his plays and the similarity of his name to that of Lewis Wager (q.v.). Joseph Hunter, _Chorus Vatum_, v. 90, attempts to identify him with William Gager (q.v.), but this is not plausible. On the illegitimate extension of W. into William and other bibliographical confusions about the two Wagers, _vide_ W. W. Greg, _Notes on Dramatic Bibliographers_ (_M. S. C._ i. 324).

_The Longer Thou Livest, the More Fool Thou Art. c. 1559_

_S. R._ 1568–9. ‘A ballett the lenger thou leveste the more ffoole thow.’ _Richard Jones_ (Arber, i. 386).

N.D. A very mery and Pythie Commedie, called The longer thou liuest, the more foole thou art. A Myrrour very necessarie for youth, and specially for such as are like to come to dignitie and promotion: As it maye well appeare in the Matter folowynge. Newly compiled by W. Wager. _William Howe for Richard Jones._ [Prologue.]

_Editions_ by Brandl (1900, _Jahrbuch_ xxxvi. 1) and J. S. Farmer (1910, _S. F. T._).

A Protestant moral of 1,977 lines, with allegorical characters, arranged for four actors. Moros enters ‘synging the foote of many Songes, as fooles were wont’. Elizabeth is prayed for as queen, but the Catholic domination is still recent.

_Enough is as Good as a Feast. c. 1560_

N.D. A Comedy or Enterlude intituled, Inough is as good as a feast, very fruteful, godly and ful of pleasant mirth. Compiled by W. Wager. _By John Allde._ [The t.p. has also ‘Seuen may easely play this Enterlude’, with an arrangement of parts. The play was unknown until it appeared in Lord Mostyn’s sale of 1919. The seventeenth-century publishers’ lists record the title, but without ascription to Wager (Greg, _Masques_, lxvi).]

_Edition_ by S. de Ricci (1920, _Huntingdon Reprints_, ii).

F. S. Boas (_T. L. S._ 20 Feb. 1919) describes the play as ‘a morality with a controversial Protestant flavour’; at the end Satan carries off the Vice, Covetouse, on his back. Elizabeth is prayed for.

_The Cruel Debtor. c. 1565_

_S. R._ 1565–6. ‘A ballet intituled an interlude the Cruell Detter by Wager.’ _Thomas Colwell_ (Arber, i. 307).

N.D. Fragments. C. iii in Bagford Collection (_Harl. MS._ 5919); D and D 4(?) formerly in collection of W. B. Scott, now in B.M. (C. 40, e. 48).

_Editions_ by F. J. Furnivall (1878, _N. S. S. Trans._ 1877–9, 2*) and W. W. Greg (1911, _M. S. C._ i. 314).

The speakers are Rigour, Flattery, Simulation, Ophiletis, Basileus, and Proniticus.

R. Imelmann in _Herrig’s Archiv_, cxi. 209, would assign these fragments to Lewis Wager, rather than W. Wager, but the stylistic evidence is hardly conclusive either way, and there is no other.

_Lost Play_

Warburton’s list of manuscripts burnt by his cook (_3 Library_, ii. 232) includes ’Tis Good Sleeping in A Whole Skin W. Wager’.

GEORGE WAPULL (_c._ 1576).

A George Wapull was clerk of the Stationers’ Company from 29 Sept. 1571 to 30 May 1575. In 1584–5 the company assisted him with 10_s._ ‘towards his voyage unto Norembegue’ in America (Arber, i. xliv, 509).

_The Tide Tarrieth No Man > 1576_

_S. R._ 1576, Oct. 22. ‘An Enterlude intituled The tide tariethe noe man.’ _Hugh Jackson_ (Arber, ii. 303).

1576. The Tyde taryeth no Man. A Moste Pleasant and merry Commody, right pythie and full of delight. Compiled by George Wapull. _Hugh Jackson._ [Prologue.]

_Editions_ by J. P. Collier (1864, _Illustrations of Early English Literature_, ii), E. Ruhl (1907, _Jahrbuch_, xliii. 1), J. S. Farmer (1910, _T. F. T._).

A non-controversial moral, with allegorical and typical characters, including ‘Courage, the vice’, arranged for four actors.

WILLIAM WARNER (_c._ 1558–1609).

Warner was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and became an attorney. His chief work, _Albion’s England_ (1586), was dedicated to Henry Lord Hunsdon, and his _Syrinx_ (1585) to Sir George Carey, afterwards Lord Hunsdon.

_Menaechmi > c. 1592_

_S. R._ 1594, June 10. ‘A booke entituled Menachmi beinge A pleasant and fine Conceyted Comedye taken out of the moste excellent wittie Poett Plautus chosen purposely from out the reste as leaste harmefull and yet moste delightfull.’ _Thomas Creede_ (Arber, ii. 653).

1595. Menaecmi, A pleasant and fine Conceited Comædie, taken out of the most excellent wittie Poet Plautus: Chosen purposely from out the rest, as least harmefull, and yet most delightfull. Written in English, by W. W. _Thomas Creede, sold by William Barley._ [Epistle by the Printer to the Readers; Argument.]

_Editions_ by J. Nichols (1779, _Six Old Plays_, i), W. C. Hazlitt (1875, _Sh. L._ ii. 1), and W. H. D. Rouse (1912, _Sh. Classics_).

This translation is generally supposed to have influenced the _Comedy of Errors_. If so, Shakespeare must have had access to it in manuscript, and it must have been available before _c._ 1592. The epistle speaks of Warner as ‘having diverse of this Poetes Comedies Englished, for the use and delight of his private friends, who in Plautus owne words are not able to understand them’. No others are known.

THOMAS WATSON (_c._ 1557–92).

An Oxford man, who took no degree, and a lawyer, who did not practise, Watson became an elegant writer of English and Latin verse. He won the patronage of Walsingham at Paris in 1581, and became a member of the literary circle of Lyly and Peele. His most important volume of verse is the _Hekatompathia_ (1582) dedicated to the Earl of Oxford. At the time of his death in Sept. 1592 he was in the service of William Cornwallis, who afterwards wrote to Heneage that he ‘could devise twenty fictions and knaveryes in a play which was his daily practyse and his living’ (_Athenaeum_, 23 Aug. 1890). This suggests that the poet, and not the episcopal author of _Absalon_ (_Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 458), is the Watson included by Meres in 1598 amongst our ‘best for Tragedie’. But his plays, other than translations, must, if they exist, be sought amongst the anonymous work of 1581–92, where it would be an interesting task to reconstruct his individuality. In _Ulysses upon Ajax_ (1596) Harington’s anonymous critic says of his etymologies of Ajax, ‘Faith, they are trivial, the froth of witty Tom Watson’s jests, I heard them in Paris fourteen years ago: besides what balductum [trashy] play is not full of them’. In the meantime Oliphant (_M. P._ viii. 437) has suggested that he may be the author of _Thorny Abbey, or, The London Maid_, printed by one R. D. with Haughton’s _Grim, the Collier of Croydon_ in _Gratiae Theatrales_ (1662) and there assigned to T. W. Oliphant regards _Thorny Abbey_ as clearly a late revision of an Elizabethan play.

TRANSLATION

_Antigone > 1581_

_S. R._ 1581, July 31 (Bp. of London). ‘Aphoclis Antigone, Thoma Watsono interprete.’ _John Wolfe_ (Arber, ii. 398).

1581. Sophoclis Antigone. Interprete Thoma Watsono I. V. studioso. Huic adduntur pompae quaedam, ex singulis Tragoediae actis deriuatae; & post eas, totidem themata sententiis refertissima; eodem Thoma Watsono Authore. _John Wolf._ [Latin translation. Verses to Philip Earl of Arundel, signed ‘Thomas Watsonus’. Commendatory Verses by Stephanus Broelmannus, Ἰωαννης Κωκος, Philip Harrison, Francis Yomans, Christopher Atkinson, C. Downhale, G. Camden.]

JOHN WEBSTER (?-> 1634).

There is little clue to the personal history of John Webster beyond the description of him on the title-page of his mayoral pageant _Monuments of Honour_ (1624) as ‘Merchant Taylor’, and his claim in the epistle to have been born free of the company. The records of the Merchant Taylors show that freemen of this name were admitted in 1571, 1576, and 1617, and that one of them was assessed towards the coronation expenses in 1604. A John Webster, Merchant Taylor, also received an acknowledgement of a 15_s._ debt from John and Edward Alleyn on 25 July 1591 (Collier, _Alleyn Papers_, 14). A John Webster married Isabel Sutton at St. Leonard’s Shoreditch on 25 July 1590, and had a daughter Alice baptized there on 9 May 1606. It has been taken for granted that none of the sixteenth-century records can relate to the dramatist, although they may to his father. This presumably rests on the assumption that he must have been a young man when he began to write for Henslowe in 1602. It should, however, be pointed out that a John Webster, as well as a George Webster, appears amongst the Anglo-German actors of Browne’s group in 1596 (cf. ch. xiv) and that the financial record in the _Alleyn Papers_ probably belongs to a series of transactions concerning the winding up of a theatrical company in which Browne and the Alleyns had been interested (cf. ch. xiii, s.v. Admiral’s). It is conceivable therefore that Webster was an older man than has been suspected and had had a career as a player before he became a playwright.

Gildon, _Lives of the Poets_ (1698), reports that Webster was parish clerk of St Andrew’s, Holborn. This cannot be confirmed from parish books, but may be true.

As a dramatist, Webster generally appears in collaboration, chiefly with Dekker, and at rather infrequent intervals from 1602 up to 1624 or later. In 1602 he wrote commendatory verses for a translation by Munday, and in 1612 for Heywood’s _Apology for Actors_. In 1613 he published his elegy _A Monumental Column_ on the death of Prince Henry, and recorded his friendship with Chapman. His marked tendency to borrow phrases from other writers helps to date his work. He can hardly be identified with the illiterate clothworker of the same name, who acknowledged his will with a mark on 5 Aug. 1625. But he is referred to in the past in Heywood’s _Hierarchie of the Angels_ (1635), Bk. iv, p. 206, ‘Fletcher and Webster ... neither was but Iacke’, and was probably therefore dead.

_Collections_

1830. A. Dyce. 4 vols. 1857, 1 vol. [Includes _Malcontent_, _Appius and Virginia_, and _Thracian Wonder_.]

1857. W. C. Hazlitt. 4 vols. (_Library of Old Authors_). [Includes _Appius and Virginia_, _Thracian Wonder_, and _The Weakest Goeth to the Wall_.]

1888. J. A. Symonds, _W. and Tourneur_ (_Mermaid Series_). [_The White Devil_ and _Duchess of Malfi_.]

1912. A. H. Thorndike, _Webster and Tourneur_. (_N. E. D._) [_White Devil_, _Duchess of Malfi_, _Appius and Virginia_.]

_Dissertations_: E. Gosse, _J. W._ (1883, _Seventeenth-Century Studies_); A. C. Swinburne, _J. W._ (1886, _Studies in Prose and Poetry_, 1894); C. Vopel, _J. W._ (1888, _Bremen diss._); M. Meiners, _Metrische Untersuchungen über den Dramatiker J. W._ (1893, _Halle diss._); W. Archer, _Webster, Lamb, and Swinburne_ (1893, _New Review_, viii. 96); W. von Wurzbach, _J. W._ (1898, _Jahrbuch_, xxxi. 9); J. Morris, _J. W._ (_Fortnightly Review_, June 1902); E. E. Stoll, _J. W._ (1905); L. J. Sturge, _W. and the Law; a Parallel_ (1906, _Jahrbuch_, xlii, 148); C. Crawford, _J. W. and Sir Philip Sidney_ (1906, _Collectanea_, i. 20), _Montaigne, W., and Marston: Donne and W._ (1907, _Collectanea_, ii. 1); F. E. Pierce, _The Collaboration of W. and Dekker_ (1909, _Yale Studies_, xxxvii); H. D. Sykes, _W. and Sir Thomas Overbury_ (1613, _11 N. Q._ viii. 221, 244, 263, 282, 304); A. F. Bourgeois, _W. and the N. E. D._ (1914, _11 N. Q._ ix. 302, 324, 343); R. Brooke, _J. W. and the Elizabethan Drama_ (1916).

_Sir Thomas Wyatt. 1602_

_With_ Chettle, Dekker (q.v.), Heywood, and Smith, for Worcester’s.

_The Malcontent. 1604_

Additions to the play of Marston (q.v.) for the King’s.

_Westward Ho! 1604_

_With_ Dekker (q.v.) for Paul’s.

_Northward Ho! 1605_

_With_ Dekker (q.v.) for Paul’s.

_Appius and Virginia. c. 1608._

_S. R._ 1654, May 13. ‘A play called Appeus and Virginia Tragedy written by John Webster.’ _Richard Marriott_ (Eyre, i. 448).

1654. Appius and Virginia. A Tragedy. By Iohn Webster. [_No imprint._]

1659. _For Humphrey Moseley._ [A reissue.]

1679.

_Edition_ by C. W. Dilke (1814–15, _O. E. P._ v).--_Dissertations_: J. Lauschke, _John Webster’s Tragödie A. und V. Eine Quellenstudie_ (1899, _Leipzig diss._); H. D. Sykes, _An Attempt to determine the Date of Webster’s A. and V._ (1913, _11 N. Q._ vii. 401, 422, 466; viii. 63); R. Brooke, _The Authorship of the Later A. and V._ (1913, _M. L. R._ viii. 433), more fully in _John Webster_ (1916); A. M. Clark, _A. and V._ (1921, _M. L. R._ xvi. 1).

The play is in Beeston’s list of Cockpit plays in 1639 (_Var._ iii. 159), Webster’s authorship has generally been accepted, but Stoll, 197, who put the play 1623–39, because of resemblances to _Julius Caesar_ and _Coriolanus_ which he thought implied a knowledge of F_{1}, traced a dependence upon the comic manner of Heywood. Similarly, Sykes is puzzled by words which he thinks borrowed from Heywood and first used by Heywood in works written after Webster’s death. He comes to the conclusion that Heywood may have revised a late work by Webster. There is much to be said for the view taken by Brooke and Clark, after a thorough-going analysis of the problem, that the play is Heywood’s own, possibly with a few touches from Webster’s hand, and may have been written, at any date not long after the production of _Coriolanus_ on the stage (_c._ 1608), for Queen Anne’s men, from whom it would naturally pass into the Cockpit repertory.

_The White Devil. 1609 < > 12_

1612. The White Divel; Or, The Tragedy of Paulo Giordano Ursini, Duke of Brachiano, With The Life and Death of Vittoria Corombona the famous Venetian Curtizan. Acted by the Queenes Maiesties Seruants. Written by Iohn Webster. _N. O. for Thomas Archer._ (Epistle to the Reader; after text, a note.)

1631.... Acted, by the Queenes Maiesties seruants, at the Phœnix, in Drury Lane. _I. N. for Hugh Perry._

1665; 1672.

_Editions_ in Dodsley^{1–3} (1744–1825) and by W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ iii) and M. W. Sampson (1904, _B. L._).--_Dissertations_: B. Nicholson, _Thomas Adams’ Sermon on The W. D._ (1881, _6 N. Q._ iii. 166); W. W. Greg, _W.’s W. D._ (1900, _M. L. Q._ iii. 112); M. Landau, _Vittoria Accorambona in der Dichtung im Verhältniss zu ihrer wahren Geschichte_ (1902, _Euphorion_, ix. 310); E. M. Cesaresco, _Vittoria Accoramboni_ (1902, _Lombard Studies_, 131); P. Simpson, _An Allusion in W._ (1907, _M. L. R._ ii. 162); L. MacCracken, _A Page of Forgotten History_ (1911); H. D. Sykes, _The Date of W.’s Play, the W. D._ (1913, _11 N. Q._ vii. 342).

The epistle apologizes for the ill success of the play, on the ground that ‘it was acted in so dull a time of winter, presented in so open and blacke a theater, that it wanted ... a full and understanding auditory’, and complains that the spectators at ‘that play-house’ care more for new plays than for good plays. Fleay, ii. 271, dates the production in the winter of 1607–8, taking the French ambassador described in III. i. 73 as a performer ‘at last tilting’ to be M. Goterant who tilted on 24 March 1607, since ‘no other Frenchman’s name occurs in the tilt-lists. It is nothing to Fleay that Goterant was not an ambassador, or that the lists of Jacobean tilters are fragmentary, or that the scene of the play is not England but Italy. Simpson found an inferior limit in a borrowing from Jonson’s _Mask of Queens_ on 2 Feb. 1609. I do not find much conviction in the other indications of a date in 1610 cited by Sampson, xl, or in the parallel with Jonson’s epistle to _Catiline_ (1611), with which Stoll, 21, supports a date in 1612. The Irish notes which Stoll regards as taken from B. Rich, _A New Description of Ireland_ (1610), in fact go back to Stanyhurst’s account of 1577, and though there is a pretty clear borrowing from Tourneur’s _Atheist’s Tragedy_, that may have been produced some time before its publication in 1611. Nor was Dekker necessarily referring to Webster, when he wrote to the Queen’s men in his epistle before _If this be not a Good Play_ (1612): ‘I wish a _Faire_ and _Fortunate Day_ to your _Next New-Play_ for the _Makers-sake_ and your _Owne_, because such _Brave Triumphes_ of _Poesie_ and _Elaborate Industry_, which my _Worthy Friends Muse_ hath there set forth, deserue a _Theater_ full of very _Muses_ themselves to be _Spectators_. To that _Faire Day_ I wish a _Full_, _Free_ and _Knowing Auditor_.’

Webster’s own epistle contains his appreciation ‘of other mens worthy labours; especially of that full and haightned stile of Maister _Chapman_, the labor’d and understanding workes of Maister _Johnson_, the no lesse worthy composures of the both worthily excellent Maister _Beamont_, & Maister _Fletcher_, and lastly (without wrong last to be named) the right happy and copious industry of M. _Shakespeare_, M. _Decker_, & M. _Heywood_’. In the final note he commends the actors, and in particular ‘the well approved industry of my friend Maister Perkins’.

_The Duchess of Malfi. 1613–14_

1623. The Tragedy of the Dutchesse of Malfy. As it was Presented priuately, at the Black-Friers; and publiquely at the Globe, By the Kings Maiesties Seruants. The perfect and exact Coppy, with diuerse things Printed, that the length of the Play would not beare in the Presentment. Written by John Webster. _Nicholas Okes for Iohn Waterson._ [Epistle to George Lord Berkeley, signed ‘John Webster’; Commendatory Verses, signed ‘Thomas Middletonus Poëta et Chron: Londinensis’, ‘Wil: Rowley’, ‘John Ford’; ‘The Actors Names. Bosola, _J. Lowin_. Ferdinand, _1 R. Burbidge_, _2 J. Taylor_. Cardinall, _1 H. Cundaile_, _2 R. Robinson_. Antonio, _1 W. Ostler_, _2 R. Benfeild_. Delio, _J. Underwood_. Forobosco, _N. Towley_. Pescara, _J. Rice_. Silvio, _T. Pollard_. Mad-men, _N. Towley_, _J. Underwood_, _etc._ Cardinals M^{is}, _J. Tomson_. The Doctor, etc., _R. Pallant_. Duchess, _R. Sharpe_.’]

1640; 1678; N.D.

_Editions_ by C. E. Vaughan (1896, _T. D._), M. W. Sampson (1904, _B. L._), and W. A. Neilson (1911, _C. E. D._).--_Dissertations_: K. Kiesow, _Die verschiedenen Bearbeitungen der Novelle von der Herzogin von Amalfi des Bandello in den Literaturen des xvi. und xvii. Jahrhunderts_ (1895, _Anglia_, xvii. 199); J. T. Murray, _The D. of M. List of the King’s Company_ (1910, _E. D. C._ ii. 146); W. J. Lawrence, _The Date of the D. of M._ (_Athenaeum_ for 21 Nov. 1919); W. Archer, _The D. of M._ (_Nineteenth Century_ for Jan. 1920).

The actor-list records two distinct casts, one before Ostler’s death on 16 Dec. 1614, the other after Burbadge’s death on 13 March 1619, and before that of Tooley in June 1623. Stoll, 29, quotes the _Anglopotrida_ of Orazio Busino (cf. the abstract in _V. P._ xv. 134), which appears to show that the play was on the stage at some date not very long before Busino wrote on 7 Feb. 1618:

Prendono giuoco gli Inglesi della nostra religione come di cosa detestabile, et superstitiosa, ne mai rappresentano qualsivoglia attione pubblica, sia pura Tragisatiricomica, che non inserischino dentro uitij, et scelleragini di qualche religioso catolico, facendone risate, et molti scherni, con lor gusto, et ramarico de’ buoni, fu appunto veduto dai nostri, in una Commedia introdur’un frate franciscano, astuto, et ripieno di varie impietà, cosi d’avaritia come di libidine: et il tutto poi ruiscì in una Tragedia, facendoli mozzar la vista in scena. Un altra volta rappresentarono la grandezza d’un cardinale, con li habiti formali, et proprij molti belli, et ricchi, con la sua Corte, facendo in scena erger un Altare, dove finse di far oratione, ordinando una processione: et poi lo ridussero in pubblico con una Meretrice in seno. Dimostrò di dar il Velleno ad una sua sorella, per interesse d’honore: et d’ andar in oltre alla guerra, con depponer prima l’habito cardinalitio sopra l’altare col mezzo de’ suoi Cappellani, con gravità, et finalmente si fece cingere la spada, metter la serpa, con tanto garbo, che niente più: et tutto ciò fanno in sprezzo, delle grandezze ecclesiastice vilipese, et odiate a morte in questo Regno. Di Londra a’ 7 febaio 1618.

The date of first production may reasonably be put in 1613–14. Crawford has pointed out the resemblances between the play and _A Monumental Column_ (1613) and definite borrowings from Donne’s _Anatomy of the World_ (1612), Chapman’s _Petrarch’s Seven Penitentiall Psalms_ (1612), and Chapman’s Middle Temple mask of 15 Feb. 1613. Lawrence thinks that Campion’s mask of 14 Feb. 1613 is also drawn upon. But it is not impossible that the extant text has undergone revision, in view of borrowings from the 6th edition (1615) of Sir Thomas Overbury’s _Characters_, to which Sykes calls attention, and of the apparent allusion pointed out by Vaughan in I. i. 5 to the purging of the French Court by Louis XIII after the assassination of Marshall d’Ancre on 14 April 1617. It need not be inferred that this is the ‘enterlude concerninge the late Marquesse d’Ancre’, which the Privy Council ordered the Master of Revels to stay on 22 June 1617 (_M. S. C._ i. 376).

_Later Plays_

_The Devil’s Law Case_ (1623).

_A Cure for a Cuckold_ (1661), with W. Rowley.

On the authorship and dates of these, cf. Brooke, 250, 255, and H. D. Sykes in _11 N. Q._ vii. 106; ix. 382, 404, 443, 463.

_Lost Plays_

The following are recorded in Henslowe’s diary:

For the Admiral’s:

_Caesar’s Fall or The Two Shapes._

With Dekker, Drayton, Middleton, and Munday, May 1602.

For Worcester’s:

_Christmas Comes but Once a Year._

With Chettle, Dekker, and Heywood, Nov. 1602.

In the epistle to _The Devil’s Law Case_, Webster says to Sir T. Finch, ‘Some of my other works, as The White Devil, The Duchess of Malfi, Guise and others, you have formerly seen’, and a _Guise_ is ascribed to him as a comedy in Archer’s play-list of 1656 and included without ascription as a tragedy in Kirkman’s of 1661 and 1671 (Greg, _Masques_, lxxii). Rogers and Ley’s list of 1656 had given it to Marston (q.v.). Collier forged an entry in Henslowe’s diary meant to suggest that this was the _Massacre at Paris_ (cf. s.v. Marlowe).

In Sept. 1624 Herbert licensed ‘a new Tragedy called _A Late Murther of the Sonn upon the Mother_: Written by Forde, and Webster’ (Herbert, 29).

_Doubtful Plays_

The ascription to Webster on the t.p. of _The Thracian Wonder_ is not generally accepted. His hand has been suggested in _Revenger’s Tragedy_ and _The Weakest Goeth to the Wall_.

GEORGE WHETSTONE (1544?-87?).

Whetstone was a Londoner by origin. After a riotous youth, he turned to literature interspersed with adventure, possibly acting at Canterbury _c._ 1571 (cf. ch. xv), serving in the Low Countries in 1572–4, the Newfoundland voyage in 1578–9, and the Low Countries again in 1585–6. His chief literary associates were Thomas Churchyard and George Gascoigne.

After writing his one play, _Promos and Cassandra_, he translated its source, the 5th Novel of the 8th Decade of Giraldi Cinthio’s _Hecatomithi_ (1565) in his _Heptameron of Civil Discourses_ (1582). Both Italian and English are in Hazlitt, _Shakespeare’s Library_ (1875, iii). Like some other dramatists, Whetstone turned upon the stage, and attacked it in his _Touchstone for the Time_ (1584; cf. App. C, No. xxxvi).

_Promos and Cassandra. 1578_

_S. R._ 1578, July 31. ‘The famous historie of Promos and Casandra Devided into twoe Comicall Discourses Compiled by George Whetstone gent.’ _Richard Jones_ (Arber, ii. 334).

1578. The Right Excellent and famous Historye, of Promos and Cassandra; Deuided into two Commicall Discourses.... The worke of George Whetstones Gent. _Richard Jones._ [Epistles to his ‘kinsman’ William Fleetwood, dated 29 July 1578, and signed ‘George Whetstone’, and from the Printer to the Reader, signed ‘R.I.’; Argument; Text signed ‘G. Whetstone’; Colophon with imprint and date ‘August 20, 1578’.]

_Editions_ in _Six Old Plays_, i. 1 (1779), and by W. C. Hazlitt, _Shakespeare’s Library_, vi. 201 (1875), and J. S. Farmer (1910, _T. F. T._). There are two parts, arranged in acts and scenes. Whetstone’s epistle is of some critical interest (cf. App. C, No. xix). In the _Heptameron_ he says the play was ‘yet never presented upon stage’. The character of the s.ds. suggests, however, that it was written for presentation.

NATHANIEL WIBURNE (_c._ 1597).

Possible author of the academic _Machiavellus_ (cf. App. K).

GEORGE WILKINS (_fl._ 1604–8).

Lee (_D. N. B._) after personally consulting the register of St. Leonard’s Shoreditch, confirms the extract in Collier, iii. 348, of the burial on 19 Aug. 1603 of ‘George Wilkins, the poet’. It must therefore be assumed that the date of 9 Aug. 1613 given for the entry by T. E. Tomlins in _Sh. Soc. Papers_, i. 34, from Ellis’s _History of Shoreditch_ (1798) is an error, and that the ‘poet’ was distinct from the dramatist. Nothing is known of Wilkins except that he wrote pamphlets from _c._ 1604 to 1608, and towards the end of that period was also engaged in play-writing both for the King’s and the Queen’s men. A George Wilkins of St. Sepulchre’s, described as a victualler and aged 36, was a fellow witness with Shakespeare in _Belott v. Mountjoy_ on 19 June 1612 (C. W. Wallace, _N. U. S._ x. 289).

_The Miseries of Enforced Marriage. 1607_

_S. R._ 1607, July 31 (Buck). ‘A tragedie called the Miserye of inforced Marriage.’ _George Vyncent_ (Arber, iii. 357).

1607. The Miseries of Inforst Manage. As it is now playd by his Maiesties Seruants. By George Wilkins. _For George Vincent._

1611; 1629; 1637.

_Editions_ in Dodsley^{2–4} (1780–1874) and by W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ ii) and J. S. Farmer (1913, _S. F. T._).

The play, which was based on the life of Walter Calverley, as given in pamphlets of 1605, appears to have been still on the stage when it was printed. An allusion in III. ii to fighting with a windmill implies some knowledge of Don Quixote, but of this there are other traces by 1607. The Clown is called Robin in II. ii, and Fleay, ii. 276, suggests that Armin took the part. He comes in singing:

From London am I come, Though not with pipe and drum,

in reference to Kempe’s morris.

_Doubtful Plays_

Wilkins probably wrote Acts I, II of _Pericles_, and it has been suggested that he also wrote certain scenes of _Timon of Athens_; but the relation of his work to Shakespeare’s cannot be gone into here.

The anonymous _Yorkshire Tragedy_ has also been ascribed to him.

ROBERT WILMOT (> 1566–91 <).

A student of the Inner Temple, and afterwards Rector of North Ockendon, Essex, from 28 Nov. 1582 and of Horndon-on-the-Hill, Essex, from 2 Dec. 1585. William Webbe, _A Discourse of English Poetry_ (ed. Arber, 35), commends his writing.

_Tancred and Gismund. 1566_ (?)

Written with Rod. Staff[ord], Hen[ry] No[el], G. Al. and Chr[istopher] Hat[ton].

[_MSS._] (_a_) _Lansdowne MS._ 786, f. 1, ‘Gismond of Salern in Loue’.

(_b_) _Brit. Mus. Hargrave MS._ 205, f. 9, ‘The Tragedie of Gismond of Salerne’.

[Both MSS. have three sonnets ‘of the Quenes maydes’, and Prologue and Epilogue.]

(_c_) A fragment, now unknown, formerly belonging to Milton’s father-in-law, Richard Powell.

1591. The Tragedie of Tancred and Gismund. Compiled by the Gentlemen of the Inner Temple, and by them presented before her Maiestie. Newly reuiued and polished according to the decorum of these daies. By R. W. _Thomas Scarlet, sold by R. Robinson._ [Epistles to Lady Mary Peter and Lady Anne Gray, signed ‘Robert Wilmot’; to R. W. signed ‘Guil. Webbe’ and dated ‘Pyrgo in Essex August the eighth 1591’; to the Inner and Middle Temple and other Readers, signed ‘R. Wilmot’; two Sonnets (2 and 3 of MSS.); Arguments; Prologue; Epilogue signed ‘R. W.’; Introductiones (dumb-shows). Some copies are dated 1592.]

_Editions_ in Dodsley^{1–4} (1744–1874) and by J. S. Farmer (1912, _S. F. T._) from 1591, and by A. Brandl (1898, _Q. W. D._) and J. W. Cunliffe (1912, _E. E. C. T._) and J. S. Farmer (_S. F. T._) from MS.--_Dissertations_: J. W. Cunliffe, _Gismond of Salerne_ (1906, _M. L. A._ xxi. 435); A. Klein, _The Decorum of These Days_ (1918, _M. L. A._ xxxiii. 244).

The MSS. represent the play as originally produced, probably, from an allusion in one of the sonnets, at Greenwich. The print represents a later revision by Wilmot, involving much re-writing and the insertion of new scenes and the dumb-shows. Webbe’s epistle is an encouragement to Wilmot to publish his ‘waste papers’, and refers to _Tancred_ as ‘framed’ by the Inner Temple, and to Wilmot as ‘disrobing him of his antique curiosity and adorning him with the approved guise of our stateliest English terms’. Wilmot’s own Epistle to the Readers apologizes for the indecorum of publishing a play, excuses it by the example of Beza’s _Abraham_ and Buchanan’s _Jephthes_, and refers to ‘the love that hath been these twenty-four years betwixt’ himself and Gismund. This seems to date the original production in 1567. But I find no evidence that Elizabeth was at Greenwich in 1567. Shrovetide 1566 seems the nearest date at which a play is likely to have been given there. Wilmot was clearly not the sole author of the original play; to Act I he affixes ‘_Exegit Rod. Staff._’; to Act II, ‘_Per Hen. No._’; to Act III, ‘_G. Al._’; to Act IV, ‘_Composuit Chr. Hat._’; to the Epilogue, ‘_R. W._’ Probably Act V, which has no indication of authorship, was also his own.

W. H. Cooke, _Students Admitted to the Inner Temple, 1547–1660_ (1878), gives the admission of Christopher Hatton in 1559–60, but Wilmot is not traceable in the list; nor are Hen. No., G. Al., or Rod. Staff. But the first may be Elizabeth’s Gentleman Pensioner, Henry Noel (q.v.), and Cunliffe, lxxxvi, notes that a ‘Master Stafford’ was fined £5 for refusing to act as Marshal at the Inner Temple in 1556–7.

_Doubtful Play_

Hazlitt assigns to Wilmot _The Three Ladies of London_, but the R. W. of the title-page is almost certainly Robert Wilson (q.v.).

ROBERT WILSON (> 1572–1600).

For Wilson’s career as an actor and a discussion as to whether there was more than one dramatist of the name, cf. ch. xv.

_The Three Ladies of London. c. 1581_

1584. A right excellent and famous Comœdy called the three Ladies of London. Wherein is notably declared and set foorth, how by the meanes of Lucar, Love and Conscience is so corrupted, that the one is married to Dissimulation, the other fraught with all abhomination. A perfect patterne for all Estates to looke into, and a worke right worthie to be marked. Written by R. W. as it hath been publiquely played. _Roger Warde._ [Prologue. At end of play ‘Paule Bucke’ (an actor; cf. ch. xv).]

1592. _John Danter._

_Editions_ by J. P. Collier, _Five Old Plays_ (1851, _Roxb. Club_), in Dodsley^4 (1874), vi, and by J. S. Farmer (1911, _T. F. T._).

The stylistic resemblance of this to the next two plays justifies the attribution to Wilson, although Hazlitt suggests Wilmot. Gosson describes the play in 1582 (_P. C._ 185) together with a play in answer called _London Against the Three Ladies_, but does not indicate whether either play was then in print. In B ii Peter’s pence are dated as ‘not muche more than 26 yeares, it was in Queen Maries time’. As the Act reviving Peter’s pence was passed in the winter of 1554–5, the play was probably written in 1581.

_The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London. c. 1589_

_S. R._ 1590, July 31 (Wood). ‘A comodie of the plesant and statelie morrall of the Three lordes of London.’ _Richard Jones_ (Arber, ii. 556).

1590. The Pleasant and Stately Morall, of the three Lordes and three Ladies of London. With the great Joy and Pompe, Solempnized at their Mariages: Commically interlaced with much honest Mirth, for pleasure and recreation, among many Morall obseruations and other important matters of due regard. By R. W. _R. Jones._ [Woodcut, on which cf. _Bibl. Note_ to ch. xviii; ‘Preface’, i.e. prologue.]

_Editions_ by J. P. Collier (1851, _Five Old Plays_), in Dodsley^4, vi. 371 (1874), and by J. S. Farmer (1912, _T. F. T._).--_Dissertation_: H. Fernow, _The 3 L. and 3 L. By R. W._ (1885, _Hamburg programme_).

Fleay, ii. 280, fixes the date by the allusions (C, C^v) to the recent death of Tarlton (q.v.) in Sept. 1588.

_The Cobbler’s Prophecy > 1594_

_S. R._ 1594, June 8. ‘A booke intituled the Coblers prophesie.’ _Cuthbert Burby_ (Arber, ii. 653).

1594. The Coblers Prophesie. Written by Robert Wilson, Gent. _John Danter for Cuthbert Burby._

_Editions_ by W. Dibelius (1897, _Jahrbuch_, xxxiii. 3), J. S. Farmer (1911, _T. F. T._), and A. C. Wood (1914, _M. S. R._).

The general character of this play, with its reference (i. 36) to an audience who ‘sit and see’ and its comfits cast, suggests the Court rather than the popular stage.

_Doubtful Plays_

Wilson’s hand has been sought in _Clyomon and Clamydes_, _Fair Em_, _Knack to Know a Knave_, _Pedlar’s Prophecy_ (cf. ch. xxiv).

_Lost Plays_

_Short and Sweet_ (_c._ 1579). _Vide Catiline’s Conspiracy_ (_infra_).

The following is a complete list of plays for the Admiral’s men in which a share is assigned to Wilson by Henslowe:

(i, ii) _1, 2, Earl Godwin and his Three Sons._

With Chettle, Dekker, and Drayton, March-June 1598.

(iii) _Pierce of Exton._

With Chettle, Dekker, and Drayton, April, 1598; but apparently unfinished.

(iv) _1 Black Bateman of the North._

With Chettle, Dekker, and Drayton, May 1598.

(v) _2 Black Bateman of the North._

With Chettle, June 1598.

(vi) _Funeral of Richard Cœur-de-Lion._

With Chettle, Drayton, and Munday, June 1598.

(vii) _The Madman’s Morris._

With Dekker and Drayton, July 1598.

(viii) _Hannibal and Hermes._

With Dekker and Drayton, July 1598.

(ix) _Pierce of Winchester._

With Dekker and Drayton, July–Aug. 1598.

(x) _Chance Medley._

With Chettle or Dekker, Drayton, and Munday, Aug. 1598.

(xi) _Catiline’s Conspiracy._

With Chettle, Aug. 1598; but apparently not finished; unless the fact that the authors only received one ‘earnest’ of £1 5_s._ was due to the play being no more than a revision of Wilson’s old _Short and Sweet_, which Lodge (cf. App. C, No. xxiii) contrasts about 1579 with Gosson’s play on Catiline.

(xii, xiii) _1, 2 Sir John Oldcastle._

With Drayton (q.v.), Hathaway, and Munday, Oct.–Dec. 1599.

(xiv) _2 Henry Richmond._

Nov. 1599, apparently with others, as shown by Robert Shaw’s order for payment (Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 49), on which a scenario of one act is endorsed.

(xv) _Owen Tudor._

With Drayton, Hathaway, and Munday, Jan. 1600; but apparently not finished.

(xvi) _1 Fair Constance of Rome._

June 1600. The Diary gives the payments as made to Dekker, Drayton, Hathaway, and Munday, but a letter of 14 June from Robert Shaw (Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 55) indicates that Wilson had a fifth share.

ANTHONY WINGFIELD (_c._ 1550–1615).

Possible author of the academic _Pedantius_ (cf. App. K).

NATHANIEL WOODES (?).

A minister of Norwich, only known as author of the following play.

_The Conflict of Conscience. > 1581_

1581. An excellent new Commedie Intituled: The Conflict of Conscience. Contayninge, A most lamentable example, of the dolefull desperation of a miserable worldlinge, termed, by the name of Philologus, who forsooke the trueth of God’s Gospel, for feare of the losse of lyfe, & worldly goods. Compiled, by Nathaniell Woodes, Minister, in Norwich. _Richard Bradocke._ [Prologue.]

_Editions_ by J. P. Collier (1851, _Five Old Plays_), in Dodsley^4, vi. 29 (1874), and by J. S. Farmer (1911, _T. F. T._).

The characters are allegorical, typical and personal and arranged for six actors ‘most convenient for such as be disposed either to shew this Comedie in private houses or otherwise’. Philologus is Francis Spiera, a pervert to Rome about the middle of the sixteenth century. The play is strongly Protestant, and is probably much earlier than 1581. It is divided into a prologue and acts and scenes. Act VI is practically an epilogue.

HENRY WOTTON (1568–1639).

Izaak Walton (_Reliquiae Wottonianae_, 1651) tells us that, while a student at Queen’s College, Oxford, in 1586, Wotton ‘was by the chief of that College, persuasively enjoined to write a play for their private use;--it was the Tragedy of Tancredo--which was so interwoven with sentences, and for the method and exact personating those humours, passions, and dispositions, which he proposed to represent, so performed, that the gravest of that society declared, he had, in a slight employment, given an early and a solid testimony of his future abilities’.

CHRISTOPHER WREN (1591–1658).

Author of the academic _Physiponomachia_ (cf. App. K).

ROBERT YARINGTON (_c._ 1601?).

Nothing is known of Yarington, but this is hardly sufficient reason for denying him the ascription of the title-page.

_Two Lamentable Tragedies. 1594 < > 1601_

1601. Two Lamentable Tragedies. The one, of the murder of Maister Beech a Chaundler in Thames-streete, and his boye, done by Thomas Merry. The other of a young childe murthered in a Wood by two Ruffins, with the consent of his Vnckle. By Rob. Yarington. _For Mathew Lawe._ [Running title, ‘Two Tragedies in One.’ Induction.]

_Editions_ by A. H. Bullen (1885, _O. E. P._ iv) and J. S. Farmer (1913, _S. F. T._).--_Dissertation_: R. A. Law, _Y.’s T. L. T._ (1910, _M. L. R._ v. 167).

This deals in alternate scenes with (_a_) the murder of Beech by Merry on 23 Aug. 1594, and (_b_) a version, with an Italian setting, of the Babes in the Wood, on which a ballad, with a Norfolk setting, was licensed in 1595. Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 208, following a hint of Fleay, ii. 285, connects the play with Henslowe’s entries of payments, on behalf of the Admiral’s, (i) of £5 in Nov. and Dec. 1599 to Day and Haughton for _Thomas Merry_ or _Beech’s Tragedy_, (ii) of 10_s._ in Nov. 1599 and 10_s._ in Sept. 1601 to Chettle for _The Orphan’s Tragedy_, and (iii) of £2 to Day in Jan. 1600 for an Italian tragedy. He supposes that (ii) and (iii) were the same play, that it was finished, and that in 1601 Chettle combined it with (i), possibly dropping out Day’s contributions to both pieces. Yarington he dismisses as a scribe. In the alternate scenes of the extant version he discerns distinct hands, presumably those of Haughton and Chettle respectively. Law does not think that there are necessarily two hands at all, finds imitation of _Leire_ (1594) in scenes belonging to both plots, and reinstates Yarington. Oliphant (_M. P._ viii. 435) boldly conjectures that ‘Rob. Yarington’ might be a misreading of ‘W^m Haughton’. Bullen thought that this play, _Arden of Feversham_, and _A Warning for Fair Women_ might all be by the same hand.

CHRISTOPHER YELVERTON (_c._ 1535–1612).

Yelverton entered Gray’s Inn in 1552. He is mentioned as a poet in Jasper Heywood’s verses before Thomas Newton’s translation (1560) of Seneca’s _Thyestes_, and wrote an epilogue to the Gray’s Inn _Jocasta_ of Gascoigne (q.v.) and Kinwelmershe in 1566. He also helped to devise the dumb-shows for the Gray’s Inn _Misfortunes of Arthur_ of Thomas Hughes (q.v.) on 28 Feb. 1588. He became a Justice of the Queen’s Bench on 2 Feb. 1602 and was knighted on 23 July 1603.

PRINTED IN ENGLAND AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Cf. ch. xxii.

[2] _Quarterly Review_ (April 1908), 446.

[3] A copy at Berlin of the Strassburg _Terence_ of 1496 has the manuscript note to the engraving of the _Theatrum_, ‘ein offen stat der weltlichkeit da man zu sicht, ubi fiunt chorei, ludi et de alijs leutitatibus, sicut nos facimus oster spill’ (Herrmann, 300). Leo Battista Alberti’s _De Re Edificatoria_ was written about 1451 and printed in 1485. Vitruvius, _De Architectura_, v. 3–9, deals with the theatre. The essential passage on the scene is v. 6, 8–9 ‘Ipsae autem scenae suas habent rationes explicitas ita, uti mediae valvae ornatus habeant aulae regiae, dextra ac sinistra hospitalia, secundum autem spatia ad ornatus comparata, quae loca Graeci περιάκτους dicunt ab eo, quod machinae sunt in his locis versatiles trigonoe habentes singulares species ornationis, quae, cum aut fabularum mutationes sunt futurae seu deorum adventus, cum tonitribus repentinis [ea] versentur mutentque speciem ornationis in frontes. secundum ea loca versurae sunt procurrentes, quae efficiunt una a foro, altera a peregre aditus in scaenam. genera autem sunt scaenarum tria: unum quod dicitur tragicum, alterum comicum, tertium satyricum. horum autem ornatus sunt inter se dissimili disparique ratione, quod tragicae deformantur columnis et fastigiis et signis reliquisque regalibus rebus; comicae autem aedificiorum privatorum et maenianorum habent speciem prospectusque fenestris dispositos imitatione, communium aedificiorum rationibus; satyricae vero ornantur arboribus, speluncis, montibus reliquisque agrestibus rebus in topeodis speciem deformati’; cf. G. Lanson, in _Revue de la Renaissance_ (1904), 72.

[4] ‘Tu enim primus Tragoediae ... in medio foro pulpitum ad quinque pedum altitudinem erectum pulcherrime exornasti: eamdemque, postquam in Hadriani mole ... est acta, rursus intra tuos penates, tamquam in media Circi cavea, toto consessu umbraculis tecto, admisso populo et pluribus tui ordinis spectatoribus honorifice excepisti. Tu etiam primus picturatae scenae faciem, quum Pomponiani comoediam agerent, nostro saeculo ostendisti’; cf. Marcantonius Sabellicus, _Vita Pomponii_ (_Op._ 1502, f. 55), ‘Pari studio veterum spectandi consuetudinem desuetae civitati restituit, primorum Antistitum atriis suo theatro usus, in quibus Plauti, Terentii, recentiorum etiam quaedam agerentur fabulae, quas ipse honestos adolescentes et docuit, et agentibus praefuit’; cf. also D’Ancona, ii. 65; Creizenach, ii. 1.

[5] D’Ancona, ii. 74.

[6] D’Ancona, ii. 84; Herrmann, 353; Flechsig, 51. The scenic wall is described in the contemporary narrative of P. Palliolo, _Le Feste pel Conferimento del Patriziato Romano a Giuliano e Lorenzo de’ Medici_ (ed. O. Guerrini, 1885), 45, 63, ‘Guardando avanti, se appresenta la fronte della scena, in v compassi distinta per mezzo di colonne quadre, con basi e capitelli coperti de oro. In ciascuno compasso è uno uscio di grandezza conveniente a private case.... La parte inferiore di questa fronte di quattro frigi è ornata.... A gli usci delle scene furono poste portiere di panno de oro. El proscenio fu coperto tutto di tapeti con uno ornatissimo altare in mezzo.’ The side-doors were in ‘le teste del proscenio’ (Palliolo, 98). I have not seen M. A. Altieri, _Giuliano de’ Medici, eletto cittadino Romano_ (ed. L. Pasqualucci, 1881), or N. Napolitano, _Triumphi de gli mirandi Spettaculi_ (1519). Altieri names an untraceable Piero Possello as the architect; Guerrini suggests Pietro Rossello.

[7] D’Ancona, ii. 128, from _Diario Ferrarese_, ‘in lo suo cortile ... fu fato suso uno tribunale di legname, con case v merlade, con una finestra e uscio per ciascuna: poi venne una fusta di verso le caneve e cusine, e traversò il cortile con dieci persone dentro con remi e vela, del naturale’; Bapt. Guarinus, _Carm._ iv:

Et remis puppim et velo sine fluctibus actam Vidimus in portus nare, Epidamne, tuos, Vidimus effictam celsis cum moenibus urbem, Structaque per latas tecta superba vias. Ardua creverunt gradibus spectacula multis, Velaruntque omnes stragula picta foros.

[8] D’Ancona, ii. 129.

[9] Ibid. 130.

[10] Ibid. 132, 135. The two Marsigli, with Il Bianchino and Nicoletto Segna, appear to have painted scenes and ships for the earlier Ferrarese productions.

[11] Ibid. 134.

[12] Ibid. 381, from G. Campori, _Lettere artistiche inedite_, 5, ‘Era la sua forma quadrangula, protensa alquanto in longitudine: li doi lati l’uno al altro de rimpecto, havevano per ciaschuno octo architravi con colonne ben conrespondenti et proportionate alla larghezza et alteza de dicti archi: le base et capitelli pomposissimamente con finissimi colori penti, et de fogliami ornati, representavano alla mente un edificio eterne ed antiquo, pieno de delectatione: li archi con relevo di fiori rendevano prospectiva mirabile: la largheza di ciascheuno era braza quactro vel cerca: la alteza proporzionata ad quella. Dentro nel prospecto eran panni d’oro et alcune verdure, si come le recitationi recerchavano: una delle bande era ornata delli sei quadri del Cesareo triumpho per man del singulare Mantengha: li doi altri lati discontro erano con simili archi, ma de numero inferiore, che chiascheuno ne haveva sei. Doj bande era scena data ad actorj et recitatorj: le doe altre erano ad scalini, deputati per le donne et daltro, per todeschi, trombecti et musici. Al jongere del’ angulo de un de’ grandi et minorj lati, se vedevano quactro altissime colonne colle basi orbiculate, le quali sustentavano quactro venti principali: fra loro era una grocta, benchè facta ad arte, tamen naturalissima: sopra quella era un ciel grande fulgentissimo de varij lumi, in modo de lucidissime stelle, con una artificiata rota de segni, al moto de’ quali girava mo il sole, mo la luna nelle case proprie: dentro era la rota de Fortuna con sei tempi: _regno_, _regnavj_, _regnabo_: in mezo resideva la dea aurea con un sceptro con un delphin. Dintorno alla scena al frontespitio da basso era li triumphi del Petrarcha, ancor loro penti per man del p^o. Mantengha: sopra eran candelierj vistosissimi deaurati tucti: nel mezo era un scudo colle arme per tucto della C^a. M^g.; sopra la aquila aurea bicapitata col regno et diadema imperiale: ciascheuno teneva tre doppieri; ad ogni lato era le insegne. Alli doi maiorj, quelle della S^{ta}. de N. S. et quelle della Cesarea Maestà: alli minorj lati quelle del C^o. Sig. Re, et quelle della Ill^{ma}. Sig^a. da Venetia; tra li archi pendevano poi quelle de V. Ex., quelle del Sig. duca Alberto Alemano: imprese de Sig. Marchese et Sig^a. Marchesana: sopre erano più alte statue argentate, aurate et de più colorj metallici, parte tronche, parte integre, che assai ornavano quel loco: poi ultimo era il cielo de panno torchino, stellato con quelli segni che quella sera correvano nel nostro hemisperio.’ Flechsig, 26, thinks that the architect was Ercole Albergati (Il Zafarano).

[13] D’Ancona, i. 485; _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 79, 83, 135.

[14] Ferrari, 50; D’Ancona, ii. 1, give examples of these at Ferrara and elsewhere. The _Favola d’Orfeo_, originally produced about 1471, seems to have been recast as _Orphei tragedia_ for Ferrara in 1486. It had five acts, _Pastorale_, _Ninfale_, _Eroico_, _Negromantico_, _Baccanale_; in the fourth, the way to hell and hell itself were shown--‘duplici actu haec scena utitur’.

[15] J. W. Cunliffe, _Early English Classical Tragedies_, xl; F. A. Foster, in _E. S._ xliv. 8.

[16] Herrmann, 280, 284; cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 208.

[17] Translation by Hans Nithart, printed by C. Dinckmut (Ulm, 1486); cf. Herrmann, 292, who reproduces specimen cuts from this and the other sources described.

[18] Edition printed by Johannes Trechsel (Lyons, 1493); cf. Herrmann, 300. The editor claims for the woodcuts that ‘effecimus, ut etiam illitteratus ex imaginibus, quas cuilibet scenae praeposuimus, legere atque accipere comica argumenta valeat’. Badius also edited a Paris _Terence_ of 1502, with _Praenotamenta_ based on Vitruvius and other classical writers, in which he suggests the use in antiquity of ‘tapeta ... qualia nunc fiunt in Flandria’.

[19] Edition printed by Johannes Grüninger (Strassburg, 1496); cf. Herrmann, 318.

[20] Editions printed by Lazarus Soardus (Venice, 1497 and 1499); cf. Herrmann, 346. The _Theatrum_ and other cuts are also reproduced in _The Mask_ for July 1909.

[21] Flechsig, 84, citing as possibly a stage design an example of idealized architecture inscribed ‘Bramanti Architecti Opus’ and reproduced by E. Müntz, _Hist. de l’Art pendant la Renaissance_, ii. 299. Bramante was at Rome about 1505, and was helped on St. Peter’s by Baldassarre Peruzzi. But there is nothing obviously scenic in the drawing.

[22] D’Ancona, ii. 394, ‘Ma quello che è stato il meglio in tutte queste feste e representationi, è stato tute le sene, dove si sono representate, quale ha facto uno M^o. Peregrino depintore, che sta con il Sig^{re}.; ch’ è una contracta et prospettiva di una terra cum case, chiesie, campanili et zardini, che la persona non si può satiare a guardarla per le diverse cose che ge sono, tute de inzegno et bene intese, quale non credo se guasti, ma che la salvaràno per usarla de le altre fiate’.

[23] Ibid., ‘il caso accadete a Ferrara’.

[24] Ibid. 102, ‘La scena poi era finta una città bellissima con le strade, palazzi, chiese, torri, strade vere, e ogni cosa di rilevo, ma ajutata ancora da bonissima pintura e prospettiva bene intesa’; the description has further details. Genga is not named, but Serlio (cf. App. G) speaks of his theatrical work for Duke Francesco Maria of Urbino (succ. 1508). Vasari, vi. 316, says that he had also done stage designs for Francesco’s predecessor Guidobaldo.

[25] Vasari, iv. 600. Some of Peruzzi’s designs for _Calandra_ are in the Uffizi; Ferrari (tav. vi) reproduces one.

[26] D’Ancona, ii. 89, ‘Sonandosi li pifari si lasciò cascare la tela; dove era pinto Fra Mariano con alcuni Diavoli che giocavano con esso da ogni lato della tela; et poi a mezzo della tela vi era un breve che dicea: _Questi sono li capricci di Fra Mariano_; et sonandosi tuttavia, et il Papa mirando con il suo occhiale la scena, che era molto bella, di mano di Raffaele, et rappresentava si bene per mia fè forami di prospective, et molto furono laudate, et mirando ancora il cielo, che molto si rappresentava bello, et poi li candelieri, che erano formati in lettere, che ogni lettera substenìa cinque torcie, et diceano: _Leo Pon. Maximus_’.

[27] Ariosto, _Orlando Furioso_, xxxii. 80:

Quale al cader de le cortine suole Parer, fra mille lampade, la scena, D’archi, et di più d’una superba mole D’oro, e di statue e di pitture piena.

This passage was added in the edition of 1532, but a more brief allusion in that of 1516 (xliii. 10, ‘Vo’ levarti dalla scena i panni’) points to the use of a curtain, rising rather than falling, before 1519; cf. p. 31; vol. i, p. 181; Creizenach, ii. 299; Lawrence (i. 111), _The Story of a Peculiar Stage Curtain_.

[28] Ferrari (tav. xii) reproduces from _Uffizi_, 5282, an idealization by Serlio of the _piazzetta_ of S. Marco at Venice as a _scenario_.

[29] Cf. App. G.