Chapter XI: Book V: Plays and Playwrights (5)

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