The Elizabethan Stage Vol. 3, by E. K. Chambers

‘Above eight yeares since [1596], meeting with my deare friend D. Lateware, (whose memory I reverence) in his Lords Chamber and mine, I told him the purpose I had for Philotas: who sayd that himselfe had written the same argument, and caused it to be presented in St. John’s Colledge in Oxford; where as I after heard, it was worthily and with great applause performed.... And living in the Country, about foure yeares since, and neere halfe a yeare before the late Tragedy of ours (whereunto this is now most ignorantly resembled) unfortunately fell out heere in England [Sept., 1600], I began the same, and wrote three Acts thereof,—as many to whom I then shewed it can witnesse,—purposing to have had it presented in Bath by certaine Gentlemens sonnes, as a private recreation for the Christmas, before the Shrovetide of that unhappy disorder [Feb. 1601]. But by reason of some occasion then falling out, and being called upon by my Printer for a new impression of my workes, with some additions to the Civill Warres, I intermitted this other subject. Which now lying by mee, and driven by necessity to make use of my pen, and the Stage to bee the mouth of my lines, which before were never heard to speake but in silence, I thought the representing so true a History, in the ancient forme of a Tragedy, could not but have had an unreproveable passage with the time, and the better sort of men; seeing with what idle fictions, and grosse follies, the Stage at this day abused mens recreations.... And for any resemblance, that thorough the ignorance of the History may be applied to the late Earle of Essex, it can hold in no proportion but only in his weaknesses, which I would wish all that love his memory not to revive. And for mine owne part, having beene perticularly beholding to his bounty, I would to God his errors and disobedience to his Sovereigne might be so deepe buried underneath the earth, and in so low a tombe from his other parts, that hee might never be remembered among the examples of disloyalty in this Kingdome, or paraleld with Forreine Conspirators.’

The Apology is fixed by its own data to the autumn of 1604, and the performance was pretty clearly by the Queen’s Revels in the same year. Daniel was called before the Privy Council on account of the play, and used the name of the Earl of Devonshire in his defence. The earl was displeased and a letter of excuse from Daniel is extant (Grosart, i. xxii, from S. P. D. Jac. I, 1603–10, p. 18) in which, after asserting that he had satisfied Lord Cranborne [Robert Cecil], he says:

‘First I tolde the Lordes I had written 3 Acts of this tragedie the Christmas before my L. of Essex troubles, as diuers in the cittie could witnes. I saide the maister of the Revells had pervsed it. I said I had read some parte of it to your honour, and this I said having none els of powre to grace mee now in Corte & hoping that you out of your knowledg of bookes, or fauour of letters & mee, might answere that there is nothing in it disagreeing nor any thing, as I protest there is not, but out of the vniuersall notions of ambition and envie, the perpetuall argumentes of books or tragedies. I did not say you incouraged me vnto the presenting of it; yf I should I had beene a villayne, for that when I shewd it to your honour I was not resolud to haue had it acted, nor should it haue bene had not my necessities ouermaistred mee.’

S. R. 1605, Nov. 26 (Pasfield). ‘A book called The Quenes Arcadia. Presented by the university of Oxon in Christchurch.’ Waterson (Arber, iii. 305).

1606. The Queenes Arcadia. A Pastorall Trage-comedie presented to her Maiestie and her Ladies, by the Vniuersitie of Oxford in Christs Church, In August last. G. Eld for Simon Waterson. [Dedicatory verses to the Queen.]

The performance was by Christ Church men on 30 Aug. 1605 during the royal visit to Oxford (cf. ch. iv). The original title appears to have been Arcadia Reformed. Chamberlain told Winwood (ii. 140) that the other plays were dull, but Daniel’s ‘made amends for all; being indeed very excelent, and some parts exactly acted’.

[MS.] Drummond MS. in Edinburgh Univ. Library. [Sonnet to Lady Roxborough, signed ‘Samuel Danyel’. The manuscript given to the library by William Drummond of Hawthornden, a kinsman of Lady Roxborough, in 1627, is fully described by W. W. Greg in M. L. Q. vi. 59. It is partly holograph, and represents an earlier state of the text than the quarto of 1615. A letter of 1621 from Drummond to Sir Robert Ker, afterwards Earl of Ancrum, amongst the Lothian MSS. (Hist. MSS. i. 116), expresses an intention of printing what appears to have been the same manuscript.]

S. R. 1615, Jan. 13 (Buck). ‘A play called Hymens triumphes.’ Francis Constable (iii. 561), [The clerk first wrote ‘Hymens pastoralls’.]

1615. Hymens Triumph. A Pastorall Tragicomaedie. Presented at the Queenes Court in the Strand at her Maiesties magnificent intertainement of the Kings most excellent Maiestie, being at the Nuptials of the Lord Roxborough. By Samuel Daniel. For Francis Constable. [Dedicatory verses to the Queen, signed ‘Sam. Daniel’, and Prologue.]

Robert Ker, Lord Roxborough, was married to Jean Drummond, daughter of Patrick, third Lord Drummond, and long a lady of Anne’s household. The wedding was originally fixed for 6 Jan. 1614, and the Queen meant to celebrate it with ‘a masque of maids, if they may be found’ (Birch, i. 279). It was, however, put off until Candlemas, doubtless to avoid competition with Somerset’s wedding, and appears from the dedication also to have served for a house-warming, to which Anne invited James on the completion of some alterations to Somerset House. Finett (Philoxenis, 16), who describes the complications caused by an invitation to the French ambassador, gives the date as 2 Feb., which is in itself the more probable; but John Chamberlain gives 3 Feb., unless there is an error in the dating of the two letters to Carleton, cited by Greg from Addl. MS. 4173, ff. 368, 371, as of 3 and 10 Feb. In the first he writes, ‘This day the Lord of Roxburgh marries M^rs. Jane Drummond at Somerset House, whither the King is invited to lie this night; & shall be entertained with shews & devices, specially a Pastoral, that shall be represented in a little square paved Court’; and in the second, ‘This day sevennight the Lord of Roxburgh married M^rs. Jane Drummond at Somerset House or Queen’s Court (as it must now be called). The King tarried there till Saturday after dinner. The Entertainment was great, & cost the Queen, as she says, above 3000£. The Pastoral made by Samuel Daniel was solemn & dull; but perhaps better to be read than represented.’ Gawdy, 175, also mentions the ‘pastoral’. There is nothing to show who were the performers.

Daniel has been suggested as the author of the anonymous Maid’s Metamorphosis.

1604. The true discription of a Royall Masque. Presented at Hampton Court, vpon Sunday night, being the eight of Ianuary, 1604. And Personated by the Queenes most Excellent Majestie, attended by Eleuen Ladies of Honour. Edward Allde.

1604. The Vision of the 12. Goddesses, presented in a Maske the 8 of Ianuary, at Hampton Court: By the Queenes most Excellent Maiestie, and her Ladies. T. C. for Simon Waterson. [A preface to Lucy, Countess of Bedford, is signed by Daniel, who states that the publication was motived by ‘the unmannerly presumption of an indiscreet Printer, who without warrant hath divulged the late shewe ... and the same very disorderly set forth’. Lady Bedford had ‘preferred’ Daniel to the Queen ‘in this imployment’.]

Editions by Nichols, James, i. 305 (1828), E. Law (1880), and H. A. Evans (1897, English Masques).

The maskers, in various colours and with appropriate emblems, were twelve Goddesses, and were attended by torchbearers (cf. Carleton, infra); the presenters, ‘for the introducing this show’, Night, Sleep, Iris, Sibylla, and the Graces; the cornets, Satyrs.

The locality was the Hall at Hampton Court. At the lower end was a mountain, from which the maskers descended, and in which the cornets played; at the upper end the cave of Sleep and, on the left (Carleton), a temple of Peace, in the cupola of which was ‘the consort music’, while viols and lutes were ‘on one side of the hall’.

The maskers presented their emblems, which Sibylla laid upon the altar of the temple. They danced ‘their own measures’, then took out the lords for ‘certain measures, galliards, and corantoes’, and after a ‘short departing dance’ reascended the mountain.

This was a Queen’s mask, danced, according to manuscript notes in a copy of the Allde edition (B.M. 161, a. 41) thought by Mr. Law to be ‘in a hand very like Lord Worcester’s’ (vide infra), and possibly identical with the ‘original MS. of this mask’ from which the same names are given in Collier, i. 347, by the Queen (Pallas), the Countesses of Suffolk (Juno), Hertford (Diana), Bedford (Vesta), Derby (Proserpine), and Nottingham (Concordia), and the Ladies Rich (Venus), Hatton (Macaria), Walsingham (Astraea), Susan Vere (Flora), Dorothy Hastings (Ceres), and Elizabeth Howard (Tethys).

Anticipations of masks at Court during the winter of 1603–4 are to be found in letters to Lord Shrewsbury from Arabella Stuart on 18 Dec. (Bradley, ii. 193), ‘The Queene intendeth to make a Mask this Christmas, to which end my Lady of Suffolk and my Lady Walsingham hath warrants to take of the late Queenes best apparell out of the Tower at theyr discretion. Certain Noblemen (whom I may not yet name to you, because some of them have made me of theyr counsell) intend another. Certain gentlemen of good sort another’; from Cecil on 23 Dec. (Lodge, iii. 81), ‘masks and much more’; and from Sir Thomas Edmondes on 23 Dec. (Lodge, iii. 83):

‘Both the King’s and Queen’s Majesty have a humour to have some masks this Christmas time, and therefore, for that purpose, both the young lords and chief gentlemen of one part, and the Queen and her ladies of the other part, do severally undertake the accomplishment and furnishing thereof; and, because there is use of invention therein, special choice is made of Mr. Sanford to direct the order and course for the ladies’;

also in the letters of Carleton to Chamberlain on 27 Nov. (Birch, i. 24; Hardwicke Papers, i. 383), ‘many plays and shows are bespoken, to give entertainment to our ambassadors’, and 22 Dec. (S. P. D. Jac. I, v. 20; Law, 9):

‘We shall have a merry Christmas at Hampton Court, for both male and female maskes are all ready bespoken, whereof the Duke [of Lennox] is rector chori of th’ one side and the La: Bedford of the other.’

I suppose Mr. Sanford to be Henry Sanford, who, like Daniel, had been of the Wilton household (cf. Aubrey, i. 311) and may well have lent him his aid.

The masks of lords on 1 Jan. and of Scots on 6 Jan. are not preserved. The latter is perhaps most memorable because Ben Jonson and his friend Sir John Roe were thrust out from it by the Lord Chamberlain (cf. ch. vi). Arabella Stuart briefly told Shrewsbury on 10 Jan. that there were three masks (Bradley, ii. 199). Wilbraham’s Journal (Camden Misc. x), 66, records:

‘manie plaies and daunces with swordes: one mask by English and Scottish lords: another by the Queen’s Maiestie and eleven more ladies of her chamber presenting giftes as goddesses. These maskes, especialli the laste, costes 2000 or 3000^l, the aparells: rare musick, fine songes: and in jewels most riche 20000^l, the lest to my judgment: and her Maiestie 100,000^l. After Christmas was running at the ring by the King and 8 or 9 lordes for the honour of those goddesses and then they all feasted together privatelie.’

But the fullest description was given by Carleton to Chamberlain on 15 Jan. (S. P. D. Jac. I, vi. 21, printed by Law, 33, 45; Sullivan, 192).

‘On New yeares night we had a play of Robin goode-fellow and a maske brought in by a magicien of China. There was a heaven built at the lower end of the hall, owt of which our magicien came downe and after he had made a long sleepy speech to the King of the nature of the cuntry from whence he came comparing it with owrs for strength and plenty, he sayde he had broughte in cloudes certain Indian and China Knights to see the magnificency of this court. And theruppon a trauers was drawne and the maskers seen sitting in a voulty place with theyr torchbearers and other lights which was no vnpleasing spectacle. The maskers were brought in by two boyes and two musitiens who began with a song and whilst that went forward they presented themselves to the King. The first gave the King an Impresa in a shield with a sonet in a paper to exprese his deuice and presented a jewell of 40,000£ valew which the King is to buy of Peter Van Lore, but that is more than euery man knew and it made a faire shew to the French Ambassadors eye whose master would have bin well pleased with such a maskers present but not at that prise. The rest in theyr order deliuered theyr scutchins with letters and there was no great stay at any of them saue only at one who was putt to the interpretacion of his deuise. It was a faire horse colt in a faire greene field which he meant to be a colt of Busephalus race and had this virtu of his sire that none could mount him but one as great at lest as Alexander. The King made himself merry with threatening to send this colt to the stable and he could not breake loose till he promised to dance as well as Bankes his horse. The first measure was full of changes and seemed confused but was well gone through with all, and for the ordinary measures they tooke out the Queen, the ladies of Derby, Harford, Suffolke, Bedford, Susan Vere, Suthwell th’ elder and Rich. In the corantoes they ran over some other of the young ladies, and so ended as they began with a song; and that done, the magicien dissolved his enchantment, and made the maskers appear in theyr likenes to be th’ Erle of Pembroke, the Duke, Mons^r. d’Aubigny, yong Somerset, Philip Harbert the young Bucephal, James Hayes, Richard Preston, and Sir Henry Godier. Theyr attire was rich but somewhat too heavy and cumbersome for dancers which putt them besides ther galliardes. They had loose robes of crimsen sattin embrodered with gold and bordered with brood siluer laces, dublets and bases of cloth of siluer; buskins, swordes and hatts alike and in theyr hats ech of them an Indian bird for a fether with some jewells. The twelfe-day the French Ambassador was feasted publikely; and at night there was a play in the Queens presence with a masquerado of certaine Scotchmen who came in with a sword dance not vnlike a matachin, and performed it clenly.... The Sunday following was the great day of the Queenes maske.’

This Carleton describes at length; I only note points which supplement Daniel’s description.

‘The Hale was so much lessened by the workes that were in it, so as none could be admitted but men of apparance, the one end was made into a rock and in several places the waightes placed; in attire like savages. Through the midst from the top came a winding stayre of breadth for three to march; and so descended the maskers by three and three; which being all seene on the stayres at once was the best presentacion I have at any time seene. Theyre attire was alike, loose mantles and petticotes but of different colors, the stuffs embrodered sattins and cloth of gold and silver, for which they were beholding to Queen Elizabeth’s wardrobe.... Only Pallas had a trick by herself for her clothes were not so much below the knee, but that we might see a woman had both feete and legs which I never knew before.’

He describes the torchbearers as pages in white satin loose gowns, although Daniel says they were ‘in the like several colours’ to the maskers. The temple was ‘on the left side of the hall towards the upper end’. For the ‘common measures’ the lords taken out were Pembroke, Lennox, Suffolk, Henry Howard, Southampton, Devonshire, Sidney, Nottingham, Monteagle, Northumberland, Knollys, and Worcester.

‘For galliardes and corantoes they went by discretion, and the yong Prince was tost from hand to hand like a tennis bal. The Lady Bedford and Lady Susan tooke owt the two ambassadors; and they bestirred themselfe very liuely: speceally the Spaniard for the Spanish galliard shewed himself a lusty old reueller.... But of all for goode grace and goode footmanship Pallas bare the bell away.’

The dancers unmasked about midnight, and then came a banquet in the presence-chamber, ‘which was dispatched with the accustomed confusion’.

Carleton also mentions the trouble between the Spanish and French ambassadors, which is also referred to in a letter of O. Renzo to G. A. Frederico (S. P. D. Jac. I, vi. 37; cf. Sullivan, 195), and is the subject of several dispatches by and to the Comte de Beaumont (King’s MSS. cxxiv, ff. 328, 359^v, 363, 373, 381, 383^v, 389; cf. Reyher, 519, Sullivan, 193–5). was the object of the Court not to invite both ambassadors together, as this would entail an awkward decision as to precedence. Beaumont was asked first, to the mask on 1 Jan. He hesitated to accept, expressing a fear that it was intended to ask De Taxis to the Queen’s mask on Twelfth Night, ‘dernier jour des festes de Noël selon la facon d’Angleterre et le plus honnorable de tout pour la cérémonie qui s’y obserue de tout temps publiquement’. After some negotiation he extracted a promise from James that, if the Spaniard was present at all, it would be in a private capacity, and he then dropped the point, and accepted his own invitation, threatening to kill De Taxis in the presence if he dared to dispute precedence with him. On 5 Jan. he learnt that Anne had refused to dance if De Taxis was not present, and that the promise would be broken. He protested, and his protest was met by an invitation for the Twelfth Night to which he had attached such importance. But the Queen’s mask was put off until 8 Jan., a Scottish mask substituted on 6 Jan., and on 8 Jan. De Taxis was present, revelling it in red, while Anne paid him the compliment of wearing a red favour on her costume.

Reyher, 519, cites references to the Queen’s mask in the accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber and of the Office of Works. E. Law (Hist. of Hampton Court, ii. 10) gives, presumably from one of these, ‘making readie the lower ende with certain roomes of the hall at Hampton Court for the Queenes Maiestie and ladies against their mask by the space of three dayes’.

Allde’s edition must have been quickly printed. On 2 Feb. Lord Worcester wrote to Lord Shrewsbury (Lodge, iii. 87): ‘Whereas your Lordship saith you were never particularly advertised of the mask, I have been at sixpence charge with you to send you the book, which will inform you better than I can, having noted the names of the ladies applied to each goddess; and for the other, I would likewise have sent you the ballet, if I could have got it for money, but these books, as I hear, are all called in, and in truth I will not take upon me to set that down which wiser than myself do not understand.’

1610. Tethys Festiual: or the Queenes Wake. Celebrated at Whitehall, the fifth day of June 1610. Deuised by Samuel Daniel, one of the Groomes of her Maiesties most Honourable priuie Chamber. For John Budge. [Annexed with separate title-page to The Creation of Henry Prince of Wales (q.v.). A Preface to the Reader criticizes, though not by name, Ben Jonson’s descriptions of his masks.]

The maskers, in sky-blue and cloth of silver, were Tethys and thirteen Nymphs of as many English Rivers; the antimaskers, in light robes adorned with flowers, eight Naiads; the presenters Zephyrus and two Tritons, whom with the Naiads Daniel calls ‘the Ante-maske or first shew’, and Mercury. Torchbearers were dispensed with, for ‘they would have pestered the roome, which the season would not well permit’.

The locality was probably the Banqueting Room at Whitehall. The scene was supplemented by a Tree of Victory on a mount to the right of ‘the state’. A ‘travers’ representing a cloud served for a curtain, and was drawn to discover, within a framework borne on pilasters, in front of which stood Neptune and Nereus on pedestals, a haven, whence the ‘Ante-maske’ issued. They presented on behalf of Tethys a trident to the King, and a sword and scarf to Henry, and the Naiads danced round Zephyrus. The scene was then changed, under cover of three circles of moving lights and glasses, to show five niches, of which the central one represented a throne for Tethys, with Thames at her feet, and the others four caverns, each containing three Nymphs.

The maskers marched to the Tree of Victory, at which they offered their flowers, and under which Tethys reposed between the dances. Of these they gave two; then took out the Lords for ‘measures, corantos, and galliardes’; and then gave their ‘retyring daunce’. Apparently as an innovation, ‘to avoid the confusion which usually attendeth the desolve of these shewes’, the presenters stayed the dissolve, and Mercury sent the Duke of York and six young noblemen to conduct the Queen and ladies back ‘in their owne forme’.

This was a Queen’s mask, and Daniel notes ‘that there were none of inferior sort mixed among these great personages of state and honour (as usually there have been); but all was performed by themselves with a due reservation of their dignity. The maskers were the Queen (Tethys), the Lady Elizabeth (Thames), Lady Arabella Stuart (Trent), the Countesses of Arundel (Arun), Derby (Darwent), Essex (Lee), Dorset (Air), and Montgomery (Severn), Viscountess Haddington (Rother), and the Ladies Elizabeth Gray (Medway), Elizabeth Guilford (Dulesse), Katherine Petre (Olwy), Winter (Wye), and Windsor (Usk). The antimaskers were ‘eight little Ladies’. The Duke of York played Zephyrus, and two gentlemen ‘of good worth and respect’ the Tritons. ‘The artificiall part’, says Daniel, ‘only speakes Master Inago Jones.’

On 13 Jan. 1610 Chamberlain wrote to Winwood (iii. 117, misdated ‘February’) that ‘the Queen would likewise have a mask against Candlemas or Shrovetide’. Doubtless it was deferred to the Creation, for which on 24 May the same writer (Winwood, iii. 175) mentions Anne as preparing and practising a mask. Winwood’s papers (iii. 179) also contain a description, unsigned, but believed by their editor to be written by John Finett, as follows:

‘The next day was graced with a most glorious Maske, which was double. In the first, came first in the little Duke of Yorke between two great Sea Slaves, the cheefest of Neptune’s servants, attended upon by twelve [eight] little Ladies, all of them the daughters of Earls or Barons. By one of these men a speech was made unto the King and Prince, expressing the conceipt of the maske; by the other a sword worth 20,000 crowns at the least was put into the Duke of York’s hands, who presented the same unto the Prince his brother from the first of those ladies which were to follow in the next maske. This done, the Duke returned into his former place in midst of the stage, and the little ladies performed their dance to the amazement of all the beholders, considering the tenderness of their years and the many intricate changes of the dance; which was so disposed, that which way soever the changes went the little Duke was still found to be in the midst of these little dancers. These light skirmishers having done their devoir, in came the Princesses; first the Queen, next the Lady Elizabeth’s Grace, then the Lady Arbella, the Countesses of Arundell, Derby, Essex, Dorset, and Montgomery, the Lady Hadington, the Lady Elizabeth Grey, the Lady Windsor, the Lady Katherine Peter, the Lady Elizabeth Guilford, and the Lady Mary [Anne] Wintour. By that time these had done, it was high time to go to bed, for it was within half an hour of the sun’s, not setting, but rising. Howbeit, a farther time was to be spent in viewing and scrambling at one of the most magnificent banquets that I have seen. The ambassadors of Spaine, of Venice, and of the Low Countries were present at this and all the rest of these glorious sights, and in truth so they were.’

Brief notices in Stowe’s Annales (902, paged 907 in error) and in letters by Carleton to Sir Thomas Edmondes (Birch, i. 114) and by John Noies to his wife (Hist. MSS. Various Colls. iii. 261) add nothing to Finett’s account. There were no very serious ambassadorial complications, as the death of Henri IV put an invitation to the French ambassador out of the question (cf. Sullivan, 59). Correr notes with satisfaction that, as ambassador from Venice, he had as good a box as that of the Spanish ambassador, while, to please Spanish susceptibilities, that of the Dutch ambassador was less good (V. P. xi. 507).

The mask was ‘excessively costly’ (V. P. xii. 86). Several financial documents relating to it are on record (Reyher, 507, 521; Devon, 105, 127; Sullivan, 219, 221; S. P. D. Jac. I, liii. 4, 74; lix. 12), including a warrant of 4 March, which recites the Queen’s pleasure that the Lord Chamberlain and Master of the Horse ‘shall take some paines to look into the emptions and provisions of all things necessarie’, another of 25 May for an imprest to Inigo Jones, an embroiderer’s bill for £55, and a silkman’s for £1,071 5s., with an endorsement by Lord Knyvet, referring the prices to the Privy Council, and counter-signatures by the Lord Chamberlain and the Master of the Horse. In this case the dresses of the maskers seem to have been provided for them. An allusion in a letter of Donne to Sir Henry Goodyere (Letters, i. 240) makes a sportive suggestion for a source of revenue ‘if Mr. Inago Jones be not satisfied for his last masque (because I hear say it cannot come to much)’.

A Regent of St. Leonard’s College, St. Andrew’s, and afterwards minister of Liberton and a bitter satirist on behalf of the extreme Kirk party in Scotland.

James Melville writes s.a. 1571: ‘This yeir in the monethe of July, Mr. Jhone Davidsone an of our Regents maid a play at the mariage of Mr. Jhone Coluin, quhilk I saw playit in Mr. Knox presence, wherin, according to Mr. Knox doctrine, the castell of Edinbruche was besiged, takin, and the Captan, with an or two with him, hangit in effigie.’[656]

This was in intelligent anticipation of events. Edinburgh Castle was held by Kirkcaldy of Grange for Mary in 1571. On 28 May 1573 it was taken by the English on behalf of the party of James VI, and Kirkcaldy was hanged.

Davies was a Winchester and Queen’s College, Oxford, man, who entered the Middle Temple on 3 Feb. 1588, served successively as Solicitor-General (1603–6) and Attorney-General (1606–19) in Ireland, and was Speaker of the Irish Parliament in 1613. His principal poems are Orchestra (1594) and Nosce Teipsum (1599). He was invited by the Earl of Cumberland (q.v.) to write verses for ‘barriers’ in 1601, and contributed to the entertainments of Elizabeth by Sir Thomas Egerton (cf. ch. xxiv) and Sir Robert Cecil (q.v.) in 1602.

Dissertation: M. Seemann, Sir J. D., sein Leben und seine Werke (1913, Wiener Beiträge, xli).

He was son of William Davison, Secretary of State, and compiler of A Poetical Rapsody (1602), of which the best edition is that of A. H. Bullen (1890–1). He entered Gray’s Inn in 1593: for his contribution to the Gray’s Inn mask of 1595, see s.v. Anon. Gesta Grayorum.

Day was described as son of Walter Dey, husbandman, of Cawston, Norfolk, when at the age of eighteen he became a sizar of Gonville and Caius, Cambridge, on 24 Oct. 1592; on 4 May 1593 he was expelled for stealing a book (Venn, Caius, i. 146). He next appears in Henslowe’s diary, first as selling an old play for the Admiral’s in July 1598, and then as writing busily for that company in 1599–1603 and for Worcester’s in 1602–3. Most of this work was in collaboration, occasionally with Dekker, frequently with Chettle, Hathway, Haughton, or Smith. From this period little or nothing survives except The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green. Greg, Henslowe Papers, 126, doubts whether an acrostic on Thomas Downton signed ‘John Daye’, contributed by J. F. Herbert to Sh. Soc. Papers, i. 19, and now at Dulwich, is to be ascribed to the dramatist. Day’s independent plays, written about 1604–8, and his Parliament of Bees are of finer literary quality than this early record would suggest. But Ben Jonson classed him to Drummond in 1619 amongst the ‘rogues’ and ‘base fellows’ who were ‘not of the number of the faithfull, i.e. Poets’ (Laing, 4, 11). He must have lived long, as John Tatham, who included an elegy on him as his ‘loving friend’ in his Fancies Theater (1640), was then only about twenty-eight. He appears to have been still writing plays in 1623, but there is no trace of any substantial body of work after 1608. Fleay, i. 115, suggests from the tone of his manuscript pamphlet Peregrinatio Scholastica that he took orders.

S. R. 1657, Sept. 14. ‘A booke called The pleasant history of the blind beggar of Bednall Greene, declaring his life and death &c.’ Francis Grove (Eyre, ii. 145).

1659. The Blind Beggar of Bednal-Green, with The merry humor of Tom Strowd the Norfolk Yeoman, as it was divers times publickly acted by the Princes Servants. Written by John Day. For R. Pollard and Tho. Dring.

Editions by W. Bang (1902, Materialien, i) and J. S. Farmer (1914, S. F. T.).

The Prince’s men of the title are probably the later Prince Charles’s (1631–41), but these were the ultimate successors of Prince Henry’s, formerly the Admiral’s, who produced, between May 1600 and Sept. 1601, three parts of a play called indifferently by Henslowe The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green and Thomas Strowd. Payments were made for the first part to Day and Chettle and for the other two to Day and Haughton. On the assumption that the extant play is Part i, Bullen, Introd. 8 and Fleay, i. 107, make divergent suggestions as to the division of responsibility between Day and Chettle. At l. 2177 is the s.d. ‘Enter Captain Westford, Sill Clark’; probably the performance in which this actor took part was a Caroline one.

S. R. 1608, March 28 (Buck). ‘A booke called A most wytty and merry conceited comedie called who would a thought it or Lawetrykes.’ Richard Moore (Arber, iii. 372).

1608. Law-Trickes or, who would have Thought it. As it hath bene diuers times Acted by the Children of the Reuels. Written by John Day. For Richard More. [Epistle by the Book to the Reader; Epilogue.]

The name given to the company suggests that the play was on the stage in 1605–6. But I think the original production must have been in 1604, as the dispute between Westminster and Winchester for ‘terms’, in which Winchester is said to have been successful, ‘on Saint Lukes day, coming shalbe a twelue-month’ (ed. Bullen, p. 61) can only refer to the term held at Winchester in 1603. An inundation in July is also mentioned (p. 61), and Stowe, Annales (1615), 844, has a corresponding record for 1604, but gives the day as 3 Aug.

1606. The Ile of Guls. As it hath been often playd in the blacke Fryars, by the Children of the Reuels. Written by Iohn Day. Sold by John Hodgets. [Induction and Prologue.]

The play is thus referred to by Sir Edward Hoby in a letter of 7 March 1606 to Sir Thomas Edmondes (Birch, i. 59): ‘At this time (c. 15 Feb.) was much speech of a play in the Black Friars, where, in the “Isle of Gulls”, from the highest to the lowest, all men’s parts were acted of two divers nations: as I understand sundry were committed to Bridewell.’ A passage in iv. 4 (Bullen, p. 91), probably written with Eastward Ho! in mind, refers to the ‘libelling’ ascribed to poets by ‘some Dor’ and ‘false informers’; and the Induction defends the play itself against the charge that a ‘great mans life’ is ‘charactred’ in Damoetas. Nevertheless, Damoetas, the royal favourite, ‘a little hillock made great with others ruines’ (p. 13) inevitably suggests Sir Robert Carr, and Fleay, i. 109, points out that the ‘Duke’ and ‘Duchess’ of the dramatis personae have been substituted for a ‘King’ and ‘Queen’. It may not be possible now to verify all the men whose ‘parts’ were acted; evidently the Arcadians and Lacedaemonians stand for the two ‘nations’ of English and Scotch. I do not see any ground for Fleay’s attempt to treat the play, not as a political, but as a literary satire, identifying Damoetas with Daniel, and tracing allusions to Jonson, Marston, and Chapman in the Induction. Hoby’s indication of date is confirmed by references to the ‘Eastward, Westward or Northward hoe’ (p. 3; cf. s.vv. Chapman, Dekker), to the quartering for treason on 30 Jan. 1606 (pp. 3, 51), and conceivably to Jonson’s Volpone of 1605 or early 1606 (p. 88, ‘you wil ha my humor brought ath stage for a vserer’).

S. R. 1607, June 29 (Buck). ‘A playe called the trauailles of the Three Englishe brothers as yt was played at the Curten.’ John Wright (Arber, iii. 354).

As it is now play’d by her Maiesties Seruants. For John Wright. [Epistle to the Family of the Sherleys, signed ‘Iohn Day, William Rowley, George Wilkins’, Prologue and Epilogue.]

The source was a pamphlet on the Sherleys by A. Nixon (S. R. 8 June 1607) and the play seems to have been still on the stage when it was printed. Some suggestions as to the division of authorship are in Fleay, ii. 277, Bullen, Introd. 19, and C. W. Stork, William Rowley, 57. A scene at Venice (Bullen, p. 55) introduces Will Kempe, who mentions Vennar’s England’s Joy (1602), and prepares to play an ‘extemporall merriment’ with an Italian Harlaken. He has come from England with a boy. The Epilogue refers to ‘some that fill up this round circumference’.

S. R. 1608, April 12 (Buck). ‘A booke called Humour out of breathe.’ John Helme (Arber, iii. 374).

1608. Humour out of breath. A Comedie Diuers times latelie acted, By the Children Of The Kings Reuells. Written by Iohn Day. For John Helme. [Epistle to Signior Nobody, signed ‘Iohn Daye’.]

Editions by J. O. Halliwell (1860), A. Symons in Nero and Other Plays (1888, Mermaid Series).

The date must be taken as 1607–8, since the King’s Revels are not traceable before 1607. Fleay, i. 111, notes a reference in iii. 4 to the ‘great frost’ of that Christmas. The Epistle speaks of the play as ‘sufficiently featur’d too, had it been all of one man’s getting’, which may be a hint of divided authorship.

[MS.] Lansdowne MS. 725, with title. ‘An olde manuscript conteyning the Parliament of Bees, found in a Hollow Tree in a garden at Hibla, in a Strange Languadge, And now faithfully Translated into Easie English Verse by John Daye, Cantabridg.’ [Epistles to William Augustine, signed ‘John Day, Cant.’ and to the Reader, signed ‘Jo: Daye’.]

S. R. 1641, March 23 (Hansley). ‘A booke called The Parliam^t of Bees, &c., by John Day.’ Will Ley (Eyre, i. 17).

1641. The Parliament of Bees, With their proper Characters. Or A Bee-hive furnisht with twelve Honycombes, as Pleasant as Profitable. Being an Allegoricall description of the actions of good and bad men in these our daies. By John Daye, Sometimes Student of Caius Colledge in Cambridge. For William Lee. [Epistle to George Butler, signed ‘John Day’, The Author’s Commission to his Bees, similarly signed, and The Book to the Reader. The text varies considerably from that of the manuscript.]

This is neither a play nor a mask, but a set of twelve short ‘Characters’ or ‘Colloquies’ in dialogue. The existence of an edition of 1607 is asserted in Gildon’s abridgement (1699) of Langbaine, but cannot be verified, and is most improbable, since the manuscript Epistle refers to an earlier work already dedicated by Day, as ‘an unknowing venturer’, to Augustine, and this must surely be the allegorical treatise Peregrinatio Scholastica printed by Bullen (Introd. 35) from Sloane MS. 3150 with an Epistle by Day to William Austin, who may reasonably be identified with Augustine. But the Peregrinatio, although Day’s first venture in dedication, was not a very early work, for Day admits that ‘I boast not that gaudie spring of credit and youthfull florish of opinion as some other filde in the same rancke with me’. Moreover, it describes (p. 50) an ‘ante-maske’, and this term, so far as we know, first came into use about 1608 (cf. ch. vi). The Bees therefore must be later still. On the other hand, it can hardly be later than about 1616, when died Philip Henslowe, whom it is impossible to resist seeing with Fleay, i. 115, in the Fenerator or Usuring Bee (p. 63). Like Henslowe he is a ‘broaker’ and ‘takes up’ clothes; and

Now of the twelve Characters of the Bees, five (2, 3, 7, 8, 9) are reproduced, in many parts verbatim, subject to an alteration of names, in The Wonder of a Kingdom, printed as Dekker’s (q.v.) in 1636, but probably identical with Come See a Wonder, licensed by Herbert as Day’s in 1623. Two others (4, 5) are similarly reproduced in The Noble Soldier, printed in 1634 under the initials ‘S. R.’, probably indicating Samuel Rowley, but possibly also containing work by Dekker. The precise relation of Day to these plays is indeterminate, but the scenes more obviously ‘belong’ to the Bees than to the plays, and if the Bees was written but not printed in 1608–16, the chances are that Day used it as a quarry of material when he was called upon to work, as reviser or collaborator, on the plays. Meanwhile, Austin, if he was the Southwark and Lincoln’s Inn writer of that name (D. N. B.), died in 1634, and when the Bees was ultimately printed in 1641 a new dedicatee had to be found.

Day appears to have sold the company an old play 1 The Conquest of Brute in July 1598, and to have subsequently written or collaborated in the following plays:

1599–1600: Cox of Collumpton, with Haughton; Thomas Merry, or Beech’s Tragedy, with Haughton; The Seven Wise Masters, with Chettle, Dekker, and Haughton; Cupid and Psyche, with Chettle and Dekker; 1 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, with Chettle; and the unfinished Spanish Moor’s Tragedy, with Dekker and Haughton.

1600–1: 2 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, with Haughton; Six Yeomen of the West, with Haughton.

1601–2: The Conquest of the West Indies, with Haughton and Smith; 3 Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, with Haughton; Friar Rush and The Proud Woman of Antwerp, with Chettle and Haughton; The Bristol Tragedy; and the unfinished 2 Tom Dough, with Haughton.

1602–3: Merry as May Be, with Hathway and Smith; The Boss of Billingsgate, with Hathway and another.

1602–3: 1 and 2 The Black Dog of Newgate, with Hathway, Smith, and another; The Unfortunate General, with Hathway, Smith, and a third; and the unfinished Shore, with Chettle.

Of the above only The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green and a note of Cox of Collumpton (cf. ch. xiii, s.v. Admiral’s) survive; for speculations as to others see Heywood, Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas (Cupid and Psyche), Marlowe, Lust’s Dominion (Spanish Moor’s Tragedy), Yarington, Two Lamentable Tragedies (Thomas Merry), and the anonymous Edward IV (Shore) and Fair Maid of Bristol (Bristow Tragedy).

Henslowe’s correspondence (Henslowe Papers, 56, 127) contains notes from Day and others about some of the Admiral’s plays and a few lines which may be from The Conquest of the Indies.

Day’s Mad Pranks of Merry Mall of the Bankside (S. R. 7 Aug. 1610) was probably a pamphlet (cf. Dekker, The Roaring Girl). Bullen, Introd. 11, thinks the Guy Earl of Warwick (1661), printed as ‘by B. J.’, too bad to be Day and Dekker’s Life and Death of Guy of Warwick (S. R. 15 Jan. 1620). On 30 July 1623 Herbert licensed a Bellman of Paris by Day and Dekker for the Prince’s (Herbert, 24). The Maiden’s Holiday by Marlowe (q.v.) and Day (S. R. 8 April 1654) appears in Warburton’s list of burnt plays (3 Library, ii. 231) as Marlowe’s.

For other ascriptions to Day see The Maid’s Metamorphosis and Parnassus in ch. xxiv.

Thomas Dekker was of London origin, but though the name occurs in Southwark, Cripplegate, and Bishopsgate records, neither his parentage nor his marriage, if he was married, can be definitely traced. He was not unlettered, but nothing is known of his education, and the conjecture that he trailed a pike in the Netherlands is merely based on his acquaintance with war and with Dutch. The Epistle to his English Villanies, with its reference to ‘my three score years’, first appeared in the edition of 1632; he was therefore born about 1572. He first emerges, in Henslowe’s diary, as a playwright for the Admiral’s in 1598, and may very well have been working for them during 1594–8, a period for which Henslowe records plays only and not authors. The further conjecture of Fleay, i. 119, that this employment went as far back as 1588–91 is hazardous, and in fact led Fleay to put his birth-date as far back as 1567. It was based on the fact that the German repertories of 1620 and 1626 contain traces of his work, and on Fleay’s erroneous belief (cf. ch. xiv) that all the plays in these repertories were taken to Germany by Robert Browne as early as 1592. But it is smiled upon by Greg (Henslowe, ii. 256) as regards The Virgin Martyr alone. Between 1598 and 1602 Dekker wrote busily, and as a rule in collaboration, first for the Admiral’s at the Rose and Fortune, and afterwards for Worcester’s at the Rose. He had a hand in some forty-four plays, of which, in anything like their original form, only half a dozen survive. Satiromastix, written for the Chamberlain’s men and the Paul’s boys in 1601, shows that his activities were not limited to the Henslowe companies. This intervention in the Poetomachia led Jonson to portray him as Demetrius Fannius ‘the dresser of plays’ in The Poetaster; that he is also Thersites in Troilus and Cressida is a not very plausible conjecture. Long after, in 1619, Jonson classed him among the ‘rogues’ (Laing, 4). In 1604, however, he shared with Jonson the responsibility for the London devices at James’s coronation entry. About this time began his career as a writer of popular pamphlets, in which he proved the most effective successor of Thomas Nashe. These, and in particular The Gull’s Hornbook (1609), are full of touches drawn from his experience as a dramatist. Nor did he wholly desert the stage, collaborating with Middleton for the Prince’s and with Webster for Paul’s, and writing also, apparently alone, for the Queen’s. In 1612 he devised the Lord Mayor’s pageant. In 1613 he fell upon evil days. He had always been impecunious, and Henslowe (i. 83, 101, 161) had lent him money to discharge him from the Counter in 1598 and from an arrest by the Chamberlain’s in 1599. Now he fell into the King’s Bench for debt, and apparently lay there until 1619. The relationship of his later work to that of Ford, Massinger, Day, and others, lies rather beyond the scope of this inquiry, but in view of the persistent attempts to find early elements in all his plays, I have made my list comprehensive. He is not traceable after 1632, and is probably the Thomas Decker, householder, buried at St. James’s, Clerkenwell, on 25 Aug. 1632. A Clerkenwell recusant of this name is recorded in 1626 and 1628 (Middlesex County Records, iii. 12, 19).

1873. [R. H. Shepherd], The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker. 4 vols. (Pearson Reprints). [Contains 15 plays and 4 Entertainments.]

1884–6. A. B. Grosart, The Non-Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker. 5 vols. (Huth Library). [Contains nearly all the pamphlets, with Patient Grissell. A better edition of The Gull’s Hornbook is that by R. B. McKerrow (1904); a chapter is in App. H.]

1887. E. Rhys, Thomas Dekker (Mermaid Series). [Contains The Shoemaker’s Holiday, 1, 2 The Honest Whore, Old Fortunatus, The Witch of Edmonton.]

Dissertations: M. L. Hunt, Thomas Dekker: A Study (1911, Columbia Studies in English); W. Bang, Dekker-Studien (1900, E. S. xxviii. 208); F. E. Pierce, The Collaboration of Webster with Dekker (1909, Yale Studies, xxxvii) and The Collaboration of Dekker and Ford (1912, Anglia, xxxvi, 141, 289); E. E. Stoll, John Webster (1905), ch. ii, and The Influence of Jonson on Dekker (1906, M. L. N. xxi. 20); R. Brooke, John Webster and the Elizabethan Drama (1916); F. P. Wilson, Three Notes on Thomas Dekker (1920, M. L. R. xv. 82).

S. R. 1600, Feb. 20. ‘A commedie called old Fortunatus in his newe lyuerie.’ William Aspley (Arber, iii. 156).

1600. The Pleasant Comedie of Old Fortunatus. As it was plaied before the Queenes Maiestie this Christmas, by the Right Honourable the Earle of Nottingham, Lord high Admirall of England his Seruants. S. S. for William Aspley. [Prologue at Court, another Prologue, and Epilogue at Court; signed at end Tho. Dekker.]

Editions by Dilke (1814, O. E. P. iii), H. Scherer (1901, Münchener Beiträge, xxi), O. Smeaton (1904, T. D.).

The Admiral’s revived, from 3 Feb. to 26 May 1596, ‘the 1 parte of Forteunatus’. Nothing is heard of a second part, but during 9–30 Nov. 1599 Dekker received £6 on account of the Admiral’s for ‘the hole history of Fortunatus’, followed on 1 Dec. by £1 for altering the book and on 12 Dec. £2 ‘for the eande of Fortewnatus for the corte’. The company were at Court on 27 Dec. 1599 and 1 Jan. 1600. The Shoemaker’s Holiday was played on 1 Jan.; Fortunatus therefore on 27 Dec. The Prologue (l. 21) makes it ‘a iust yeere’ since the speaker saw the Queen, presumably on 27 Dec. 1598. The S. R. entry suggests that the 1599 play was a revision of the 1596 one. Probably Dekker boiled the old two parts down into one play; the juncture may, as suggested by Fleay, i. 126, and Greg (Henslowe, ii. 179), come about l. 1315. The Court additions clearly include, besides the Prologue and the Epilogue with its reference to Elizabeth’s forty-second regnal year (1599–1600), the compliment of ll. 2799–834 at the ‘eande’ of the play. The ‘small circumference’ of the theatrical prologue was doubtless the Rose. Dekker may or may not have been the original author of the two-part play; probably he was not, if Fleay is right in assigning it to c. 1590 on the strength of the allusions to the Marprelate controversy left in the 1600 text, e.g. l. 59. I should not wonder if Greene, who called his son Fortunatus, were the original author. A Fortunatus play is traceable in German repertories of 1608 and 1626 and an extant version in the collection of 1620 owes something to Dekker’s (Herz, 97; cf. P. Harms, Die deutschen Fortunatus-Dramen in Theatergeschichtliche Forschungen, v). But Dekker’s own source, directly or indirectly, was a German folk-tale, which had been dramatized by Hans Sachs as early as 1553.

S. R. 1610, April 19. Transfer from Simmes to J. Wright of ‘A booke called the shoomakers holyday or the gentle crafte’ subject to an agreement for Simmes to ‘haue the workmanshipp of the printinge thereof for the vse of the sayd John Wrighte duringe his lyfe, yf he haue a printinge house of his owne’ (Arber, iii. 431).

1600. The Shomakers Holiday. Or The Gentle Craft. With the humorous life of Simon Eyre, shoomaker, and Lord Maior of London. As it was acted before the Queenes most excellent Maiestie on New yeares day at night last, by the right honourable the Earle of Notingham, Lord high Admirall of England, his seruants. Valentine Simmes. [Epistle to Professors of the Gentle Craft and Prologue before the Queen.]

Editions by E. Fritsche (1862), K. Warnke and E. Proescholdt (1886), W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.), and A. F. Lange (1914, R. E. C. iii).

Henslowe advanced £3 ‘to bye a boocke called the gentle Craft of Thomas Dickers’ on 15 July 1599. Probably the hiatus in the Diary conceals other payments for the play, and there is nothing in the form of the entry to justify the suspicions of Fleay, i. 124, that it was not new and was not by Dekker himself. Moreover, the source was a prose tract of The Gentle Craft by T. D[eloney], published in 1598. The Admiral’s were at Court on 1 Jan. 1600, but not on 1 Jan. 1601. A writer signing himself Dramaticus, in Sh. Soc. Papers, iv. 110, describes a copy in which a contemporary hand has written the names ‘T. Dekker, R. Wilson’ at the end of the Epistle, together with the names of the actors in the margin of the text. A few of these are not otherwise traceable in the Admiral’s. Fleay and Greg (Henslowe, ii. 203) unite in condemning this communication as an obvious forgery; but I rather wish they had given their reasons.

S. R. 1600, March 28. ‘The Plaie of Patient Grissell.’ Cuthbert Burby (Arber, iii. 158).

1603. The Pleasant Comodie of Patient Grissill. As it hath beene sundrie times lately plaid by the right honorable the Earle of Nottingham (Lord high Admirall) his seruants. For Henry Rocket.

Editions by J. P. Collier (1841, Sh. Soc.), A. B. Grosart (1886, Dekker, v. 109), G. Hübsch (1893, Erlanger Beiträge, xv), J. S. Farmer (1911, T. F. T.).—Dissertations by A. E. H. Swaen in E. S. xxii. 451, Fr. v. Westenholz, Die Griseldis-Sage in der Literaturgeschichte (1888).

Henslowe paid £10 10s. to Dekker, Chettle, and Haughton for the play between 16 Oct. and 29 Dec. 1599, also £1 for Grissell’s gown on 26 Jan. 1600 and £2 ‘to staye the printing’ on 18 March 1600. The text refers to ‘wonders of 1599’ (l. 2220) and to ‘this yeare’ as ‘leap yeare’ (l. 157). The production was doubtless c. Feb.–March 1600. Fleay, i. 271, attempts to divide the work amongst the three contributors; cf. Hunt, 60. I see nothing to commend the theory of W. Bang (E. S. xxviii. 208) that the play was written by Chettle c. 1590–4 and revised with Dekker, Haughton, and Jonson. No doubt the dandy’s duel, in which clothes alone suffer, of Emulo-Sir Owen resembles that of Brisk-Luculento in Every Man Out of his Humour, but this may be due to a common origin in fact (cf. Fleay, i. 361; Penniman, War, 70; Small, 43). Fleay, followed by Penniman, identifies Emulo with Samuel Daniel, but Small, 42, 184, satisfactorily disposes of this suggestion. There seems no reason to regard Patient Grissell as part of the Poetomachia. A ‘Comoedia von der Crysella’ is in the German repertory of 1626; the theme had, however, already been dealt with in a play of Griseldis by Hans Sachs (Herz, 66, 78).

S. R. 1601, Nov. 11. ‘Vppon condicon that yt be lycensed to be printed, A booke called the vntrussinge of the humorous poetes by Thomas Decker.’ John Barnes (Arber, iii. 195).

1602. Satiromastix. Or The vntrussing of the Humorous Poet. As it hath bin presented publikely, by the Right Honorable, the Lord Chamberlaine his Seruants; and priuately, by the Children of Paules. By Thomas Dekker. For Edward White. [Epistle to the World, note Ad Lectorem of errata, and Epilogue. Scherer, xiv, distinguishes two editions, but T. M. Parrott’s review in M. L. R. vi. 398 regards these as only variant states of one edition.]

Editions by T. Hawkins (1773, O. E. D. iii), H. Scherer (1907, Materialien, xx), J. H. Penniman (1913, B. L.).

The Epistle refers to the Poetomachia between ‘Horace’ and ‘a band of leane-witted Poetasters’, and on the place of Satiromastix in this fray there is little to be added to Small, 119. Jonson is satirized as Horace. Asinius Bubo is some unknown satellite of his, probably the same who appears as Simplicius Faber in Marston’s What You Will (q.v.). Crispinus, Demetrius, and Tucca are taken over from Jonson’s Poetaster (q.v.). The satirical matter is engrafted on to a play with a tragic plot and comic sub-plot, both wholly unconcerned with the Poetomachia. Jonson must have known that the attack was in preparation, when he made Tucca abuse Histrio for threatening to ‘play’ him, and Histrio say that he had hired Demetrius [Dekker] ‘to abuse Horace, and bring him in, in a play’ (Poetaster, III. iv. 212, 339). But obviously Dekker cannot have done much of his satire until he had seen Poetaster, to many details of which it retorts. It is perhaps rather fantastic to hold that, as he chaffs Jonson for the boast that he wrote Poetaster in fifteen weeks (Satiromastix, 641), he must himself have taken less. In any case a date of production between that of Poetaster in the spring of 1601 and the S. R. entry on 11 Nov. 1601 is indicated. The argument of Scherer, x, for a date about Christmas 1601, and therefore after the S. R. entry, is rebutted by Parrott. It is generally held that Marston helped Dekker with the play, in spite of the single name on the title-page. No doubt Tucca in Poetaster, III. iv. 352, suggests to Histrio that Crispinus shall help Demetrius, and the plural is used in Satiromastix (Epistle, 12, and Epilogue, 2700) and in Jonson’s own Apologetical Dialogue to Poetaster (l. 141) of the ‘poetasters’ who were Jonson’s ‘untrussers’. Small, 122, finds Marston in the plot and characterization, but not in the style.

1607. The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyat. With the Coronation of Queen Mary, and the coming in of King Philip. As it was plaied by the Queens Maiesties Seruants. Written by Thomas Dickers and Iohn Webster. E. A. for Thomas Archer.

Editions by J. Blew (1876), and J. S. Farmer (1914, S. F. T.) and with Works of Webster (q.v.).

Henslowe, on behalf of Worcester’s men, paid Chettle, Dekker, Heywood, Smith, and Webster, for 1 Lady Jane in Oct. 1602. He then bought properties for The Overthrow of Rebels, almost certainly the same play, and began to pay Dekker for a 2 Lady Jane, which apparently remained unfinished, at any rate at the time. One or both of these plays, or possibly only the shares of Dekker and Webster in one or both of them, may reasonably be taken to survive in Sir Thomas Wyatt. Stoll, 49, thinks the play, as we have it, is practically Dekker’s and that there is ‘no one thing’ that can be claimed ‘with any degree of assurance’ for Webster. But this is not the general view. Fleay, ii. 269, followed in the main by Hunt, 76, gives Webster scc. i-ix, Greg (Henslowe, ii. 233) scc. i-x and xvi (with hesitation as to iii-v), Pierce, after a careful application of a number of ‘tests’ bearing both on style and on matter, scc. ii, v, vi, x, xiv, xvi; but he thinks that some or all of these were retouched by Dekker. Brooke inclines to trace Webster in scc. ii, xvi, Heywood in scc. vi, x, and a good deal of Dekker. Hunt thinks the planning due to Chettle.

S. R. 1604, Nov. 9 (Pasfield). ‘A Booke called The humors of the patient man, The longinge wyfe and the honest whore.’ Thomas Man the younger (Arber, iii. 275).

1608, April 29 (Buck). ‘A booke called the second parte of the conuerted Courtisan or honest Whore.’ Thomas Man Junior (Arber, iii. 376). [No fee entered.]

1630, June 29 (Herbert). ‘The second parte of the Honest Hoore by Thomas Dekker.’ Butter (Arber, iv. 238).

1604. The Honest Whore, With, The Humours of the Patient Man, and the Longing Wife. Tho: Dekker. V. S. for John Hodgets. [Part i.]

1630. The Second Part of the Honest Whore, With the Humors of the Patient Man, the Impatient Wife: the Honest Whore, perswaded by strong Arguments to turne Curtizan againe: her braue refuting those Arguments. And lastly, the Comicall Passages of an Italian Bridewell, where the Scaene ends. Written by Thomas Dekker. Elizabeth Allde for Nathaniel Butter. [Part ii.]

1635. The Honest Whore, With, The Humours of the Patient Man, and the Longing Wife, Written by Thomas Dekker, As it hath beene Acted by her Maiesties Servants with great Applause. N. Okes, sold by Richard Collins. [Part i.]

Editions by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. i) and W. A. Neilson (1911, C. E. D.).

Henslowe made a payment to Dekker and Middleton for ‘the pasyent man & the onest hore’ between 1 Jan. and 14 March 1604, on account of the Prince’s men, and the mention of Towne in a stage-direction to Part i (ed. Pearson, ii. 78) shows that it was in fact acted by this company. Fleay, i. 132, and Hunt, 94, cite some allusions in Part ii suggesting a date soon after that of Part i, and this would be consistent with Henslowian methods. There is more difference of opinion about the partition of the work. Of Part i Fleay gives scc. i, iii, and xiii-xv alone to Dekker, and Hunt finds the influence of Middleton in the theme and plot of both Parts. Bullen, however (Middleton, i. xxv), thinks Middleton’s share ‘inconsiderable’, giving him only I. v and III. i, with a hand in II. i and in a few comic scenes of Part ii. Ward, ii. 462, holds a similar view.

S. R. 1605, March 2. ‘A commodie called westward Hoe presented by the Children of Paules provided yat he get further authoritie before yt be printed.’ Henry Rocket (Arber, iii. 283). [Entry crossed out and marked ‘vacat’.]

1607. Westward Hoe. As it hath beene diuers times Acted by the Children of Paules. Written by Tho: Decker, and Iohn Webster. Sold by John Hodgets.

The allusions cited by Fleay, ii. 269, Stoll, 14, Hunt, 101, agree with a date of production at the end of 1604. Fleay assigns Acts I-III and a part of IV. ii to Webster; the rest of Acts IV, V to Dekker. But Stoll, 79, thinks that Webster only had ‘some slight, undetermined part in the more colourless and stereotyped portions ... under the shaping and guiding hand of Dekker’, and Pierce, 131, after an elaborate application of tests, can only give him all or most of I. i and III. iii and a small part of I. ii and III. ii. Brooke finds traces of Webster in I. i and III. iii and Dekker in II. i, ii and V. iii, and has some useful criticism of the ‘tests’ employed by Pierce.

S. R. 1607, Aug. 6 (Buck). ‘A booke Called Northward Ho.’ George Elde (Arber, iii. 358).

1607. North-Ward Hoe. Sundry times Acted by the Children of Paules. By Thomas Decker, and Iohn Webster. G. Eld.

The play is a reply to Eastward Ho! which was itself a reply to Westward Ho! and was on the stage before May 1605, and it is referred to with the other two plays in Day’s Isle of Gulls, which was on the stage in Feb. 1606. This pretty well fixes its date to the end of 1605. I do not think that Stoll, 16, is justified in his argument for a date later than Jan. 1606, since, even if the comparison of the life of a gallant to a squib is a borrowing from Marston’s Fawn, it seems probable that the Fawn itself was originally written by 1604, although possibly touched up early in 1606. Fleay, ii. 270, identifies Bellamont with Chapman, one of the authors of Eastward Ho! and Stoll, 65, argues in support of this. It is plausible, but does not carry with it Fleay’s identification of Jenkins with Drayton. Fleay gives Webster I. ii, II. i, III. i, and IV. i, but Stoll finds as little of him as in Westward Ho! and Pierce, 131, only gives him all or most of I. i, II. ii, and the beginning of v and a small part of III. i. Brooke traces Webster in I. i and III. i and Dekker in IV. i.

S. R. 1607, April 20 (Buck). ‘A booke called the Whore of Babilon.’ Nathanael Butter and John Trundell (Arber, iii. 347).

1607. The Whore of Babylon. As it was Acted by the Princes Seruants. Written by Thomas Dekker. For N. Butter. [Epistle to the Reader and Prologue.]

Fleay, i. 133, and Greg (Henslowe, ii. 210) regard the play as a revision of Truth’s Supplication to Candlelight, for which Henslowe, on behalf of the Admiral’s, was paying Dekker in Jan. 1600 and buying a robe for Time in April 1600. Truth and Time, but not Candlelight, are characters in the play, which deals with Catholic intrigues against Elizabeth, represented as Titania, and her suitors. I do not feel sure that it would have been allowed to be staged in Elizabeth’s lifetime. In any case it must have been revised c. 1605–7, in view of the references, not only to the death of Essex (ed. Pearson, p. 246) and the reign of James (p. 234), but to the Isle of Gulls of 1605 (p. 214). The Cockpit, alluded to (p. 214) as a place where follies are shown in apes, is of course that in the palace, where Henry saw plays. The Epistle and Prologue have clear references to a production in ‘Fortune’s dial’ and the ‘square’ of the Fortune, and the former criticizes players; but hardly proves the definite breach with the Prince’s suggested by Fleay and Greg.

1611. The Roaring Girle. Or Moll Cut-Purse, As it hath lately beene Acted on the Fortune-stage by the Prince his Players. Written by T. Middleton and T. Dekkar. For Thomas Archer. [Epistle to the Comic Play-Readers, signed ‘Thomas Middleton’, Prologue and Epilogue.]

Editions by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. ii), A. H. Bullen (1885, Middleton, iv. 1), and J. S. Farmer (1914, S. F. T.).

Fleay, i, 132, thinks the play written about 1604–5, but not produced until 1610. This is fantastic and Bullen points out that Mary Frith, the heroine, born not earlier than c. 1584–5, had hardly won her notoriety by 1604. By 1610 she certainly had, and the ‘foule’ book of her ‘base trickes’ referred to in the Epilogue was probably John Day’s Mad Pranks of Merry Mall of the Bankside, entered on S. R. 7 Aug. 1610, but not extant. The Epilogue also tells the audience that, if they are dissatisfied,