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A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 13

Chapter 16: EDITION.
By Robert Dodsley
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About This Book

An edited anthology gathers a range of early English stage plays presented in chronological order and accompanied by commentator annotations and new notes by W. Carew Hazlitt. The volume reproduces dramatis personae, act and scene divisions, and full texts of comedies and civic dramas that explore marital matches, social hypocrisy, debt and urban life, often through satirical character types and comic situations. Editorial material and transcriber notes contextualize language, performance practice, and textual variants, making the plays accessible for modern readers while preserving original stage directions and comic dialogue.

THE CITY NIGHTCAP.

EDITION.

The City Night-Cap: Or, Crede quod habes, & habes. A Tragi-Comedy. By Robert Davenport. As it was Acted with great Applause, by Her Majesties Servants, at the Phœnix in Drury-Lane. London: Printed by Ja: Cottrel, for Samuel Speed, at the Signe of the Printing-Press, in St. Paul's Church-yard. 1661. 4o.

PREFACE.

Robert Davenport is a writer (remarks Reed) of whom scarce any particulars are known. It appears, from the office-book of Sir Henry Herbert, that Davenport had licence for the "History of Henry the First" on the 10th April, 1624; and this is the earliest memorandum relating to him with which we have met. His dramatic productions are—

1. "The History of Henry the First," not printed.

2. "A Pleasant and Witty Comedy, called a New Trick to Cheat the Devil," 1639, 4o.

3. "King John and Matilda," 1655, 4o.[114]

4. "The Pirate," not printed.[115]

5. "The Woman's Mistaken," not printed.

6. "The Fatal Brothers," not printed.

7. "The Politic Queen," not printed.

8. "The City Nightcap," 1661, 4o. Licensed Oct. 24, 1624.

He has also been credited with a piece called "The Pedlar," licensed to Robert Allot, April 8, 1630; but this production, under the title of "The Conceited Pedlar," is printed at the end of Allot's edition of Randolph's "Aristippus," 4o, 1630. It is, of course, included in Hazlitt's edition of Randolph, 12o, 1875.

Davenport, besides his plays, was the author of a considerable collection of poems, the greater part of which were not published. In 1639, however, appeared a thin 4o volume, entitled "A Crowne for a Conqueror; and Too late to call backe yesterday. Two Poems, the one Divine, the other Morall. By R. D." In the Bodleian Catalogue this little book is misdated 1623.[116] The latter piece is dedicated to his noble friends, as he calls them, Mr Richard Robinson[117] and Mr Michael Bowyer; and in his address to them he styles both the poems some of the expense of his time at sea. From the address prefixed to the play of "King John and Matilda," signed R. D., he appears to have been alive in the year 1655, when that piece was first published.

FOOTNOTES:

[114] It was published by Andrew Pennycuicke, one of the performers, who says that he was the last who played the character of Matilda. See it criticised in the Retrosp. Review, iv. 87-100.

[115] In S. Sheppard's "Poems," 8o, 1651, is one "To Mr Davenport, on his play called 'The Pirate.'"—Collier.

[116] [For a notice of Davenport's unprinted poems, see Hazlitt's "Handbook," 1867, in v.]

[117] Both Robinson and Bowyer were players. The former is in the list of the performers in Shakespeare's plays, and acted in the "Roman Actor." The name of the latter is to be found amongst the performers in "The Bondman," by Massinger, "King John and Matilda," &c.