Part ii

(1610) of H. d’Urfé’s _Astrée_. There is general agreement in assigning it to Fletcher alone.

_Wit Without Money, c. 1614_

_S. R._ 1639, April 25 (Wykes). ‘These fiue playes ... Witt without money.’ _Crooke and William Cooke_ (Arber, iv. 464).

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

1661.... The Second Impression Corrected. _For Andrew Crooke._

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

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

_The Scornful Lady. 1613 < > 17_

_S. R._ 1616, March 19 (Buck). ‘A plaie called The scornefull ladie written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher.’ _Miles Partriche_ (Arber, iii. 585).

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

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

1630, 1635, 1639, 1651 (_bis_).

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

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

I will style thee noble, nay, Don Diego; I’ll woo thy infanta for thee.

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

_Thierry and Theodoret (?)_

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

1648.... Written by John Fletcher Gent. _For Humphrey Moseley._

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

_Dissertation_: B. Leonhardt, _Die Text-Varianten von B. und F.’s T. and T._ (1903, _Anglia_, xxvi. 345).

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

_The Nightwalker or The Little Thief (?)_

_S. R._ 25 April 1639 (Wykes). ‘These fiue playes ... Night walters.... _Crooke and William Cooke_ (Arber, iv. 464).

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

1661. _For Andrew Crook._

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

_Four Plays in One (?)_

1647. Four Plays, or Moral Representations in One. [Part of F_{1}. Induction with 2 Prologues, The Triumph of Honour, the Triumph of Love with Prologue, the Triumph of Death with Prologue, the Triumph of Time with Prologue, Epilogue.]

_Dissertation_: W. J. Lawrence, _The Date of F. P. in O._ (_T. L. S._ 11 Dec. 1919).

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

_Love’s Cure; or, The Martial Maid_ (?)

1647. Loves Cure, or the Martial Maid. [Part of F_{1}. A Prologue at the reviving of this Play. Epilogue.]

1679. Loves Cure, or the Martial Maid A Comedy. [Part of F_{2}.]

_Dissertation_: A. L. Stiefel, _Die Nachahmung spanischer Komödien in England_ (1897, _Archiv_, xcix. 271).

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

the cold Muscovite ... That lay here lieger in the last great frost,

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

_Wit at Several Weapons_ (?)

1647. Wit at several weapons. A Comedy. [Part of F_{1}. The epilogue at the reviving of this Play.]

1679. [Part of F_{2}.]

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

that if he but writ An Act, or two, the whole Play rose up wit.

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

_The Faithful Friends_ (?)

[_MS._] _Dyce MS._ 10, formerly in the Heber collection.

_S. R._ 1660, June 29. ‘The Faithfull Friend a Comedy, by Francis Beamont & John Fletcher’. _H. Moseley_ (Eyre, ii. 271).

_Edition_ by A. Dyce in _Works_ (1812).

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

_Lost Play_

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

_Inner Temple and Gray’s Inn Mask. 20 Feb. 1613_

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

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

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

1647. [Part of F_{1}.]

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

1653. Poems ... _for William Hope_. [A reissue.]

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

1679. [Part of F_{2}.]

The texts of 1647–79 give a shorter description than the original Q_{q}, and omit the epistle.

_Edition_ in Nichols, _James_ (1828), ii. 591.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chamberlain (Birch, i. 227) says:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RICHARD BERNARD (1568–1641).

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

_Terence in English > 1598_

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

1607.... Secunda editio multo emendatior ... _John Legat_.

1614, 1629, 1641.

WILLIAM BIRD (> 1597–1619 <).

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

RICHARD BOWER (?-1561).

On his Mastership of the Chapel, cf. ch. xii. He has been supposed to be the R. B. who wrote _Apius and Virginia_, and his hand has also been sought in the anonymous _Clyomon and Clamydes_ and _Common Conditions_.

SAMUEL BRANDON (?-?).

Beyond his play, nothing is known of him.

_The Virtuous Octavia. 1594 < > 8_

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

1598. The Tragicomoedi of the vertuous Octauia. Done by Samuel Brandon. _For William Ponsonby._ [Verses to Lady Lucia Audelay; _All’autore_, signed ‘Mia’; _Prosopopeia al libro_, signed ‘S. B.’; Argument. After text, Epistle to Mary Thinne, signed ‘S. B.’; Argument; verse epistles _Octavia to Antonius_ and _Antonius to Octavia_.’]

_Editions_ by R. B. McKerrow (1909, _M. S. R._) and J. S. Farmer (1912, _S. F. T._).

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

NICHOLAS BRETON (_c._ 1545–_c._ 1626).

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

ANTHONY BREWER (_c._ 1607).

Nothing is known of Brewer beyond his play, unless, as is possible, he is the ‘Anth. Brew’ who was acting _c._ 1624 at the Cockpit (cf. F. S. Boas, _A Seventeenth Century Theatrical Repertoire_ in _3 Library_ for July 1917).

_The Lovesick King. c. 1607_

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

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

1680. The Perjured Nun.

_Editions_ by W. R. Chetwood (1750, _S. C._) and A. E. H. Swaen (1907, _Materialien_, xviii).--_Dissertation_: A. E. H. Swaen, _The Date of B.’s L. K._ (1908, _M. L. R._ iv. 87).

There are small bits of evidence, in the use of Danish names from _Hamlet_ and other Elizabethan plays, and in a jest on ‘Mondays vein to poetize’ (l. 548), to suggest a date of composition long before that of publication, but a borrowing from _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_ makes it improbable that this can be earlier than 1607. The amount of Newcastle local colour and a special mention of ‘those Players of Interludes that dwels at _Newcastle_’ (l. 534) led Fleay, i. 34, to conjecture that it was acted in that town.

_Doubtful Plays_

Anthony Brewer has been confused with Thomas Brewer, or perhaps with more than one writer of that name, who wrote various works of popular literature, and to whom yet others bearing only the initials T. B. are credited, between 1608 and 1656. Thus _The Country Girl_, printed as by T. B. in 1647, is ascribed in Kirkman’s play-lists of 1661 and 1671 to Antony Brewer, but in Archer’s list of 1656 to Thomas. Oliphant (_M. P._ viii. 422) points out that the scene is in part at Edmonton, and thinks it a revision by Massinger of an early work by Thomas, who published a pamphlet entitled _The Life and Death of the Merry Devil of Edmonton_ in 1608.

ARTHUR BROOKE (_ob._ 1563).

In 1562 he was admitted to the Inner Temple without fee ‘in consideration of certain plays and shows at Christmas last set forth by him’ (Inderwick, _Inner Temple Records_, i. 219). Possibly he refers to one of these plays when he says in the epistle to his _Romeus and Juliet_ (1562), ‘I saw the same argument lately set foorth on stage with more commendation then I can looke for: (being there much better set forth then I have or can dooe)’; but if so, he clearly was not himself the author.

SAMUEL BROOKE (_c._ 1574–1631).

Brooke was of a York family, and, like his brother Christopher, the poet, a friend of John Donne, whose marriage he earned a prison by celebrating in 1601. He entered Trinity, Cambridge, _c._ 1592, took his B.A. in 1595 and his M.A. in 1598. He became chaplain to Prince Henry, and subsequently Gresham Professor of Divinity and chaplain successively to James and Charles. In 1629 he became Master of Trinity, and in 1631, just before his death, Archdeacon of Coventry.

_Adelphe. 27 Feb. 1613_

[_MSS._] _T. C. C. MS._ R. 3. 9. ‘Comoedia in Collegii Trin. aula bis publice acta. Authore D^{no} D^{re} Brooke, Coll. Trin.’; _T. C. C. MS._ R. 10. 4, with prologue dated 1662.

The play was produced on 27 Feb. 1613 and repeated on 2 March 1613 during the visit of Charles and the Elector Frederick to Cambridge.

_Scyros. 3 March 1613_

[_MSS._] _T. C. C. MS._ R. 3. 9. ‘Fabula Pastoralis acta coram Principe Charolo et comite Palatino mensis Martii 30 A. D. 1612. Authore D^{re} Brooke Coll. Trin.’; _T. C. C. MSS._ R. 3. 37; R. 10. 4; R. 17. 10; O. 3. 4; _Emanuel, Cambridge, MS._ iii. i. 17; _Cambridge Univ. Libr. MS._ Ee. v. 16.

This also was produced during the visit of Charles and Frederick to Cambridge. As pointed out by Greg, _Pastoral_, 251, the ‘Martii 30’ of the MSS. is an error for ‘Martii 3^o’. The play is a version of the _Filli di Sciro_ (1607) of G. Bonarelli della Rovere.

_Melanthe. 10 March 1615_

1615, March 27. Melanthe Fabula pastoralis acta cum Jacobus, Magnae Brit. Franc. & Hiberniae Rex, Cantabrigiam suam nuper inviseret, ibidemque Musarum atque eius animi gratia dies quinque commoraretur. Egerunt Alumni Coll. San. et Individuae Trinitatis. Cantabrigiae. _Cantrellus Legge._

The ascription to Brooke is due to the _Dering MS._ (_Gent. Mag._ 1756, p. 223). Chamberlain (Birch, i. 304) says that the play was ‘excellently well written, and as well acted’.

WILLIAM BROWNE (1591–1643?).

Browne was born at Tavistock, educated at the Grammar School there and at Exeter College, Oxford, and entered the Inner Temple from Clifford’s Inn in Nov. 1611. He is known as a poet, especially by _Britannia’s Pastorals_ (1613, 1616), but beyond his mask has no connexion with the stage. In later life he was of the household of the Herberts at Wilton.

_Ulysses and Circe. 13 Jan. 1615_

[_MSS._] (_a_) Emmanuel College, Cambridge, with title, ‘The Inner Temple Masque. Presented by the gentlemen there. Jan. 13, 1614.’ [Epistle to Inner Temple, signed ‘W. Browne’.]

(_b_) Collection of H. Chandos Pole-Gell, Hopton Hall, Wirksworth (in 1894).

_Editions_ with Browne’s _Works_ by T. Davies (1772), W. C. Hazlitt (1868), and G. Goodwin (1894).

The maskers, in green and white, were Knights; the first antimaskers, with an ‘antic measure’, two Actaeons, two Midases, two Lycaons, two Baboons, and Grillus; the second antimaskers, ‘to a softer tune’, four Maids of Circe and three Nereids; the musicians Sirens, Echoes, a Woodman, and others; the presenters Triton, Circe, and Ulysses.

The locality was the hall of the Inner Temple. Towards the lower end was discovered a sea-cliff. The drawing of a traverse discovered a wood, in which later two gates flew open, disclosing the maskers asleep in an arbour at the end of a glade. Awaked by a charm, they danced their first and second measures, took out ladies for ‘the old measures, galliards, corantoes, the brawls, etc.’, and danced their last measure.

The Inner Temple records (Inderwick, ii. 99) mention an order of 21 April 1616 for recompense to the chief cook on account of damage to his room in the cloister when it and its chimney were broken down at Christmas twelvemonth ‘by such as climbed up at the windows of the hall to see the mask’.

SIR GEORGE BUCK (_ob._ 1623).

He was Master of the Revels (cf. ch. iii). For a very doubtful ascription to him, on manuscript authority alleged by Collier, of the dumb-shows to _Locrine_, cf. ch. xxiv.

JAMES CALFHILL (1530?-1570).

Calfhill was an Eton and King’s College, Cambridge, man, who migrated to Oxford and became Student of Christ Church in 1548 and Canon in 1560. He was in Orders and was Rector of West Horsley when Elizabeth was there in 1559. After various preferments, he was nominated Bishop of Worcester in 1570, but died before consecration.

On 6 July 1564 Walter Haddon wrote to Abp. Parker (_Parker Correspondence_, 218) deprecating the tone of a sermon by Calfhill before the Queen, and said ‘Nunquam in illo loco quisquam minus satisfecit, quod maiorem ex eo dolorem omnibus attulit, quoniam admodum est illis artibus instructus quas illius theatri celebritas postulat’. No play by Calfhill is extant, but his Latin tragedy of _Progne_ was given before Elizabeth at Christ Church on 5 Sept. 1566 (cf. ch. iv), and appears from Bereblock’s synopsis to have been based on an earlier Latin _Progne_ (1558) by Gregorio Corraro.

THOMAS CAMPION (1567–1620).

Thomas, son of John Campion, a Chancery clerk of Herts. extraction, was born on 12 Feb. 1567, educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he took no degree, and admitted on 27 April 1586 to Gray’s Inn, where he took part as Hidaspis and Melancholy in the comedy of 16 Jan. 1588 (cf. ch. vii). He left the law, and probably served in Essex’s expedition of 1591 to France. He first appeared as a poet, anonymously, in the appendix to Sidney’s _Astrophel and Stella_ (1591), and has left several books of songs written as airs for music, often of his own composition, as well as a collection of Latin epigrams and _Observations in the Art of English Poesie_ (1602). I do not know whether he can be the ‘Campnies’ who performed at the Gray’s Inn mask of Shrovetide 1595 at Court (cf. s.v. _Gesta Grayorum_), but one of the two hymns in that mask, _A Hymn in Praise of Neptune_ is assigned to him by Francis Davison, _Poetical Rhapsody_ (1602), sig. K 8, and it is possible that the second hymn, beginning ‘Shadows before the shining sun do vanish’, which Davison does not himself appear to claim, may also be his. By 1607 he had taken the degree of M.D., probably abroad, and he practised as a physician. Through Sir Thomas Monson he was entangled, although in no very blameworthy capacity, in the Somerset scandals of 1613–15. On 1 March 1620 he died, probably of the plague, naming as his legatee Philip Rosseter, with whom he had written _A Booke of Airs_ in 1601.

Campion is not traceable as a writer for the stage, although his connexion with Monson and Rosseter would have made it not surprising to find him concerned with the Queen’s Revels syndicate of 1610. But his contribution to the _Gesta Grayorum_ foreshadowed his place, second only to Jonson’s, who wrote a _Discourse of Poesie_ (Laing, 1), now lost, against him, in the mask-poetry of the Jacobean period. In addition to his acknowledged masks he may also be responsible for part or all of the Gray’s Inn _Mountebanks Mask_ of 1618, printed by Nichols, _Eliz._ iii. 320, as a second part of the _Gesta Grayorum_, and by Bullen, _Marston_, iii. 417, although the ascription to Marston is extremely improbable.

_Collections_

1828. J. Nichols. _Progresses [&c.] of James the First_, ii. 105, 554, 630, 707. [The four masks.]

1889. A. H. Bullen, _Works of T. C._ [English and Latin.]

1903. A. H. Bullen, _Works of T. C._ [English only.]

1907. P. Vivian, _Poetical Works (in English) of T. C._ (_Muses’ Library_).

1909. P. Vivian, _C.’s Works_.

_Dissertation._--T. MacDonagh, _T. C. and the Art of English Poetry_ (1913).

_Lord Hay’s Mask. 6 Jan. 1607_

_S. R._ 1607, Jan. 26 (Gwyn). ‘A booke called the discription of A maske presented before the Kings maiestie at Whitehall on Twelf-night last in honour of the Lord Haies and his bryde Daughter and heire to the right honorable the Lord Denny, their mariage havinge ben at Court the same day solemnised.’ _John Browne_ (Arber, iii. 337).

1607. The discription of a Maske, Presented before the Kinges Maiestie at White-Hall, on Twelfth Night last, in honour of the Lord Hayes, and his Bride, Daughter and Heire to the Honourable the Lord Dennye, their Marriage hauing been the same Day at Court solemnized. To this by occasion other small Poems are adioyned. Inuented and set forth by Thomas Campion Doctor of Phisicke. _John Windet for John Browne._ [Engraving of the maskers’ habit; Verses to James, Lord De Walden and Lord and Lady Hay.]

The maskers, in carnation and silver, concealed at first in a ‘false habit’ of green leaves and silver, were nine Knights of Apollo; the torchbearers the nine Hours of Night; the presenters Flora, Zephyrus, Night, and Hesperus; the musicians Sylvans, who, as the mask was predominantly musical, were aided by consorts of instruments and voices above the scene and on either side of the hall.

The locality was the ‘great hall’ at Whitehall. At the upper end were the cloth and chair of state, with ‘scaffolds and seats on either side continued to the screen’. Eighteen feet from the screen was a stage, which stood three feet higher than the ‘dancing-place’ in front of it, and was enclosed by a ‘double veil’ or vertically divided curtain representing clouds. The Bower of Flora stood on the right and the House of Night on the left at the ends of the screen, and between them a grove, behind which, under the window, rose hills with a Tree of Diana. In the grove were nine golden trees which performed the first dance, and then, at the touch of Night’s wand, were drawn down by an engine under the stage, and cleft to reveal the maskers. After two more ‘new’ dances, they took out the ladies for ‘measures’. Then they danced ‘their lighter dances as corantoes, levaltas and galliards’; then a fourth ‘new’ dance; and then ‘putting off their vizards and helmets, made a low honour to the King, and attended his Majesty to the banqueting place’.

The mask was given, presumably by friends of the bridegroom, in honour of the wedding of James Lord Hay and Honora, daughter of Lord Denny. The maskers were Lord Walden, Sir Thomas Howard, Sir Henry Carey, Sir Richard Preston, Sir John Ashley, Sir Thomas Jarret, Sir John Digby, Sir Thomas Badger, and Mr. Goringe. One air for a song and one for a song and dance were made by Campion, two for dances by Mr. Lupo, and one for a dance by Mr. Thomas Giles.

Few contemporary references to the mask exist. It is probably that described in a letter, which I have not seen, from Lady Pembroke to Lord Shrewsbury, calendared among other _Talbot MSS._ of 1607 in Lodge, App. 121. No ambassadors were invited--‘_Dieu merci_’--says the French ambassador, and Anne, declaring herself ill, stayed away (La Boderie, ii. 12, 30). Expenditure on preparing the hall appears in the accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber and the Office of Works (Reyher, 520).

_The Lords’ Mask. 14 Feb. 1613_

1613. _For John Budge._ [Annexed to _Caversham Entertainment_ (q.v.).]

This was for the wedding of Elizabeth. The men maskers, in cloth of silver, were eight transformed Stars, the women, also in silver, eight transformed Statues; the torchbearers sixteen Fiery Spirits; the antimaskers six men and six women Frantics; the presenters Orpheus, Mania, Entheus, Prometheus, and Sibylla.

The locality was the Banqueting House at Whitehall. The lower part of the scene, when discovered, represented a wood, with the thicket of Orpheus on the right and the cave of Mania on the left. After the ‘mad measure’ of the antimask, the upper part of the scene was discovered ‘by the fall of a curtain’. Here, amidst clouds, were eight Stars which danced, vanishing to give place to the eight men maskers in the House of Prometheus. The torchbearers emerged below, and danced. The maskers descended on a cloud, behind which the lower part of the scene was turned to a façade with four Statues in niches. These and then a second four were transformed to women. Then the maskers gave their ‘first new entering dance’ and their second dance, and took out the bridal pair and others, ‘men women, and women men’. The scene again changed to a prospective of porticoes leading to Sibylla’s trophy, an obelisk of Fame. A ‘song and dance triumphant’ followed, and finally the maskers’ ‘last new dance’ concluded all ‘at their going out’.

This was a mask of lords and ladies, at the cost of the Exchequer. The only names on record are those of the Earls of Montgomery and Salisbury, Lord Hay, and Ann Dudley (_vide infra_). Campion notes the ‘extraordinary industry and skill’ of Inigo Jones in ‘the whole invention’, and particularly his ‘neat artifice’ in contriving the ‘motion’ of the Stars.

The wedding masks were naturally of special interest to the Court gossips. Chamberlain wrote to Winwood (iii. 421) on 9 Jan.: ‘It is said the Lords and Ladyes about the court have appointed a maske upon their own charge; but I hear there is order given for £1500 to provide one upon the King’s cost, and a £1000 for fireworks. The Inns of Court are likewise dealt with for two masks against that time, and mean to furnish themselves for the service.’ On 29 Jan. he added (iii. 429), ‘Great preparations here are of braverie, masks and fireworks against the marriage.’ On 14 Jan. one G. F. Biondi informed Carleton (_S. P. D. Jac. I_, lxxii. 12) that the Earls of Montgomery and Salisbury and Lord Hay were practising for the wedding mask. On 20 Jan. Sir Charles Montagu wrote to Sir Edward Montagu (_H. M. C. Buccleugh MSS._ i. 239): ‘Here is not any news stirring, only much preparations at this wedding for masks, whereof shall be three, one of eight lords and eight ladies, whereof my cousin Ann Dudley one, and two from the Inner Courts, who they say will lay it on.’

The Lords’ mask is certainly less prominent than those of the Inns of Court (_vide sub_ Beaumont and Chapman) in the actual descriptions of the wedding. All three are recorded in Stowe, _Annales_, 916, in _Wilbraham’s Journal_ (_Camden Misc._ x), 110, in reports of the Venetian ambassador (_V. P._ xii. 499, 532), and in the contemporary printed accounts of the whole ceremonies (cf. ch. xxiv). These do not add much to the printed descriptions of the mask-writers, on which, indeed, they are largely based. The fullest unofficial account was given by Chamberlain to Alice and Dudley Carleton in three letters (Birch, i. 224, 229; _S. P. D. Jac. I_, lxxii. 30, 31, 48). On 18 Feb. he wrote: ‘That night [of the wedding] was the Lords’ mask, whereof I hear no great commendation, save only for riches, their devices being long and tedious, and more like a play than a mask.’ This criticism he repeated in a letter to Winwood (iii. 435). To Alice Carleton he added, after describing the bravery of the Inns of Court: ‘All this time there was a course taken, and so notified, that no lady or gentlewoman should be admitted to any of these sights with a vardingale, which was to gain the more room, and I hope may serve to make them quite left off in time. And yet there were more scaffolds, and more provision made for room than ever I saw, both in the hall and banqueting room, besides a new room built to dine and dance in.’ On 25 February, when all was over, he reported: ‘Our revels and triumphs within doors gave great contentment, being both dainty and curious in devices and sumptuous in show, specially the inns of court, whose two masks stood them in better than £4000, besides the gallantry and expense of private gentlemen that were but _ante ambul[at]ores_ and went only to accompany them.... The next night [21 Feb.] the King invited the maskers, with their assistants, to the number of forty, to a solemn supper in the new marriage room, where they were well treated and much graced with kissing her majesty’s hand, and every one having a particular _accoglienza_ from him. The King husbanded this matter so well that this feast was not at his own cost, but he and his company won it upon a wager of running at the ring, of the prince and his nine followers, who paid £30 a man. The King, queen, prince, Palatine and Lady Elizabeth sat at table by themselves, and the great lords and ladies, with the maskers, above four score in all, sat at another long table, so that there was no room for them that made the feast, but they were fain to be lookers on, which the young Lady Rich took no great pleasure in, to see her husband, who was one that paid, not so much as drink for his money. The ambassadors that were at this wedding and shows were the French, Venetian, Count Henry [of Nassau] and Caron for the States. The Spaniard was or would be sick, and the archduke’s ambassador being invited for the second day, made a sullen excuse; and those that were present were not altogether so well pleased but that I hear every one had some punctilio of disgust.’ John Finett, in a letter of 22 Feb. to Carleton (_S. P. D. Jac. I_, lxxii. 32), says the mask of the Lords was ‘rich and ingenious’ and those of the Inns ‘much commended’. His letter is largely taken up with the ambassadorial troubles to which Chamberlain refers. Later he dealt with these in _Philoxenis_ (1656), 1 (cf. Sullivan, 79). The chief marfeast was the archiducal ambassador Boiscot, who resented an invitation to the second or third day, while in the diplomatic absence through sickness of the Spaniard the Venetian ambassador was asked with the French for the first day. Finett was charged with various plausible explanations. James did not think it his business to decide questions of precedence. It was customary to group Venice and France. The Venetian had brought an extraordinary message of congratulation from his State, and had put his retinue into royal liveries at great expense. The wedding was a continuing feast, and all its days equally glorious. In fact, whether at Christmas or Shrovetide, the last day was in some ways the most honourable, and it had originally been planned to have the Lords’ mask on Shrove-Tuesday. But Boiscot could not be persuaded to accept his invitation. The ambassadors who did attend were troublesome, at supper, rather than at the mask. The French ambassador ‘made an offer to precede the prince’. His wife nearly left because she was placed below, instead of above, the Viscountesses. The Venetian claimed a chair instead of a stool, and a place above the carver, but in vain. His rebuff did not prevent him from speaking well of the Lords’ mask, which he called ‘very beautiful’, specially noting the three changes of scene.

Several financial documents relating to the mask are preserved (Reyher, 508, 522; Devon, 158, 164; Collier, i. 364; Hazlitt, _E. D. S._ 43; _Archaeologia_, xxvi. 380). In _Abstract_ 14 the charges are given as £400, but the total charges must have been much higher. Chamberlain (_vide supra_) spoke of £1,500 as assigned to them. A list of personal fees, paid through Meredith Morgan, alone (Reyher, 509) amounts to £411 6_s._ 8_d._ Campion had £66 13_s._ 4_d._, Jones £50, the dancers Jerome Herne, Bochan, Thomas Giles and Confess £30 or £40 each, the musicians John Cooper, Robert Johnson, and Thomas Lupo £10 or £20 each. One Steven Thomas had £15, ‘he that played to y^e boyes’ £6 13_s._ 4_d._, and ‘2 that played to y^e Antick Maske’ £11; while fees of £1 each went to 42 musicians, 12 mad folks, 5 speakers, 10 of the King’s violins and 3 grooms of the chamber. The supervision of ‘emptions and provisions’ was entrusted to the Lord Chamberlain and the Master of the Horse.

_The Caversham Entertainment. 27–8 April 1613_

1613. A Relation of the late royall Entertainment giuen by the Right Honorable the Lord Knowles, at Cawsome-House neere Redding: to our most Gracious Queene, Queene Anne, in her Progresse toward the Bathe, vpon the seuen and eight and twentie dayes of Aprill. 1613. Whereunto is annexed the Description, Speeches and Songs of the Lords Maske, presented in the Banquetting-house on the Marriage night of the High and Mightie, Count Palatine, and the Royally descended the Ladie Elizabeth. Written by Thomas Campion. _For John Budge._

On arrival were speeches, a song, and a dance by a Cynic, a Traveller, two Keepers, and two Robin Hood men at the park gate; then speeches in the lower garden by a Gardener, and a song by his man and boy; then a concealed song in the upper garden.

After supper was a mask in the hall by eight ‘noble and princely personages’ in green with vizards, accompanied by eight pages as torchbearers, and presented by the Cynic, Traveller, Gardener, and their ‘crew’, and Sylvanus. The maskers gave a ‘new dance’; then took out the ladies, among whom Anne ‘vouchsafed to make herself the head of their revels, and graciously to adorn the place with her personal dancing’; ‘much of the night being thus spent with variety of dances, the masquers made a conclusion with a second new dance’.

On departure were a speech and song by the Gardeners, and presents of a bag of linen, apron, and mantle by three country maids.

Chamberlain wrote of this entertainment to Winwood (iii. 454) on 6 May, ‘The King brought her on her way to Hampton Court; her next move was to Windsor, then to Causham, a house of the Lord Knolles not far from Reading, where she was entertained with Revells, and a gallant mask performed by the Lord Chamberlain’s four sons, the Earl of Dorset, the Lord North, Sir Henry Rich, and Sir Henry Carie, and at her parting presented with a dainty coverled or quilt, a rich carrquenet, and a curious cabinet, to the value in all of 1500^l.’ He seems to have sent a similar account in an unprinted letter of 29 April to Carleton (_S. P. D. Jac. I_, lxxii. 120). The four sons of Lord Chamberlain Suffolk who appear in other masks are Theophilus Lord Walden, Sir Thomas, Sir Henry, and Sir Charles Howard.

_Lord Somerset’s Mask [Squires]. 26 Dec. 1613_

1614. The Description of a Maske: Presented in the Banqueting roome at Whitehall, on Saint Stephens night last, At the Mariage of the Right Honourable the Earle of Somerset: And the right noble the Lady Frances Howard. Written by Thomas Campion. Whereunto are annexed diuers choyse Ayres composed for this Maske that may be sung with a single voyce to the Lute or Base-Viall. _E. A. for Laurence Lisle._

The maskers were twelve Disenchanted Knights; the first antimaskers four Enchanters and Enchantresses, four Winds, four Elements, and four Parts of the Earth; the second antimaskers twelve Skippers in red and white; the presenters four Squires and three Destinies; the musicians Eternity, Harmony, and a chorus of nine.

The locality was the banqueting room at Whitehall, of which the upper part, ‘where the state is placed’, and the sides were ‘theatred’ with pillars and scaffolds. At the lower end was a triumphal arch, ‘which enclosed the whole works’ and behind it the scene, from which a curtain was drawn. Above was a clouded sky; beneath a sea bounded by two promontories bearing pillars of gold, and in front ‘a pair of stairs made exceeding curiously in form of a scallop shell’, between two gardens with seats for the maskers. After the first antimask, danced ‘in a strange kind of confusion’, the Destinies brought the Queen a golden tree, whence she plucked a bough to disenchant the Knights, who then appeared, six from a cloud, six from the golden pillars. The scene changed, and ‘London with the Thames is very artificially presented’. The maskers gave the first and second dance, and then danced with the ladies, ‘wherein spending as much time as they held fitting, they returned to the seats provided for them’. Barges then brought the second antimask. After the maskers’ last dance, the Squires complimented the royalties and bridal pair.

This was a wedding mask, by lords and gentlemen. The maskers were the Duke of Lennox, the Earls of Pembroke, Dorset, Salisbury, and Montgomery, the Lords Walden, Scroope, North, and Hay, Sir Thomas, Sir Henry, and Sir Charles Howard. The ‘workmanship’ was undertaken by ‘M. Constantine’ [Servi], ‘but he being too much of himself, and no way to be drawn to impart his intentions, failed so far in the assurance he gave that the main invention, even at the last cast, was of force drawn into a far narrower compass than was from the beginning intended’. One song was by Nicholas Lanier; three were by [Giovanni] Coprario and were sung by John Allen and Lanier. G. F. Biondi informed Carleton on 24 Nov. (_S. P. D. Jac. I_, lxxv. 25) of the ‘costly ballets’ preparing for Somerset’s wedding. On 25 Nov. Chamberlain wrote to Carleton (_S. P. D. Jac. I_, lxxv. 28; Birch, i. 278): ‘All the talk is now of masking and feasting at these towardly marriages, whereof the one is appointed on St. Stephen’s day, in Christmas, the other for Twelfthtide. The King bears the charge of the first, all saving the apparel, and no doubt the queen will do as much on her side, which must be a mask of maids, if they may be found.... The maskers, besides the lord chamberlain’s four sons, are named to be the Earls of Rutland, Pembroke, Montgomery, Dorset, Salisbury, the Lords Chandos, North, Compton, and Hay; Edward Sackville, that killed the Lord Bruce, was in the list, but was put out again; and I marvel he would offer himself, knowing how little gracious he is, and that he hath been assaulted once or twice since his return.’ The Queen’s entertainment, which did not prove to be a mask, was Daniel’s _Hymen’s Triumph_. The actual list of performers in the mask of 26 Dec. was somewhat differently made up. On 18 Nov. Lord Suffolk had sent invitations through Sir Thomas Lake to the Earl of Rutland and Lord Willoughby d’Eresby (_S. P. D. Jac. I_, lxxv. 15; Reyher, 505), but apparently neither accepted. He also wrote to Lake on 8 Dec. (_S. P. D. Jac. I_, lxxv. 37) hoping that Sackville might be allowed to take part, not in the mask, but in the tilt (as in fact he did), at his cousin’s wedding. On 30 Dec. Chamberlain sent Alice Carleton an accurate list of the actual maskers (_S. P. D. Jac. I_, lxxv. 53; Birch, i. 285), with the comment, ‘I hear little or no commendation of the mask made by the lords that night, either for device or dancing, only it was rich and costly’. The ‘great bravery’ and masks at the wedding are briefly recorded by Gawdy, 175, and a list of the festivities is given by Howes in Stowe, _Annales_ (1615), 928. He records five in all: ‘A gallant maske of Lords’ [Campion’s] on 26 Dec., the wedding night, ‘a maske of the princes gentlemen’ on 29 Dec. and 3 Jan. [Jonson’s _Irish Mask_], ‘2 seuerall pleasant maskes’ at Merchant Taylors on 4 Jan. [including Middleton’s lost _Mask of Cupid_], and a Gray’s Inn mask on 6 Jan. [_Flowers_].

The ambassadorial complications of the year are described by Finett, 12 (cf. Sullivan, 84). Spain had been in the background at the royal wedding of the previous year, and as there was a new Spanish ambassador (Sarmiento) this was made an excuse for asking him with the archiducal ambassador on 26 Dec. and the French and Venetian ambassadors on 6 Jan. By way of compensation these were also asked to the Roxburghe-Drummond wedding on 2 Feb. They received purely formal invitations to the Somerset wedding, and returned excuses for staying away. The agents of Florence and Savoy were asked, and when they raised the question of precedence were told that they were not ambassadors and might scramble for places.

I am not quite clear whether the costs of this mask, as well as of Jonson’s _Irish Mask_, fell on the Exchequer. Chamberlain’s notice of 25 Nov. (_vide supra_) is not conclusive. Reyher, 523, assigns most of the financial documents to the _Irish Mask_, but an account of the Works for an arch and pilasters to the Lords’ mask; and the payment to Meredith Morgan in Sept. 1614 (_S. P. D. Jac. I_, lxxvii. 92), which he does not cite, appears from the Calendar to be for more than one mask. The _Irish Mask_ needed no costly scenery.

J[ohn] B[ruce], (_Camden Misc._ v), describes a late eighteenth or early nineteenth century forgery, of unknown origin, purporting to describe one of the masks at the Somerset wedding and other events. The details used belong partly to 1613–14 and partly to 1614–15.

ELIZABETH, LADY CARY (1586–1639).

_Mariam. 1602 < > 5._

I have omitted a notice of this closet play, printed in 1613, by a slip, and can only add to the edition (_M. S. C._) of 1914 that Lady Cary was married in 1602 (Chamberlain, 199), not 1600. She wrote an earlier play on a Syracusan theme.

SIR ROBERT CECIL, EARL OF SALISBURY (1563–1612).

But few details of the numerous royal entertainments given by Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and his sons Sir Thomas Cecil, Lord Burghley and afterwards Earl of Exeter, and Sir Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, are upon record. It is, on the whole, convenient to note here, rather than in ch. xxiv, those which have a literary element. Robert Cecil contributed to that of 1594, and possibly to others.

i. _Theobalds Entertainment of 1571 (William Lord Burghley)._

Elizabeth was presented with verses and a picture of the newly-finished house on 21 Sept. 1571 (Haynes-Murdin, ii. 772).

ii. _Theobalds Entertainment of 1591 (William Lord Burghley)._

Elizabeth came for 10–20 May 1591, and knighted Robert Cecil.

(_a_) Strype, _Annals_, iv. 108, and Nichols, _Eliz._ iii. 75, print a mock charter, dated 10 May 1591, and addressed by Lord Chancellor Hatton, in the Queen’s name, ‘To the disconsolate and retired spryte, the Heremite of Tybole’, in which he is called upon to return to the world.

(_b_) Collier, i. 276, followed by Bullen, _Peele_, ii. 305, prints from a MS. in the collection of Frederic Ouvry a Hermit’s speech, subscribed with the initials G. P. and said by Collier to be in Peele’s hand. This is a petition to the Queen for a writ to cause the founder of the hermit’s cell to restore it. This founder has himself occupied it for two years and a few months since the death of his wife, and has obliged the hermit to govern his house. Numerous personal allusions make it clear that the ‘founder’ is Burghley, and as Lady Burghley died 4 April 1589, the date should be in 1591.

(_c_) Bullen, _Peele_, ii. 309, following Dyce, prints two speeches by a Gardener and a Mole Catcher, communicated by Collier to Dyce from another MS. The ascription to Peele is conjectural, and R. W. Bond, _Lyly_, i. 417, claims them, also by conjecture, for Lyly. However this may be, they are addressed to the Queen, who has reigned thirty-three years, and introduce the gift of a jewel in a box. Elizabeth had not reigned full thirty-three years in May 1591, but perhaps near enough. That Theobalds was the locality is indicated by a reference to Pymms at Edmonton, a Cecil property 6 miles from Theobalds, as occupied by ‘the youngest son of this honourable old man’. One is bound to mistrust manuscripts communicated by Collier, but there is evidence that Burghley retired to ‘Colling’s Lodge’ near Theobalds in grief at his wife’s death in 1589, and also that in 1591, when he failed to establish Robert Cecil as Secretary, he made a diplomatic pretence of giving up public life (Hume, _The Great Lord Burghley_, 439, 446).

iii. _Theobalds Entertainment of 1594 (William Lord Burghley)_.

The Hermit was brought into play again when Elizabeth next visited Theobalds, in 1594 (13–23 June). He delivered an Oration, in which he recalled the recovery of his cell at her last coming, and expressed a fear that ‘my young master’ might wish to use it. No doubt the alternative was that Robert Cecil should become Secretary. The oration, ‘penned by Sir Robert Cecill’, is printed by Nichols, _Eliz._ iii. 241, from _Bodl. Rawlinson MS. D_ 692 (_Bodl._ 13464), f. 106.

iv. _Wimbledon Entertainment of 1599 (Thomas Lord Burghley)_.

A visit of 27–30 July 1599 is the probable occasion for an address of welcome, not mimetic in character, by a porter, John Joye, preserved in _Bodl. Tanner MS._ 306, f. 266, and endorsed ‘The queenes entertainment att Wimbledon 99’.

v. _Cecil House Entertainment of 1602 (Sir Robert Cecil)._

Elizabeth dined with Cecil on 6 Dec. 1602.

(_a_) Manningham, 99, records, ‘Sundry devises; at hir entraunce, three women, a maid, a widdowe, and a wife, each commending their owne states, but the Virgin preferred; an other, on attired in habit of a Turke desyrous to see hir Majestie, but as a straunger without hope of such grace, in regard of the retired manner of hir Lord, complained; answere made, howe gracious hir Majestie in admitting to presence, and howe able to discourse in anie language; whiche the Turke admired, and, admitted, presents hir with a riche mantle.’ Chamberlain, 169, adds, ‘You like the Lord Kepers devises so ill, that I cared not to get Mr. Secretaries that were not much better, saving a pretty dialogue of John Davies ’twixt a Maide, a widow, and a wife.’ _A Contention Betwixt a Wife, a Widdow, and a Maide_ was registered on 2 Apr. 1604 (Arber iii. 258), appeared with the initials I. D. in Francis Davison’s _Poetical Rhapsody_ (ed. 2, 1608) and is reprinted by Grosart in the _Poems_ of Sir John Davies (q.v.) from the ed. of 1621, where it is ascribed to ‘Sir I. D.’.

(_b_) Nichols, _Eliz._ iii. 76, prints from _Harl. MS._ 286, f. 248, ‘A Conference betweene a Gent. Huisher and a Poet, before the Queene, at M^r. Secretaryes House. By John Davies.’ He assigns it to 1591, but Cecil was not then Secretary, and it probably belongs to 1602.

(_c_) _Hatfield MSS_. xii. 568 has verses endorsed ‘1602’ and beginning ‘Now we have present made, To Cynthya, Phebe, Flora’.

vi. _Theobalds Entertainment of 1606 (Earl of Salisbury)._

See s.v. Jonson; also the mask described by Harington (ch. v).

vii. _Theobalds Entertainment of 1607 (Earl of Salisbury)._

See s.v. Jonson.

GEORGE CHAPMAN (_c._ 1560–1634).

Chapman was born in 1559 or 1560 near Hitchin in Hertfordshire. Anthony Wood believed him to have been at Oxford, and possibly also at Cambridge, but neither residence can be verified. It is conjectured that residence at Hitchin and soldiering in the Low Countries may have helped to fill the long period before his first appearance as a writer, unless indeed the isolated translation _Fedele and Fortunio_ (1584) is his, with _The Shadow of Night_ (1594). This shows him a member of the philosophical circle of which the centre was Thomas Harriot. The suggestion of W. Minto that he was the ‘rival poet’ of Shakespeare’s _Sonnets_ is elaborated by Acheson, who believes that Shakespeare drew him as Holophernes and as Thersites, and accepted by Robertson; it would be more plausible if any relation between the Earl of Southampton and Chapman, earlier than a stray dedication shared with many others in 1609, could be established. By 1596, and possibly earlier, Chapman was in Henslowe’s pay as a writer for the Admiral’s. His plays, which proved popular, included, besides the extant _Blind Beggar of Alexandria_ and _Humorous Day’s Mirth_, five others, of which some and perhaps all have vanished. These were _The Isle of a Woman_, afterwards called _The Fount of New Fashions_ (May–Oct. 1598), _The World Runs on Wheels_, afterwards called _All Fools but the Fool_ (Jan.–July 1599), _Four Kings_ (Oct. 1598–Jan. 1599), a ‘tragedy of Bengemens plotte’ (Oct.–Jan. 1598; cf. s.v. Jonson) and a pastoral tragedy (July 1599). His reputation both for tragedy and for comedy was established when Meres wrote his _Palladis Tamia_ in 1598. During 1599 Chapman disappears from Henslowe’s diary, and in 1600 or soon after began his series of plays for the Chapel, afterwards Queen’s Revels, children. This lasted until 1608, when his first indiscretion of _Eastward Ho!_ (1605), in reply to which he was caricatured as Bellamont in Dekker and Webster’s _Northward Ho!_, was followed by a second in _Byron_. He now probably dropped his connexion with the stage, at any rate for many years. After completing Marlowe’s _Hero and Leander_ in 1598, he had begun his series of Homeric translations, and these Prince Henry, to whom he had been appointed sewer in ordinary at the beginning of James’s reign, now bade him pursue, with the promise of £300, to which on his death-bed in 1612 he added another of a life-pension. These James failed to redeem, and Chapman also lost his place as sewer. His correspondence contains complaints of poverty, probably of this or a later date, and indications of an attempt, with funds supplied by a brother, to mend his fortunes by marriage with a widow. He found a new patron in the Earl of Somerset, wrote one of the masks for the wedding of the Princess Elizabeth in 1613, and went on with Homer, completing his task in 1624. He lived until 12 May 1634, and his tomb by Inigo Jones still stands at St. Giles-in-the-Fields. In his later years he seems to have touched up some of his dramatic work and possibly to have lent a hand to the younger dramatist Shirley. Jonson told Drummond in 1619 that ‘next himself, only Fletcher and Chapman could make a mask’, and that ‘Chapman and Fletcher were loved of him’ (Laing, 4, 12), and some of Jonson’s extant letters appear to confirm the kindly relations which these phrases suggest. But a fragment of invective against Jonson left by Chapman on his death-bed suggests that they did not endure for ever.

_Collections_

1873. [R. H. Shepherd.] _The Comedies and Tragedies of George Chapman._ 3 vols. (_Pearson reprints_). [Omits _Eastward Ho!_]

1874–5. R. H. Shepherd. _The Works of George Chapman._ 3 vols. [With Swinburne’s essay. Includes _The Second Maiden’s Tragedy_ and _Two Wise Men and All the Rest Fools_.]

1895. W. L. Phelps. _The Best Plays of George Chapman_ (_Mermaid Series_). [_All Fools_, the two _Bussy_ and the two _Byron_ plays.]

1910–14. T. M. Parrott. _The Plays and Poems of George Chapman._ 3 vols. [Includes _Sir Giles Goosecap_, _The Ball_, _Alphonsus Emperor of Germany_, and _Revenge for Honour_. The _Poems_ not yet issued.]

_Dissertations_: F. Bodenstedt, _C. in seinem Verhältniss zu Shakespeare_ (1865, _Jahrbuch_, i. 300); A. C. Swinburne, _G. C.: A Critical Essay_ (1875); E. Koeppel, _Quellen-Studien zu den Dramen G. C.’s, &c._ (1897, _Quellen und Forschungen_, lxxxii); B. Dobell, _Newly discovered Documents of the Elizabethan and Jacobean Periods_ (1901, _Ath._ i. 369, 403, 433, 465); A. Acheson, _Shakespeare and the Rival Poet_ (1903); E. E. Stoll, _On the Dates of some of C.’s Plays_ (1905, _M. L. N._ xx. 206); T. M. Parrott, _Notes on the Text of C.’s Plays_ (1907, _Anglia_, xxx. 349, 501); F. L. Schoell, _Chapman as a Comic Writer_ (1911, _Paris diss._, unprinted, but used by Parrott); J. M. Robertson, _Shakespeare and C._ (1917).

PLAYS

_The Blind Beggar of Alexandria. 1596_

_S. R._ 1598, Aug. 15. ‘A booke intituled The blynde begger of Alexandrya, vppon Condicon thatt yt belonge to noe other man.’ _William Jones_ (Arber, iii. 124).

1598. The Blinde begger of Alexandria, most pleasantly discoursing his variable humours in disguised shapes full of conceite and pleasure. As it hath beene sundry times publickly acted in London, by the right honorable the Earle of Nottingham, Lord high Admirall his seruantes. By George Chapman: Gentleman. _For William Jones._

The play was produced by the Admiral’s on 12 Feb. 1596; properties were bought for a revival in May and June 1601. P. A. Daniel shows in _Academy_ (1888), ii. 224, that five of the six passages under the head of _Irus_ in _Edward Pudsey’s Notebook_, taken in error by R. Savage, _Stratford upon Avon Notebooks_, i. 7 (1888) to be from an unknown play of Shakespeare, appear with slight variants in the 1598 text. This, which is very short, probably represents a ‘cut’ stage copy. Pudsey is traceable as an actor (cf. ch. xv) in 1626.

_An Humorous Day’s Mirth. 1597_

1599. A pleasant Comedy entituled: An Numerous dayes Myrth. As it hath beene sundrie times publikely acted by the right honourable the Earle of Nottingham Lord high Admirall his seruants. By G. C. _Valentine Syms_.

The 1598 inventories of the Admiral’s (Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 115, 119) include Verone’s son’s hose and Labesha’s cloak, which justifies Fleay, i. 55, in identifying the play with the comedy of _Humours_ produced by that company on 1 May 1597. It is doubtless also the play of which John Chamberlain wrote to Dudley Carleton (Chamberlain, 4) on 11 June 1597, ‘We have here a new play of humors in very great request, and I was drawne along to it by the common applause, but my opinion of it is (as the fellow saide of the shearing of hogges), that there was a great crie for so litle wolle.’

_The Gentleman Usher. 1602_ (?)

[_MS._] For an unverified MS. cf. s.v. _Monsieur D’Olive._

_S. R._ 1605, Nov. 26 (Harsnett). ‘A book called Vincentio and Margaret.’ _Valentine Syms_ (iii. 305).

1606. The Gentleman Usher. By George Chapman. _V. S. for Thomas Thorpe._

_Edition_ by T. M. Parrott (1907, _B. L._).--_Dissertation_: O. Cohn, _Zu den Quellen von C.’s G. U._ (1912, _Frankfort Festschrift_, 229).

There is no indication of a company, but the use of a mask and songs confirm the general probability that the play was written for the Chapel or Revels. It was later than _Sir Giles Goosecap_ (q.v.), to the title-rôle of which II. i. 81 alludes, but of this also the date is uncertain. Parrott’s ‘1602’ is plausible enough, but 1604 is also possible.

_All Fools. 1604_ (?)

1605. Al Fooles A Comedy, Presented at the Black Fryers, And lately before his Maiestie. Written by George Chapman. _For Thomas Thorpe._ [Prologue and Epilogue. The copies show many textual variations.]

_Editions_ in Dodsley^{2, 3} (1780–1827) and by W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ ii) and T. M. Parrott (1907, _B. L._).--_Dissertation_: M. Stier, _C.’s All Fools mit Berücksichtigung seiner Quellen_ (1904, _Halle diss._).

The Court performance was on 1 Jan. 1605 (cf. App. B), and the play was therefore probably on the Blackfriars stage in 1604. There is a reminiscence of Ophelia’s flowers in II. i. 232, and the prologue seems to criticize the _Poetomachia_.

Who can show cause why th’ ancient comic vein Of Eupolis and Cratinus (now reviv’d Subject to personal application) Should be exploded by some bitter spleens.

But in Jan.–July 1599 Henslowe paid Chapman £8 10_s._ on behalf of the Admiral’s for _The World Runs on Wheels_. The last entry is for ‘his boocke called the world Rones a whelles & now all foolles but the foolle’. This seems to me, more clearly than to Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 203), to indicate a single play and a changed title. I am less certain, however, that he is right in adopting the view of Fleay, i. 59, that it was an earlier version of the Blackfriars play. It may be so, and the date of ‘the seventeenth of November, fifteen hundred and so forth’ used for a deed in IV. i. 331 lends some confirmation. But the change of company raises a doubt, and there is no ‘fool’ in _All Fools_. An alternative conjecture is that the Admiral’s reverted to the original title for their play, leaving a modification of the amended one available for Chapman in 1604. Collier (Dodsley^3) printed a dedicatory sonnet to Sir Thomas Walsingham. This exists only in a single copy, in which it has been printed on an inserted leaf. T. J. Wise (_Ath._ 1908, i. 788) and Parrott, ii. 726, show clearly that it is a forgery.

_Monsieur D’Olive. 1604_

[_MS._] See _infra_.

1606. Monsieur D’Olive. A Comedie, as it was sundrie times acted by her Majesties children at the Blacke-Friers. By George Chapman. _T. C. for William Holmes_.

_Edition_ by C. W. Dilke (1814, _O. E. P._ iii).

The title-page suggests a Revels rather than a Chapel play, and Fleay, i. 59, Stoll, and Parrott all arrive at 1604 for the date, which is rendered probable by allusions to the Jacobean knights (I. i. 263; IV. ii. 77), to the calling in of monopolies (I. i. 284), to the preparation of costly embassies (IV. ii. 114), and perhaps to the royal dislike of tobacco (II. ii. 164). There is a reminiscence of _Hamlet_, III. ii. 393, in II. ii. 91:

our great men Like to a mass of clouds that now seem like An elephant, and straightways like an ox, And then a mouse.

On the inadequate ground that woman’s ‘will’ is mentioned in II. i. 89, Fleay regarded the play as a revision of one written by Chapman for the Admiral’s in 1598 under the title of _The Will of a Woman_. But Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 194) interprets Henslowe’s entry ‘the iylle of a woman’ as _The Isle of Women_. The 1598 play seems to have been renamed _The Fount of New Fashions_. Hazlitt, _Manual_, 89, 94, says part Heber’s sale included MSS. both of _The Fount of New Fashions_, and of _The Gentleman Usher_ under the title of _The Will of a Woman_, but Greg could not find these in the sale catalogue.

_Bussy D’Ambois. 1604_

_S. R._ 1607, June 3 (Buck). ‘The tragedie of Busye D’Amboise. Made by George Chapman.’ _William Aspley_ (Arber, iii. 350).

1607. Bussy D’Ambois. A Tragedie: As it hath been often presented at Paules. _For William Aspley._

1608. _For William Aspley._ [Another issue.]

1641. As it hath been often Acted with great Applause. Being much corrected and amended by the Author before his death. _A. N. for Robert Lunne._ [Prologue and Epilogue.]

1646. _T. W. for Robert Lunne._ [Another issue.]

1657.... the Author, George Chapman, Gent. Before his death. _For Joshua Kirton._ [Another issue.]

_Editions_ by C. W. Dilke (1814, _O. E. P._ iii), F. S. Boas (1905, _B. L._), W. A. Neilson (1911, _C. E. D._).--_Dissertation_: T. M. Parrott, _The Date of C.’s B. d’A._ (1908, _M. L. R._ iii. 126).

The play was acted by Paul’s, who disappear in 1606. It has been suggested that it dates in some form from 1598 or earlier, because Pero is a female character, and an Admiral’s inventory of 1598 (_Henslowe Papers_, 120) has ‘Perowes sewt, which W^m Sley were’. As Sly had been a Chamberlain’s man since 1594, this must have been a relic of some obsolete play. But the impossible theory seems to have left a trace on the suggestion of Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 198) that Chapman may have worked on the basis of the series of plays on _The Civil Wars of France_ written by Dekker (q.v.) and others for the Admiral’s at a later date in 1598 than that of the inventories. From one of these plays, however, might come the reminiscence of a ‘trusty Damboys’ in _Satiromastix_ (1601), IV. i. 174. For _Bussy_ itself a jest on ‘leap-year’ (I. ii. 82) points to either 1600 or 1604, and allusions to Elizabeth as an ‘old queen’ (I. ii. 12), to a ‘knight of the new edition’ (I. ii. 124), with which may be compared Day, _Isle of Gulls_ (1606), i. 3, ‘gentlemen ... of the best and last edition, of the Dukes own making’, and to a ‘new denizened lord’ (I. ii. 173) point to 1604 rather than 1600. The play was revived by the King’s men and played at Court on 7 April 1634 (_Variorum_, iii. 237), and to this date probably belongs the prologue in the edition of 1641. Here the actors declare that the piece, which evidently others had ventured to play, was

known, And still believed in Court to be our own.

They add that

Field is gone, Whose action first did give it name,

and that his successor (perhaps Taylor) is prevented by his grey beard from taking the young hero, which therefore falls to a ‘third man’ who has been liked as Richard. Gayton, _Festivous Notes on Don Quixote_ (1654), 25, tells us that Eliard Swanston played Bussy; doubtless he is the third man. The revision of the text, incorporated in the 1641 edition, may obviously date either from this or for some earlier revival. It is not necessary to assume that the performances by Field referred to in the prologue were earlier than 1616, when he joined the King’s. Parrott, however, makes it plausible that they might have been for the Queen’s Revels at Whitefriars in 1609–12, about the time when the _Revenge_ was played by the same company. If so, the Revels must have acquired _Bussy_ after the Paul’s performances ended in 1606. It is, of course, quite possible that they were only recovering a play originally written for them, and carried by Kirkham to Paul’s in 1605.

_Eastward Ho! 1605_

With Jonson and Marston.

_S. R._ 1605, Sept. 4 (Wilson). ‘A Comedie called Eastward Ho:’ _William Aspley and Thomas Thorp_ (Arber, iii. 300).

1605. Eastward Hoe. As It was playd in the Black-friers. By The Children of her Maiesties Reuels. Made by Geo: Chapman. Ben Ionson. Ioh: Marston. _For William Aspley._ [Prologue and Epilogue. Two issues (_a_) and (_b_). Of (_a_) only signatures E_{3} and E_{4} exist, inserted between signatures E_{2} and E_{3} of a complete copy of (_b_) in the Dyce collection; neither Greg, _Masques_, cxxii, nor Parrott, _Comedies_, 862, is quite accurate here.]

1605. _For William Aspley._ [Another edition, reset.]

_Editions_ in Dodsley^{1, 2, 3} (1744–1825), by W. R. Chetwood in _Memoirs of Ben Jonson_ (1756), W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ ii), F. E. Schelling (1903, _B. L._), J. W. Cunliffe (1913, _R. E. C._ ii), J. S. Farmer (1914, _S. F. T._); and with Marston’s _Works_ (q.v.).--_Dissertations_: C. Edmonds, _The Original of the Hero in the Comedy of E. H._ (_Athenaeum_, 13 Oct. 1883); H. D. Curtis, _Source of the Petronel-Winifred Plot in E. H._ (1907, _M. P._ v. 105).

Jonson told Drummond in 1619 (Laing, 20): ‘He was dilated by Sir James Murray to the King, for writing something against the Scots, in a play Eastward Hoe, and voluntarly imprissoned himself with Chapman and Marston, who had written it amongst them. The report was, that they should then [have] had their ears cut and noses. After their delivery, he banqueted all his friends; there was Camden, Selden, and others; at the midst of the feast his old Mother dranke to him, and shew him a paper which she had (if the sentence had taken execution) to have mixed in the prisson among his drinke, which was full of lustie strong poison, and that she was no churle, she told, she minded first to have drunk of it herself.’ The _Hatfield MSS._ contain a letter (i) from Jonson (Cunningham, _Jonson_, i. xlix), endorsed ‘1605’, to the Earl of Salisbury, created 4 May 1605. Another copy is in the MS. described by B. Dobell, with ten other letters, of which Dobell, followed by Schelling, prints three by Jonson, (ii) to an unnamed lord, probably Suffolk, (iii) to an unnamed earl, (iv) to an unnamed ‘excellentest of Ladies’, and three by Chapman, (v) to the King, (vi) to Lord Chamberlain Suffolk, (vii) to an unnamed lord, probably also Suffolk. These, with four others by Chapman not printed, have no dates, but all, with (i), seem to refer to the same joint imprisonment of the two poets. In (i) Jonson says that he and Chapman are in prison ‘unexamined and unheard’. The cause is a play of which ‘no man can justly complain’, for since his ‘first error’ and its ‘bondage’ [1597] Jonson has ‘attempered my style’ and his books have never ‘given offence to a nation, to a public order or state, or to any person of honour or authority’. The other letters add a few facts. In (v) Chapman says that the ‘chief offences are but two clawses, and both of them not our owne’; in (vi) that ‘our unhappie booke was presented without your Lordshippes allowance’; and in (vii) that they are grateful for an expected pardon of which they have heard from Lord Aubigny. Castelain, _Jonson_, 901, doubts whether this correspondence refers to _Eastward Ho!_, chiefly because there is no mention of Marston, and after hesitating over _Sejanus_, suggests _Sir Giles Goosecap_ (q.v.), which is not worth consideration. Jonson was in trouble for _Sejanus_ (q.v.), but on grounds not touched on in these letters, and Chapman was not concerned. I feel no doubt that the imprisonment was that for _Eastward Ho!_ Probably Drummond was wrong about Marston, who escaped. His ‘absence’ is noted in the t.p. of Q_{2} of _The Fawn_ (1606), and chaffed by A. Nixon, _The Black Year_ (1606): ‘Others ... arraign other mens works ... when their own are sacrificed in Paul’s Churchyard, for bringing in the Dutch Courtesan to corrupt English conditions and sent away westward for carping both at court, city, and country.’ Evidently Jonson and Chapman, justly or not, put the blame of the obnoxious clauses upon him, and renewed acrimony against Jonson may be traced in his Epistles of 1606. I am inclined to think that it was the publication of the play in the autumn of 1605, rather than its presentation on the stage, that brought the poets into trouble. This would account for the suppression of a passage reflecting upon the Scots (III. iii. 40–7) which appeared in the first issue of Q_{1} (cf. Parrott, ii. 862). Other quips at the intruding nation, at James’s liberal knightings, and even at his northern accent (I. ii. 50, 98; II. iii. 83; IV. i. 179) appear to have escaped censure. Nor was the play as a whole banned. It passed to the Lady Elizabeth’s, who revived it in 1613 (_Henslowe Papers_, 71) and gave it at Court on 25 Jan. 1614 (cf. App. B). There seems to be an allusion to Suffolk’s intervention in Chapman’s gratulatory verses to _Sejanus_ (1605):

Most Noble Suffolke, who by Nature Noble, And judgement vertuous, cannot fall by Fortune, Who when our Hearde, came not to drink, but trouble The Muses waters, did a Wall importune, (Midst of assaults) about their sacred River.

The imprisonment was over by Nov. 1605, when Jonson (q.v.) was employed about the Gunpowder plot. I put it and the correspondence in Oct. or Nov. The play may have been staged at any time between that and the staging of Dekker and Webster’s _Westward Hoe_, late in 1604, to which its prologue refers. Several attempts have been made to divide up the play. Fleay, ii. 81, gives Marston I. i-II. i, Chapman II. ii-IV. i, Jonson IV. ii-V. iv. Parrott gives Marston I. i-II. ii, IV. ii, V. i, Chapman II. iii-IV. i, Jonson the prologue and V. ii-v. Cunliffe gives Marston I, III. iii and V. i, the rest to Chapman, and nothing to Jonson but plotting and supervision. All make III. iii a Chapman scene, so that, if Chapman spoke the truth, Marston must have interpolated the obnoxious clauses.

_May Day. c. 1609_

1611. May Day. A witty Comedie, diuers times acted at the Blacke Fryers. Written by George Chapman. _For John Browne._

_Edition_ by C. W. Dilke (1814, _O. E. P._ iv).--_Dissertation_: A. L. Stiefel, _G. C. und das italienische Drama_ (1899, _Jahrbuch_, xxxv. 180).

The _chorus iuvenum_ with which the play opens fixes it to the occupancy of the Blackfriars by the Chapel and Revels in 1600–9. Parrott suggests 1602 on the ground of reminiscences of 1599–1601 plays, of which the most important is a quotation in IV. i. 18 of Marston’s _2 Antonio and Mellida_ (1599), V. ii. 20. But the force of this argument is weakened by the admission of a clear imitation in I. i. 378 _sqq._ of ch. v. of Dekker’s _Gull’s Hornbook_ (1609), which it seems to me a little arbitrary to explain by a revision. The other reasons given by Fleay, i. 57, for a date _c._ 1601 are fantastic. So is his suggestion that the play is founded on the anonymous _Disguises_ produced by the Admiral’s on 2 Oct. 1595, which, as pointed out by Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 177), rests merely on the fact that the title would be appropriate.

_The Widow’s Tears. 1603 < > 9_

_S. R._ 1612, Apr. 17. _John Browne_ [see _The Revenge of Bussy D’Ambois_].

1612. The Widdowes Teares. A Comedie. As it was often presented in the blacke and white Friers. Written by Geor: Chap. _For John Browne._ [Epistle to Jo. Reed of Mitton, Gloucestershire, signed ‘Geo. Chapman’.]

_Edition_ in Dodsley^{1, 2, 3} (1744–1827).

The play was given at Court on 27 Feb. 1613, but the reference on the title-page to Blackfriars shows that it was originally produced by the Chapel or Revels not later than 1609 and probably before _Byron_ (1608). Wallace, ii. 115, identifies it with the Chapel play seen by the Duke of Stettin in 1602 (cf. ch. xii), but Gerschow’s description in no way, except for the presence of a widow, fits the plot. The reference to the ‘number of strange knights abroad’ (iv. 1. 28) and perhaps also that to the crying down of monopolies (I. i. 125) are Jacobean, rather than Elizabethan (cf. _M. d’Olive_). Fleay, i. 61, and Parrott think that the satire of justice in the last act shows resentment at Chapman’s treatment in connexion with _Eastward Ho!_, and suggest 1605. It would be equally sound to argue that this is just the date when Chapman would have been most careful to avoid criticism of this kind. The Epistle says, ‘This poor comedy (of many desired to see printed) I thought not utterly unworthy that affectionate design in me’.

_Charles, Duke of Byron. 1608_

_S. R._ 1608, June 5 (Buck). ‘A booke called The Conspiracy and Tragedie of Charles Duke of Byronn written by Georg Chapman.’ _Thomas Thorp_ (Arber, iii. 380).

1608. The Conspiracie, And Tragedie of Charles Duke of Byron, Marshall of France. Acted lately in two playes, at the Black-Friers. Written by George Chapman. _G. Eld for Thomas Thorpe._ [Epistle to Sir Thomas and Thomas Walsingham, signed ‘George Chapman’, and Prologue. Half-title to

## Part II , ‘The Tragedie of Charles Duke of Byron. By George Chapman.’]

1625.... at the Blacke-Friers, and other publique Stages.... _N. O. for Thomas Thorpe._ [Separate t.p. to