Chapter XV: Act I: At Venice he was persecuted by the “embassadour of Castile,” whose

name is not given, but whose place in the play is taken by Flaminius. On p. 49 he is said to have been beaten by the Moors in Africa in 1578, and to be now (1600) a prisoner at Venice. In _Believe as You List_ the period of twenty-two years is referred to as the interval during which Antiochus has been travelling about the world.(561) On p. 50 Dom Sebastian arrives at Venice with “but one poor gazete.” In the play Antiochus, after being robbed by his servants, finds “a waste paper” lying near him, and speaks as follows:

There is something writ more.
Why this small piece of silver? What I read may
Reveal the mystery: “Forget thou wert ever
Called King Antiochus. With this charity
I enter thee a beggar.”(562)

On p. 67 Sebastian is set free, and on p. 86 he goes to Florence, on his way to Marseilles, with some talk of trying to establish his identity in Holland. But the narrative closes abruptly, and we know no more of the claimant to the Portuguese throne from _The Strangest Adventure_.

The ineffectiveness of the play may be partly due to the necessity of altering the original modern setting to an ancient one. It is hard, for example, to see how the monk Sampayo was metamorphosed into Berecinthius, the fat priest of Cybele.

Mr. Croker’s reprint was the cause of a very pretty literary quarrel between the Shakespeare Society and the Percy Society. A writer who signed himself “A Member of both Societies” published a pamphlet animadverting on Mr. Croker’s abilities as an editor,(563) and Mr. Croker replied in no measured terms. The documents may be seen at the British Museum.

The anonymous writer, working on the many indications given in the marginal notes, reconstructed the cast of _Believe as You List_.(564) “My cast,” he says, “has been a work of difficulty, and, in the case of some of the minor performers, a matter of considerable doubt, more especially as a few of them doubled or even trebled their parts; and as we here see (the only instance of the kind I am acquainted with), perhaps exchanged characters during the progress of the play.

Antiochus J. Taylor.(565) Flaminius J. Lowin. Lentulus R. Robinson. Marcellus R. Benfield. Berecinthius T. Pollard. Chrysalus E. Swanston. Demetrius W. Patrick. Amilcar — Rowland. 1 Merchant J. Honeyman. 2 Merchant W. Penn. 3 Merchant — Curt. Calistus T. Hobbes. Titus R. Baxter. Queen to Prusias — Ball. Cornelia — Nick. Courtesan — Boy.

“With regard to the three female parts, and another of a Moorish woman,(566) we are left much in the dark, and I have placed names against them with considerable hesitation.

“The actors who doubled their parts were W. Penn, who was also a Jailor; Rowland, who was also King Prusias; Patrick, who was also a Captain; and Baxter, who was also an officer and a servant, besides, as well as we can judge, delivering a speech or two as Demetrius. Rowland must also have trebled his small parts. Besides these, we hear in the course of the play of W. Mago, Gascoine, Herbert, and Harry Wilson; the last was a singer.... It need hardly be added that the ’tragedy’ was got up and acted by the Company called the King’s Players, all the names being those of performers in that association in 1631.”