The works of Thomas Middleton, Volume 1 (of 5)

1. Or Midleton.

2. In Harl. MS. 1116, fol. 115, is a note of this grant to William Middleton; but it supplies no information about his place of residence. The Middletons of Middleton Hall bore “Argent, a saltier ingrailed Sable:” he does not appear, however, to have belonged to that family; see Nicolson and Burns’s Hist. of West. and Cumb., vol. i. p. 255.

I may add, that from the dedication of The Triumphs of Truth to Sir Thomas Middleton, Lord Mayor of London in 1613, we learn that our dramatist was not related to him: “next, in that myself, though unworthy, being of one name with your lordship ... as if one fate did prosperously cleave to one name,” &c., vol. v. p. 217. The family of Sir Thomas Middleton was of Denbigh: he was brother to Sir Hugh Middleton.

3. Dethicks Guifts, Vincent 162, fol. 215, Coll. Arms.

4. Of the various persons named William Middleton whose wills are extant, I cannot identify one with the father of the poet.

5.

C 2. Vis. Surrey, 1623, p. 328, Coll. Arms.—This pedigree (translated) is also in Harl. MS. 1046, fol. 209.

6. “Amy” in Harl. MS.

7. Mr. Campbell observes, that some verses, which will be afterwards cited, “allude to the poet’s white locks, so that he was probably born as early as the middle of the 16th century.”—Spec. of the Brit. Poets, vol. iii. p. 118. The verses in question I believe to be a forgery of Chetwood.

8. “Mary” in Harl. MS.

9. “Marbecke” in Harl. MS.,—rightly perhaps. I can find no mention of him elsewhere.

10. Harl. MS. 1912, fol. 52.—No record of their admission is preserved in Gray’s Inn.

11. In the Library of the Edinburgh University is a unique copy of Epigrams and Satires: Made by Richard Middleton of Yorke Gentleman, London, 1608. 4to. The Epistle Dedicatory is addressed “To the Gentleman of condigne desert William Bellasses.” The Epigrams end on p. 19; the Satires, entitled Times Metamorphoses, occupy the remainder of the work, which extends in all to 39 pages. The author is a wretched scribbler, and sometimes uses the grossest language.

12. The Silkewormes, and their Flies: Liuely described in verse, by T. M., &c. London, 1599. 4to, is certainly not by Middleton: according to some authorities, the writer’s name was Moffat.

In England’s Parnassus, or The Choysest Flowers of our Moderne Poets, &c. 1600, 8vo, the following quotations are found:

But the compiler has given them to our author by mistake: both are taken from The Legend of Humphrey Duke of Glocester, written by Christopher Middleton; see the reprint of that poem in the tenth vol. of The Harleian Miscellany, p. 170 and p. 182. ed. Park.

Corona Minervæ. Or a Masque Presented before Prince Charles his Highnesse, The Duke of Yorke his Brother, and the Lady Mary his Sister, the 27th of February, at the Colledge of the Mvseum Minervæ. London, 1635. 4to, has been ascribed to Middleton by those who were not aware that he was dead at that period.

Lowndes (Bibliog. Manual) attributes to Middleton The pleasant comodie of Patient Grissell, 1607, and a short tract called Sir Robert Sherley sent Ambassadour, in the name of the King of Persia, to Sigismond the Third, &c. &c. 1609. 4to. The former piece was written by Dekker, Chettle, and Haughton (see Malone’s Shakespeare, by Boswell, vol. iii. p. 323); the latter (which is reprinted in The Harleian Miscellany, vol. v.) has no author’s name, and, as far as I can discover, contains nothing to indicate that it is by Middleton.

13. In act iii. scene 1. (vol. i. p. 48), the Clerk having read from the church-book “Agatha, the daughter of Pollux—born in an. 1540,” adds, “and NOW ’TIS 99.” Similar notices have served to ascertain the periods at which several other old dramas were first brought upon the stage; but they are not always to be relied on as evidence to that effect. In our author’s No Wit, No Help like a Woman’s, act iii. scene 1. (vol. v. p. 87), Weatherwise says, “If I, that have proceeded in five-and-twenty such books of astronomy, should not be able to put down a scholar now in one thousand six hundred thirty and eight, the dominical letter being G, I stood for a goose.” That Middleton wrote this play there cannot, I think, be any doubt; but as he had been dead about ten years before 1638, that date must have been inserted by the actors when the piece was revived.

14. Malone’s Shakespeare (by Boswell), vol. iii. p. 327.

15. Id. ibid. There can be no question that this is the piece which, according to Mr. Collier, in a part of Henslowe’s Diary not cited by Malone, is called The Chester Tragedy. Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poetry, vol. iii. p. 102. When Malone (ubi supra) observed, that Randall Earl of Chester “was probably The Mayor of Queenborough,” he must have utterly forgotten the subject of the latter play.

Weber erroneously states that Middleton “wrote in combination with Ford.” Introd. to Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, p. xliv.

16. Lansdown MS. 807.—This play was entered on the Stationers’ Books Sept. 9, 1653.

17. In vol. v. p. 527 and p. 562, I followed Mr. Collier’s statement (Bridgewater House Catalogue, p. 200), that Nash died during 1604, because in The Black Book he is described as alive, and in Father Hubburd’s Tales he is spoken of as dead, both these pieces having been published in 1604. But Nash must have died earlier; for, in The Returne from Pernassus, 1606, which internal evidence proves to have been written before the decease of Elizabeth, he is mentioned as being “in his mournefull chest,” sig. B 3; and the Black Book, though perhaps not printed, must have been composed, anterior to 1604. Whatever may have been the date of Nash’s death, Malone (see note vol. v. p. 561) was assuredly mistaken in interpreting the expression “humorous theft,” to mean that Rowlands had stolen The letting of humours blood in the head vaine, &c. from Nash: that piece is much too weak and spiritless to have been the production of the former.

18. Continuation of Stow’s Annales, p. 928, ed. 1615.

19. He had previously (in 1603) written a copy of verses for Dekker’s Entertainment to King James, &c.: see vol. v. p. 203.

20. This pageant is placed as an Appendix to vol. v.

21. Heath’s Account of the Worshipful Company of Grocers, p. 331. London, 1829 (privately printed). In the same document are these entries:

“Benevolences and Rewards to Officers and others which took paines about the sayde busynesse, with other particuler charges as followeth,

22. “There are two MSS. of this Author’s [Middleton’s] in being which have never been taken notice of in any Accoᵗ. of him. They were sold in an Auction of Books at the Apollo Coffee House in Fleet Street abᵗ the year 1735 by Edw Lewis but puffd up to a great price, bought back, & coud not afterwᵈˢ be recoverd. They are entitled I. Annales: or a Continuation of Chronologie; conteyninge Passages and Occurrences proper to the Honnoᵇˡᵉ Citty of London: Beginninge in the Yeare of our Lorde 1620. By Thomas Midleton then received by their Honnoᵇˡᵉ Senate as Chronologer for the Cittye. There are in it, these Articles under the year 1621.—On Good Fryday in the Morn died John (King) Lord Bp. of London.—28 May Fra. Lᵈ Verulam committed to the Tower. (Seal taken from him the last day of April).—27 Decʳ. Sʳ Edwᵈd Coke Committed to the Tower.—Decʳ. The Fortune Play House, situate between White Cross Street and Golding Lane, burnt, &c. II. Middleton’s Farrago: In which there is—The Earl of Essex his Charge agᵗ Viscᵗ. Wimbleton, & the Viscᵗˢ. Answʳ.—The Treaty and Articles of Marriage between Pr. Cha: & Hen: Maria.—Parliamentary Matters, 1625-26.—Habeas Corpus 1627 &c.” MS. note by Oldys on Langbaine’s Account of Engl. Dram. Poets, p. 370. (British Museum.)

23. Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poetry, vol. i. p. 453.

24. Apology for the Believers in the Shakspeare-Papers, p. 497, sqq.

25. The original is in the State Paper Office: for the transcript I am indebted to Mr. J. P. Collier.

26. Chalmers’s Apology for the Believers, &c. p. 500.

27. Capell’s Notes on Shakespeare, vol. iii. p. 31. (School of Sh.)

28. “According to this statement,” says Malone, “they received above 166l. 12s. on each performance. The foregoing extracts [from Sir Henry Herbert’s Office-book] show, that there is not even a semblance of truth in this story. In the year 1685, when the London theatres were much enlarged, and the prices of admission greatly increased, Shadwell received by his third day on the representation of The Squire of Alsatia, only 130l., which Downes the prompter says was the greatest receipt had been ever taken at Drury-lane playhouse at single prices. Roscius Anglicanus, p. 41. The use of Arabick figures has often occasioned very gross errors to pass current in the world. I suppose the utmost receipt from the performance of Middleton’s play for nine days (if it was performed so often), could not amount to more than one hundred and fifty pounds. To the sum of 150l. which perhaps this old actor had seen as the profit made by this play, his fancy or his negligence added a cipher, and thus made fifteen hundred pounds. The play of Holland’s Leaguer [by Marmyon] was acted six days successively at Salisbury Court, in December 1631, and yet Sir Henry Herbert received on account of the six representations but one pound nineteen shillings, in virtue of the ninth share which he possessed as one of the proprietors of that house. Supposing there were twenty-one shares divided among the actors, the piece, though performed with such extraordinary success, did not produce more than six pounds ten shillings each night, exclusive of the occasional nightly charges already mentioned.” Malone’s Shakespeare (by Boswell), vol. iii. p. 177.

29. Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poetry, vol. i. p. 451.

30. Letters, p. 123, ed. 1678. The letter is dated “Aug. 15, 1623;” and the last Editor of Dodsley’s Old Plays, after citing the passage, says, “This remark was made in the August of the year preceding the calling of Middleton before the Privy Council, and must therefore allude to some other play than the Game of [at] Chess,” vol. v. p. 279. Let us hear Oldys: “The first edition [of Howel’s Letters] in Q^o 1645 is in Six Parts or Sections; but no dates to any of the Letters: Hence so many Errors when he did date them.” MS. note on Langbaine’s Account of Engl. Dram. Poets, p. 279. (British Museum.)

31. Act iii. scene 1,—Works, by Gifford, vol. v. p. 247.

32. P. xii.

33. Written, we are told, by Sir William Lower, on Middleton’s Michaelmas Term. They are given by Chetwood in “An Account of the Author,” prefixed to a reprint of Blurt Master Constable, which forms part of a small volume entitled A Select Collection of Old Plays, Dublin, 1750. Middleton, as Chetwood previously informs us, “lived to a very great age.... We may judge of his longævity by his works; since his first play was acted in 1601, and his last in 1665[!].... That he was much esteem’d by his brother poets, we may judge by four lines of sir William Lower upon his comedy call’d A Michaelmas Term, 1663”! Now, Michaelmas Term was certainly not produced in Middleton’s “halting age,” having been licensed the 15th May, 1607, and printed during the same year; see vol. i. p. 413; there is no edition of it bearing date 1663; and, moreover, Sir William Lower died in 1662. The lines are cited indeed by Oldys, in a MS. note on Langbaine’s Account of Engl. Dram. Poets, p. 373 (British Museum); but he doubtless copied them from Chetwood’s volume, of which he has transcribed the title, p. 371.

34. See p. xiii.

35. The following extracts from the same Records shew the various persons who succeeded Middleton in the office of City Chronologer till it was finally abolished.

35A. Gifford (Memoirs of Ben Jonson, p. clxii.) mentions that “the city, from whom he [Jonson] had been accustomed to receive an annual sum by way of securing his services when occasion called for them, seem to have watched the moment of declining favour, and withdrawn their bounty;” but does not appear to have known either that Jonson had been officially appointed Chronologer, or that his pension (see the fourth entry) was afterwards restored.

36. P. xiii.

37. Life of Shakespeare (1821), p. 225. Drayton made great alterations in new editions of his poems: the “commendation” of Middleton may perhaps be found in the first impression of one of his numerous pieces, which I have not seen. The Life of Drayton, by Robert Bell, Esq., in a recently published volume of Lardner’s Cyclopædia, is a tissue of the most absurd mistakes.

38. P. 811.

39. Extracts from the Hawthornden Manuscripts, &c., by Mr. D. Laing, p. 86—a very interesting series of papers, which originally appeared in the Archæologia Scotica, vol. iv. Parts i. and ii.

In an address “To the Readers” prefixed to the 4to of Sejanus, 1605, Ben Jonson says, “Lastly, I would inform you, that this book, in all numbers, is not the same with that which was acted on the public stage; wherein a second pen had good share: in place of which, I have rather chosen to put weaker, and, no doubt, less pleasing, of mine own, than to defraud so happy a genius of his right by my loathed usurpation.” On this passage Gifford remarks, “Why might not Chapman or Middleton be intended here? they, like Shakspeare [who, according to the commentators, was the person alluded to], were living in habits of kindness with the poet: they wrote in conjunction with him; they were both men of learning; and no great violation seems offered to language (at least no greater than courtesy would excuse) in terming them happy geniuses.” Gifford, however, concludes that Fletcher was the person actually meant. See B. Jonson’s Works, vol. iii. pp. 6, 7, 8.

40. P. 72—Workes, 1630.

41. P. 206.

42. P. 12. reprint, 1817. There are several editions of Wit’s Recreations. Octavius Gilchrist (note on Dodsley’s Old Plays, vol. v. p. 281, last ed.) cites these lines from ed. 1641; but they are not to be found in a copy of that impression which is now before me.

43. This collection included The First Part of the Honest Whore—not then known to be partly written by Middleton (vol. iii.), A Mad World, my Masters (vol. v.), The Widow (vol. vi.), The Mayor of Queenborough (vol. xi.). In an unpublished letter from Bishop Warburton to Dodsley is the following passage: “But why would you give us such stuff as Fuimus Troes, Grim the Collier, and Microcosmus, rather than three other good comedies (if there be so many) of Middleton’s?” Blurt Master Constable was reprinted in a volume edited by Chetwood, and entitled A Select Collection of Old Plays, Dublin, 1750. In the second edition of Dodsley’s Old Plays, 1780, Reed inserted The Second Part of the Honest Whore (vol. iii.) and The Roaring Girl (vol. vi.).

44. Pearson had purchased it from the collection of Griffin the player: it is now among the books and MSS. which were bequeathed by Malone to the Bodleian Library.

45. See notes, vol. iii. p. 303 and p. 328. It is entitled Macbeth, A Tragædy. With all the Alterations, Amendments, Additions, and New Songs. As it’s now Acted at the Dukes Theatre, 1674. 4to. Of this wretched piece (which probably few readers have seen) I subjoin a specimen.

Presently the Witches are heard singing a great deal of nonsense: part of it runs thus,—

46. Perhaps 1610 was its earliest season: see Collier’s New Particulars regarding the Works of Shakespeare, p. 24.

47. See Life of Shakespeare (1821), p. 420 sqq.

48. “The former [Middleton] was a man of considerable powers, who has lately been the object of much discussion, on account of the liberal use which Shakspeare is ascertained to have made of his recently discovered tragi-comedy, The Witch.” Introd. to Massinger’s Works, vol. i. p. liv. ed. 1813.

“Yet the spleen of Davies is more tolerable than the tedious absurdity of the other commentators, who labour to justify our great poet’s pronunciation of this word [Hecate] from a mass of contemporary authorities, as if it was not a matter of the utmost indifference, and determined, in every case, by the measure of the verse. Shakspeare gave the word as he found it in Middleton, without caring whether it were a dissyllable or a trisyllable,” &c. Note on B. Jonson’s Works, vol. vi. p. 282.

“The production of this Masque [The Masque of Queens] has subjected Jonson to a world of unmerited obloquy from the commentators. It was written, it seems, ‘on account of the success of Shakspeare’s Witches, which alarmed the jealousy of a man, who fancied himself his rival, or rather his superior.’ And this is repeated through a thousand mouths. Not to observe, that if Jonson was moved by any such passion, it must be by Middleton’s Witches, not Shakspeare’s (for the latter is but a copyist himself, in this case),” &c. Note on B. Jonson’s Works, vol. vii. p. 115. I ought to mention, that when Gifford threw out these remarks, Malone had not declared his ultimate opinion on the subject.

49. Middleton, as I have shewn in my notes on The Witch, had carefully consulted the celebrated work of Reginald Scot.

50. See the excellent remarks of Lamb, cited in vol. iii. p. 329.

51. Retrospective Review, vol. viii. p. 135.

52. Lectures on Dram. Literature, p. 79.

53. Campbell’s Specimens of the Brit. Poets, vol. iii. p. 118.

54. Of The Roaring Girl I believe that Middleton wrote by far the greater portion; but of the two other plays which he produced in conjunction with Dekker—The First and Second Parts of the Honest Whore—I have no doubt that his share is comparatively small.

55. See Your Five Gallants and The Family of Love.

56. Retrospective Review, vol. viii. p. 126.

57. senatus] Old ed. “senatum.”

58. He is] Old ed. “Hees.”

59. there is] Old ed. “ther’s.”

60. Wants some two of threescore.] “Sim.’s impatience of his mother’s death leads him into an error here: it appears, p. 17, that she wanted five of that number.”—Gifford.

61. have] Old ed. “hath.”

62. Dic quibus, &c.] Virgil, Ecl. iii. 104.

63. nomothetæ] Old ed. “nomotheta.”

64. chreokopia] Old ed. “Crecopedi.”—“Χρεωκοπια signifies the cutting off that part of the debt which arose from the interest of the sum lent.”—M. Mason.

65. full allow’d] i. e. fully approved.

66. seisactheia] Old ed. “Sisaithie.”—“Σεισαχθεια, i. e. a shaking off a burthen, metaphorically an abolition of debt.”—Gifford.