Chapter XVIII: Part 1: with Heywood, Dec. 1602–Jan. 1603; one payment had been made to (6)

Q_{1}, 1600. The Comicall Satyre of Every Man Out Of His Humor. As it was first composed by the Author B. I. Containing more than hath been Publickely Spoken or Acted. With the seuerall Character of euery Person. _For William Holme._ [Names and description of Characters; Publisher’s note, ‘It was not neere his thoughts that hath publisht this, either to traduce the Authour; or to make vulgar and cheape, any the peculiar & sufficient deserts of the Actors; but rather (whereas many Censures flutter’d about it) to giue all leaue, and leisure, to iudge with Distinction’; Induction, by Asper, who becomes Macilente and speaks Epilogue, Carlo Buffone who speaks in lieu of Prologue, and Mitis and Cordatus, who remain on stage as Grex or typical spectators.]

Q_{2}, 1600. [_Peter Short_] _For William Holme_. [W. W. Greg (1920, _4 Library_, i. 153) distinguished Q_{1}, of which he found a copy in Brit. Mus. C. 34, i. 29, from Q_{2}, (Bodl. and Dyce).]

Q_{3}, 1600. _For Nicholas Linge._ [‘A careless and ignorant reprint’ (Greg) of Q_{1}.]

F_{1}, 1616. Euery Man Out Of His Humour. A Comicall Satyre. Acted in the yeere 1599. By the then Lord Chamberlaine his Seruants. The Author B. I. _William Stansby for Iohn Smithwicke._ [Epistle to the Inns of Court, signed ‘Ben. Ionson’. After text: ‘This Comicall Satyre was first acted in the yeere 1599. By the then Lord Chamberlaine his Seruants. The principall Comœdians were, Ric. Burbadge, Ioh. Hemings, Aug. Philips, Hen. Condel, Wil. Sly, Tho. Pope. With the allowance of the Master of Revels.’]

_Facsimile reprints_ of Q_{1} by W. W. Greg and F. P. Wilson (1920, _M. S. R._) and of Q_{2, 3} by W. Bang and W. W. Greg (1907, _Materialien_, xvi, xvii).--_Dissertations_: C. A. Herpich, _Shakespeare and B. J. Did They Quarrel?_ (1902, _9 N. Q._ ix. 282); Van Dam and C. Stoffel, _The Authority of the B. J. Folio of 1616_ (1903, _Anglia_, xxvi. 377); W. Bang, _B. J. und Castiglione’s Cortegiano_ (1906, _E. S._ xxxvi. 330).

In the main the text of F_{1} follows that of Q_{1} with some slight revision of wording and oaths. The arrangement of the epilogues is somewhat different, but seems intended to represent the same original stage history. In Q_{1} Macilente speaks an epilogue, ‘with Aspers tongue (though not his shape)’, evidently used in the theatre as it begs ‘The happier spirits in this faire-fild Globe’ to confirm applause

as their pleasures Pattent: which so sign’d,
Our leane and spent Endeuours shall renue
Their Beauties with the _Spring_ to smile on you.

Then comes a ‘Finis’ and on the next page, ‘It had another _Catastrophe_ or Conclusion at the first Playing: which (διὰ τὸ τὴν βασίλισσαν προσωποποιεῖσθαι) many seem’d not to relish it: and therefore ’twas since alter’d: yet that a right-ei’d and solide _Reader_ may perceiue it was not so great a part of the Heauen awry, as they would make it; we request him but to looke downe vpon these following Reasons.’ There follows an apology, from which it is clear that originally Macilente was cured of his envious humour by the appearance on the stage of the Queen; and this introduces a different epilogue of the nature of an address to her. At the end of all comes a short dialogue between Macilente, as Asper, and the _Grex_. There is no mention of the Globe, but as the whole point of the objection to this epilogue, which it is not suggested that Elizabeth herself shared, lay in the miming of the Queen, one would take it, did the Q_{1} stand alone, to have been, like its substitute, a theatre and not a Court epilogue. In F_{1}, however, we get successively (_a_) a shortened version of the later epilogue, (_b_) the dialogue with the _Grex_, followed by ‘The End’, and (_c_) a version of the original epilogue, altered so as to make it less of a direct address and headed ‘Which, in the presentation before Queen E. was thus varyed’. It seems to me a little difficult to believe that the play was given at Court before it had been ‘practised’ in public performances, and I conclude that, having suppressed the address to a mimic Elizabeth at the Globe, Jonson revived it in a slightly altered form when he took the play to Court at Christmas. As to the date of production, Fleay, i. 361, excels himself in the suggestion that ‘the mention of “spring” and the allusion to the company’s new “patent” for the Globe in the epilogue’ fix it to _c._ April 1599. Even if this were the original epilogue, it alludes to a coming and not a present spring, and might have been written at any time in the winter, either before or after the New Year. Obviously, too, there can be no allusion to an Elizabethan patent for the Globe, which never existed. I do not agree with Small, 21, that the Globe was not opened until early in 1600, nor do I think that any inference can be drawn from the not very clear notes of dramatic time in I. iii and III. ii. At first sight it seems natural to suppose that the phrase ‘would I had one of Kempes shooes to throw after you’ (IV. v) was written later than at any rate the planning of the famous morris to Norwich, which lasted from 11 Feb. to 11 March 1600 and at the end of which Kempe hung his shoes in Norwich Guildhall. Certainly it cannot refer, as Fleay thinks, merely to Kempe’s leaving the Chamberlain’s men. Conceivably it might be an interpolation of later date than the original production. Creizenach, 303, however, points out that in 1599 Thomas Platter saw a comedy in which a servant took off his shoe and threw it at his master, and suggests that this was a bit of common-form stage clownery, in which case the Norwich dance would not be concerned. The performance described by Platter was in September or October, and apparently at the Curtain (cf. ch. xvi, introd.). Kempe may quite well have been playing then at the Curtain with a fresh company after the Chamberlain’s moved to the Globe. Perhaps the episode had already found a place in Phillips’s _Jig of the Slippers_, printed in 1595 and now lost (cf. ch. xviii). If 1600 is the date of _E. M. O._, the Court performance may have been that of 3 February, or perhaps more probably may have fallen in the following winter, which would explain the divergence between Q_{1} and F_{1} as to the epilogues. But it must be remembered that the F_{1} date is 1599, and that most, if not quite all, of the F_{1} dates follow Circumcision style, although Jonson may not have adopted this style as early as 1600. On the whole, I think that the balance of probability is distinctly in favour of 1599. If so, the production must have been fairly late in that year, as there is a hit (III. i) at the _Histriomastix_ of the same autumn. The play has been hunted through and through for personalities, most of which are effectively refuted by Small. Most of the characters are types rather than individuals, and social types rather than literary or stage types. I do not think there are portraits of Daniel, Lyly, Drayton, Donne, Chapman, Munday, Shakespeare, Burbadge, in the play or its induction at all. Nor do I think there are portraits in the strict sense of Marston and Dekker, although no doubt some parody of Marston’s ‘fustian’ vocabulary is put into the mouth of Clove (iii. 1), and, on the other hand, the characters of Carlo Buffone and Fastidious Brisk have analogies with the Anaides and Hedon of _Cynthia’s Revels_, and these again with the Demetrius and Crispinus of _Poetaster_, who are undoubtedly Dekker and Marston. But we know from Aubrey, ii. 184, that Carlo was Charles Chester, a loose-tongued man about town, to whom there are many contemporary references. To those collected by Small and Hart (_10 N. Q._ i. 381) I may add Chamberlain, 7, Harington, _Ulysses upon Ajax_ (1596), 58, and _Hatfield Papers_, iv. 210, 221; x. 287. The practical joke of sealing up Carlo’s mouth with wax (V. iii) was, according to Aubrey, played upon Chester by Raleigh, and there may be traits of Raleigh in Puntarvolo, perhaps combined with others of Sir John Harington, while Hart finds in the mouths both of Puntarvolo and of Fastidious Brisk the vocabulary of Gabriel Harvey. The play was revived at Court on 8 Jan. 1605.

_Cynthia’s Revels. 1600–1_

_S. R._ 1601, May 23 (Pasfield). ‘A booke called Narcissus the fountaine of self-love.’ _Walter Burre_ (Arber, iii. 185).

1601. The Fountaine of Selfe-Loue. Or Cynthias Reuels. As it hath beene sundry times priuately acted in the Black-Friers by the Children of her Maiesties Chappell. Written by Ben: Iohnson. _For Walter Burre._ [Induction, Prologue, and Epilogue.]

1616. Cynthias Revels, Or The Fountayne of selfe-loue. A Comicall Satyre. Acted in the yeere 1600. By the then Children of Queene Elizabeth’s Chappel. The Author B. I. _William Stansby._ [Part of F_{1}. Epistle to the Court, signed ‘Ben Ionson’, Induction, Prologue, and Epilogue. After text: ‘This Comicall Satyre was first acted, in the yeere 1600. By the then Children of Queene Elizabeths Chappell. The principall Comœdians were, Nat. Field, Ioh. Underwood, Sal. Pavy, Rob. Baxter, Tho. Day, Ioh. Frost. With the allowance of the Master of Revells.’]

_Edition_ by A. C. Judson (1912, _Yale Studies_, xlv), and facsimile reprint of Q by W. Bang and L. Krebs (1908, _Materialien_, xxii).

The difference between the Q and F_{1} texts amounts to more than mere revision of wording and of oaths. _Criticus_ is renamed _Crites_, and the latter half of the play is given in a longer form, parts of IV. i and IV. iii, and the whole of V. i-iv appearing in F_{1} alone. I think the explanation is to be found in a shortening of the original text for representation, rather than in subsequent additions. Jonson’s date for the play is 1600. This Small, 23, would translate as Feb. or March 1601, neglecting the difficulty due to the possibility that Jonson’s date represents Circumcision style. He relies on V. xi, where Cynthia says:

For so Actaeon, by presuming farre,
Did (to our griefe) incurre a fatall doome;
... But are we therefore judged too extreme?
Seemes it no crime, to enter sacred bowers,
And hallowed places, with impure aspect,
Most lewdly to pollute?

Rightly rejecting the suggestion of Fleay, i. 363, that this alludes to Nashe and the _Isle of Dogs_, Small refers it to the disgrace of Essex, and therefore dates the play after his execution on 25 Feb. 1601. But surely the presumption which Jonson has in mind is not Essex’s rebellion, but his invasion of Elizabeth’s apartment on his return from Ireland in 1599, and the ‘fatall doome’ is merely his loss of offices in June 1600. I do not believe that a Court dramatist would have dared to refer to Essex at all after 25 Feb. 1601. I feel little doubt that the play was the subject of the Chapel presentation on 6 Jan. 1601, and the description of this by the Treasurer of the Chamber as including a ‘show’, which puzzled Small, is explained by the presence of a full-blown Court mask in V. vii-x. The original production will have been in the winter of 1600, soon after Evans set up the Chapel plays. As to personalities, Small rightly rejects the identifications of Hedon with Daniel, Anaides with Marston, and Asotus with Lodge. Amorphus repeats the type of Puntarvolo from _E. M. O._ and like Puntarvolo may show traces of the Harveian vocabulary. As _Satiromastix_, I. ii. 191, applies to Crispinus and Demetrius the descriptions (III. iii) of Hedon as ‘a light voluptuous reveller’ and Anaides as ‘a strange arrogating puff’, it seems clear that Marston and Dekker, rightly or wrongly, fitted on these caps. Similarly, there is a clear attempt in _Satiromastix_, I. ii. 376, ‘You must be call’d Asper, and Criticus, and Horace’, to charge Jonson with lauding himself as Criticus. But the description of the ‘creature of a most perfect and diuine temper’ in II. iii surely goes beyond even Jonson’s capacity of self-praise. I wonder whether he can have meant Donne, whom he seems from a remark to Drummond (Laing, 6) to have introduced as Criticus in an introductory dialogue to the _Ars Poetica_.

Of the three children who appear in the induction, both Q and F_{1} name one as Jack. He might be either Underwood or Frost. Q alone (l. 214) names another, who played Anaides, as Sall, i.e. Salathiel Pavy. An interesting light is thrown on the beginnings of the Chapel enterprise by the criticism (_Ind._ 188), ‘They say, the _Vmbrae_, or Ghosts of some three or foure Playes, departed a dozen yeares since, haue been seene walking on your Stage here.’

_The Poetaster. 1601_

_S. R._ 1601, Dec. 21 (Pasfield). ‘A booke called Poetaster or his arrainement.’ _Matthew Lownes_ (Arber, iii. 198).

1602. Poetaster or The Arraignment: As it hath beene sundry times priuately acted in the Blacke-Friers, by the Children of her Maiesties Chappell. Composed by Ben. Iohnson. _For M. L._ [Prologue; after text, Note to Reader: ‘Here (Reader) in place of the Epilogue, was meant to thee an Apology from the Author, with his reasons for the publishing of this booke: but (since he is no lesse restrain’d, then thou depriv’d of it by Authoritie) hee praies thee to think charitably of what thou hast read, till thou maist heare him speake what hee hath written.’]

1616. Poëtaster, Or His Arraignement. A Comicall Satyre, Acted, in the yeere 1601. By the then Children of Queene Elizabeths Chappel. The Author B. I. _W. Stansby for M. Lownes._ [Part of F_{1}. Epistle to Richard Martin, by ‘Ben. Ionson’; Prologue. After text, Note to Reader, with ‘an apologeticall Dialogue: which was only once spoken vpon the stage, and all the answere I euer gaue, to sundry impotent libells then cast out (and some yet remayning) against me, and this Play’. After the dialogue: ‘This comicall Satyre was first acted, in the yeere 1601. By the then Children of Queene Elizabeths Chappell. The principall Comœdians were, Nat. Field, Ioh. Vnderwood, Sal. Pavy, Will. Ostler, Tho. Day, Tho. Marton. With the allowance of the Master of Revells.’]

_Editions_ by H. S. Mallory (1905, _Yale Studies_, xxvii), J. H. Penniman (1913, _B. L._).

The play is admittedly an attack upon the poetaster represented as Crispinus, and his identity is clear from Jonson’s own statement to Drummond (Laing, 20) that ‘he had many quarrells with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his Poetaster on him’. Marston’s vocabulary is elaborately ridiculed in V. iii. Nor is there any reason to doubt that Demetrius Fannius, ‘a dresser of plaies about the towne, here’, who has been ‘hir’d to abuse Horace, and bring him in, in a play’ (III. iv. 367), is Dekker, who certainly associated himself with Marston as a victim of Jonson’s arraignment, and wrote _Satiromastix_ (q.v.) in reply. At the same time these characters continue the types of Hedon and Anaides from _Cynthia’s Revels_, although these were not literary men. Horace is Jonson himself, as the rival portrait of Horace in _Satiromastix_ shows, while Dekker tells us that Tucca is ‘honest Capten Hannam’, doubtless the Jack Hannam traceable as a Captain under Drake in 1585; cf. the reference to him in a letter of that year printed by F. P. Wilson in _M. L. R._ xv. 81. Fleay, i. 367, has a long list of identifications of minor personages, Ovid with Donne, Tibullus with Daniel, and so forth, all of which may safely be laid aside, and in particular I do not think that the fine eulogies of Virgil (V. i) are meant for Chapman, or for Shakespeare, applicable as some of them are to him, or for any one but Virgil. On the matter of identifications there is little to add to the admirable treatment of Small, 25. But in addition to the personal attacks, the play clearly contains a more generalized criticism of actors, the challenge of which seems to have been specially taken up by the Chamberlain’s men (cf. ch. xi), while there is evidence that Tucca and, I suppose, Lupus were taken amiss by the soldiers and the lawyers respectively. The latter at least were powerful, and in the epistle to Martin Jonson speaks of the play as one ‘for whose innocence, as for the Authors, you were once a noble and timely undertaker, to the greatest Iustice of this Kingdome’, and on behalf of posterity acknowledges a debt for ‘the reading of that ... which so much ignorance, and malice of the times, then conspir’d to haue supprest’. Evidently Jonson had not made matters better by his Apologetical Dialogue, the printing of which with the play was restrained. In this he denies that he

tax’d
The Law, and Lawyers; Captaines; and the Players
By their particular names;

but admits his intention to try and shame the

Fellowes of practis’d and most laxative tongues,

of whom he says, that during

three yeeres,
They did provoke me with their petulant stiles
On every stage.

Now he has done with it, will not answer the ‘libells’, or the ‘untrussers’ (i. e. _Satiromastix_), and is turning to tragedy.

Jonson gives the date of production as 1601. The play followed _Cynthia’s Revels_, criticisms on the epilogue of which inspired its ‘armed Prologue’, who sets a foot on Envy. Envy has been waiting fifteen weeks since the plot was an ‘embrion’, and this is chaffed in _Satiromastix_, I. ii. 447, ‘What, will he bee fifteene weekes about this cockatrice’s egge too?’ Later (V. ii. 218) Horace is told, ‘You and your itchy poetry breake out like Christmas, but once a yeare’. This stung Jonson, who replied in the Apologetical Dialogue,

_Polyposus._ They say you are slow,
And scarse bring forth a play a yeere.
_Author._ ’Tis true.
I would they could not say that I did that.

The year’s interval must not be pressed too closely. On the other hand, I do not know why Small, 25, assumes that the fifteen weeks spent on the _Poetaster_ began directly after _Cynthia’s Revels_ was produced, whatever that date may be. It must have come very near that of _Satiromastix_, for Horace knows that Demetrius has been hired to write a play on him. On the other hand, _Satiromastix_ cannot possibly have been actually written until the contents of _Poetaster_ were known to Dekker. The S. R. entry of _Satiromastix_ is 11 Nov. 1601, and the two dates of production may reasonably be placed in the late spring or early autumn of the same year. The Note to the Reader in Q shows that the Dialogue had been restrained before _Poetaster_ itself appeared in 1602. Probably it was spoken in December between the two S. R. entries. Hart (_9 N. Q._ xi. 202) assuming that the contemplated tragedy was _Sejanus_ (q.v.) put it in 1603, but this is too late.

_Sejanus. 1603_

_S. R._ 1604, Nov. 2 (Pasfield). ‘A booke called the tragedie of Seianus written by Beniamin Johnson.’ _Edward Blunt_ (Arber, iii. 273).

1605, Aug. 6. Transfer from Blount to Thomas Thorpe (Arber, iii. 297).

1610, Oct. 3. Transfer from Thorpe to Walter Burre (Arber, iii. 445).

1605. Seianus his fall. Written by Ben: Ionson. _G. Eld for Thomas Thorpe._ [Epistle to Readers, signed ‘Ben. Jonson’; Commendatory Verses, signed ‘Georgius Chapmannus’, ‘Hugh Holland’, ‘Cygnus’, ‘Th. R.’, ‘Johannes Marstonius’, ‘William Strachey’, ‘ΦΙΛΟΣ’, ‘Ev. B.’; Argument.]

1616. Seianus his Fall. A Tragœdie. Acted, in the yeere 1603. By the K. Maiesties Servants. The Author B. I. _William Stansby._ [Part of F_{1}. Epistle to Esmé, Lord Aubigny, signed ‘Ben. Ionson’. After text: ‘This Tragœdie was first acted, in the yeere 1603. By the Kings Maiesties Servants. The principall Tragœdians were, Ric. Burbadge, Will. Shake-Speare, Aug. Philips, Ioh. Hemings, Will. Sly, Hen. Condel, Ioh. Lowin, Alex. Cooke. With the allowance of the Master of Revells.’]

_Editions_ by W. D. Briggs (1911, _B. L._) and W. A. Neilson (1911, _C. E. D._).--_Dissertations_: B. Nicholson, _Shakespeare not the Part-Author of B. J.’s S._ (1874, _Acad._ ii. 536); W. A. Henderson, _Shakespeare and S._ (1894, _8 N. Q._ v. 502).

As the theatres were probably closed from Elizabeth’s death to March 1604, the production may have been at Court in the autumn or winter of 1603, although, if _Sejanus_ is the something ‘high, and aloofe’ contemplated at the end of the Apologetical Dialogue to _Poetaster_ (q.v.), it must have been in Jonson’s mind since 1601. The epistle to Aubigny admits the ‘violence’ which the play received in public, and ‘Ev. B.’s’ verses indicate that this ‘beastly rage’ was at the Globe. Marston’s verses were presumably written before his renewed quarrel with Jonson over _Eastward Ho!_ (q.v.), and there appears to be an unkindly reference to _Sejanus_ in the epistle to his _Sophonisba_ (1606). But either _Eastward Ho!_ or something else caused publication to be delayed for nearly a year after the S. R. entry, since Chapman’s verses contain a compliment to the Earl of Suffolk,

Who when our Hearde came not to drink, but trouble
The Muses waters, did a Wall importune,
(Midst of assaults) about their sacred River,

which seems to refer to his share in freeing Jonson and Chapman from prison about Sept. or Oct. 1605. Chapman also has compliments to the Earls of Northampton and Northumberland. It must therefore be to a later date that Jonson referred, when he told Drummond (Laing, 22) that ‘Northampton was his mortall enimie for beating, on a St. George’s day, one of his attenders; He was called before the Councell for his Sejanus, and accused both of poperie and treason by him’. Fleay, i. 372, suggests that the reference at the end of the Q version of the Argument to treason against princes, ‘for guard of whose piety and vertue, the _Angels_ are in continuall watch, and _God_ himselfe miraculously working’, implies publication after the discovery of the Plot. On the other hand, one would have expected Chapman’s reference to Northumberland, if not already printed, to be suppressed, in view of the almost immediate suspicion of a connexion with the Plot that fell upon him. Castelain, 907, considers, and rightly rejects, another suggestion by Fleay that _Sejanus_ and not _Eastward Ho!_ was the cause of the imprisonment of Jonson and Chapman in 1605. Fleay supposed that Chapman was the collaborator of whom Jonson wrote in the Q epistle, ‘I would informe you, that this Booke, in all numbers, is not the same with that which was acted on the publike Stage, wherein a second pen had good share; in place of which I have rather chosen, to put weaker (and no doubt lesse pleasing) of mine own, then to defraud so happy a _Genius_ of his right, by my lothed usurpation’. Shakespeare also has been guessed at. If Jonson’s language was seriously meant, there were not, of course, many contemporaries of whom he would have so spoken. Probably the problem is insoluble, as the subject-matter of it has disappeared. It is difficult to believe that the collaborator was Samuel Sheppard, who in his _The Times Displayed in Six Sestyads_ (1646) claims to have ‘dictated to’ Ben Jonson ‘when as Sejanus’ fall he writ’. Perhaps he means ‘been amanuensis to’.

_Eastward Ho!_ (_1605_)

_With_ Chapman (q.v.) _and_ Marston.

_Volpone_ or _The Fox. 1606_

[_MS._] J. S. Farmer (_Introd._ to _Believe As You List_ in _T. F. T._) states that a holograph MS. is extant. He may have heard of a modern text by L. H. Holt, used by J. D. Rea. If so, App. N is in error.

_S. R._ 1610, Oct. 3. Transfer from Thomas Thorpe to Walter Burre of ‘2 bookes the one called, Seianus his fall, the other, Vulpone or the ffoxe’ (Arber, iii. 445).

1607. Ben: Ionson his Volpone Or The Foxe. _For Thomas Thorpe._ [Dedicatory epistle by ‘Ben. Ionson’ to the two Universities, dated ‘From my House in the Black Friars, the 11^{th} day of February, 1607’; Commendatory Verses, signed ‘I. D[onne]’, ‘E. Bolton’, ‘F[rancis] B[eaumont]’, ‘T. R.’, ‘D. D.’, ‘I. C.’, ‘G. C.’, ‘E. S.’, ‘I. F.’; Argument; Prologue and Epilogue.]

1616. Volpone, or The Foxe. A Comœdie. Acted in the yeere 1605. By the K. Maiesties Servants. The Author B. I. _William Stansby._ [Part of F_{1}. After text: ‘This Comoedie was first acted, in the yeere 1605. By the Kings Maiesties Servants. The principall Comœdians were, Ric. Burbadge, Ioh. Hemings, Hen. Condel, Ioh. Lowin, Will. Sly, Alex. Cooke. With the allowance of the Master of Revells.’]

_Editions_ by W. Scott (1811, _M. B. D._ iii) in _O. E. D._ (1830, i) and by H. B. Wilkins (1906), W. A. Neilson (1911, _C. E. D._), J. D. Rea (1919, _Yale Studies_).--_Dissertations_: F. Holthausen, _Die Quelle von B. J.’s V._ (1889, _Anglia_, xii. 519); J. Q. Adams, _The Sources of B. J.’s V._ (1904, _M. P._ ii. 289); L. H. Holt, _Notes on J.’s V._ (1905, _M. L. N._ xx. 63).

Jonson dates the production 1605, and the uncertainty as to the style he used leaves it possible that this may cover the earlier part of 1606. Fleay, i. 373, attempts to get nearer with the help of the news from London brought to Venice by Peregrine in II. i. Some of this does not help us much. The baboons had probably been in London as early as 1603 at least (cf. s.v. _Sir Giles Goosecap_). The Tower lioness had a whelp on 5 Aug. 1604, another on 26 Feb. 1605, and two more on 27 July 1605 (Stowe, ed. 1615, 844, 857, 870). The ‘another whelp’ of _Volpone_ would suggest Feb.–July 1605. On the other hand, the whale at Woolwich is recorded by Stowe, 880, a few days after the porpoise at West Ham (not ‘above the bridge’ as in _Volpone_) on 19 Jan. 1606. Holt argues from this that, as Peregrine left England seven weeks before, the play must have been produced in March 1606, but this identification of actual and dramatic time can hardly be taken for granted. There are also allusions to meteors at Berwick and a new star, both in 1604, and to the building of a raven in a royal ship and the death of Stone the fool, which have not been dated and might help. Gawdy, 146, writes on 18 June 1604 that ‘Stone was knighted last weeke, I meane not Stone the foole, but Stone of Cheapsyde’. Stone the fool was whipped about March, 1605 (Winwood, ii. 52). The suggested allusion to _Volpone_ in Day’s _Isle of Gulls_ (q.v.) of Feb. 1606 is rather dubious. The ambiguity of style must also leave us uncertain whether Q and its dedication belong to 1607 or 1608, and therefore whether ‘their love and acceptance shewn to his poeme in the presentation’ by the Universities was in 1606 or 1607. This epistle contains a justification of Jonson’s comic method. He has had to undergo the ‘imputation of sharpnesse’, but has never provoked a ‘nation, societie, or generall order, or state’, or any ‘publique person’. Nor has he been ‘particular’ or ‘personall’, except to ‘a mimick, cheater, bawd, or buffon, creatures (for their insolencies) worthy to be tax’d’. But that he has not wholly forgotten the _Poetomachia_ is clear from a reference to the ‘petulant stiles’ of other poets, while in the prologue he recalls the old criticism that he was a year about each play, and asserts that he wrote _Volpone_ in five weeks. The commendatory verses suggest that the play was successful. Fleay’s theory that it is referred to in the epilogue to the anonymous _Mucedorus_ (q.v.), as having given offence, will not bear analysis. The passage in III. iv about English borrowings from Guarini and Montaigne is too general in its application to be construed as a specific attack on Daniel. But the gossip of Aubrey, ii. 246, on Thomas Sutton, the founder of the Charterhouse, relates that ‘’Twas from him that B. Johnson took his hint of the fox, and by Seigneur Volpone is meant Sutton’.

_Epicoene. 1609_

_S. R._ 1610, Sept. 20 (Buck). ‘A booke called, Epicoene or the silent woman by Ben Johnson.’ _John Browne and John Busby_ (Arber, iii. 444).

1612, Sept. 28. Transfer from Browne to Walter Burre (Arber, iii. 498).

1609, 1612. Prints of both dates are cited, but neither is now traceable. The former, in view of the S. R. date, can hardly have existed; the latter appears to have been seen by Gifford, and for it the commendatory verses by Beaumont, found at the beginning of F_{1}, were probably written.

1616. Epicoene, Or The silent Woman. A Comœdie. Acted in the yeere 1609. By the Children of her Maiesties Revells. The Author B. I. _W. Stansby._ [Part of F_{1}. Epistle to Sir Francis Stuart, signed ‘Ben. Ionson’; Two Prologues, the second ‘Occasion’d by some persons impertinent exception’; after text: ‘This Comœdie was first acted, in the yeere 1609. By the Children of her Maiesties Revells. The principall Comœdians were, Nat. Field, Will. Barksted, Gil. Carie, Will. Pen, Hug. Attawel, Ric. Allin, Ioh. Smith, Ioh. Blaney. With the allowance of the Master of Revells.’]

1620. _William Stansby, sold by John Browne._

_Editions_ in _O. E. D._ (1830, iii) and by A. Henry (1906, _Yale Studies_, xxxi) and C. M. Gayley (1913, _R. E. C._ ii).

The first prologue speaks of the play as fit for ‘your men, and daughters of _white-Friars’_, and at Whitefriars the play was probably produced by the Revels children, either at the end of 1609, or, if Jonson’s chronology permits, early in 1610. Jonson told Drummond (Laing, 41) that, ‘When his play of a Silent Woman was first acted, ther was found verses after on the stage against him, concluding that that play was well named the Silent Woman, ther was never one man to say _Plaudite_ to it’. Fleay, i. 374, suggests an equation between Sir John Daw and Sir John Harington. In I. i. 86 Clerimont says of Lady Haughty, the President of the Collegiates, ‘A poxe of her autumnall face, her peec’d beautie’. I hope that this was not, as suggested by H. J. C. Grierson, _Poems of Donne_, ii. 63, a hit at Lady Danvers, on whom Donne wrote (Elegy ix):

No _Spring_, nor _Summer_ Beauty hath such grace,
As I have seen in one _Autumnall_ face.

In any case, I do not suppose that these are the passages which led to the ‘exception’ necessitating the second prologue. This ends with the lines:

If any, yet, will (with particular slight
Of application) wrest what he doth write;
And that he meant or him, or her, will say:
They make a libell, which he made a play.

Jonson evidently refers to the same matter in the Epistle, where he says: ‘There is not a line, or syllable in it changed from the simplicity of the first copy. And, when you shall consider, through the certaine hatred of some, how much a mans innocency may bee indanger’d by an vn-certaine accusation; you will, I doubt not, so beginne to hate the iniquitie of such natures, as I shall loue the contumely done me, whose end was so honorable, as to be wip’d off by your sentence.’ I think the explanation is to be found in a dispatch of the Venetian ambassador on 8 Feb. 1610 (_V. P._ xi. 427), who reports that Lady Arabella Stuart ‘complains that in a certain comedy the playwright introduced an allusion to her person and the part played by the Prince of Moldavia. The play was suppressed.’ The reference may be to V. i. 17 of the play:

_La Foole._ He [_Daw_] has his boxe of instruments ...
to draw maps of euery place, and person, where he comes.

_Clerimont._ How, maps of persons!

_La Foole._ Yes, sir, of Nomentack, when he was here, and
of the Prince of _Moldauia_, and of his mistris, mistris
_Epicoene_.

_Clerimont._ Away! he has not found out her latitude, I
hope.

The Prince of Moldavia visited London in 1607 and is said to have been a suitor for Arabella, but if Jonson’s text is really not ‘changed from the simplicity of the first copy’, it is clear that Arabella misunderstood it, since Epicoene was Daw’s mistress.

_The Alchemist. 1610_

_S. R._ 1610, Oct. 3 (Buck). ‘A Comoedy called The Alchymist made by Ben: Johnson.’ _Walter Burre_ (Arber, iii. 445).

1612. The Alchemist. Written by Ben Ionson. _Thomas Snodham for Walter Burre, sold by John Stepneth._ [Epistles to Lady Wroth, signed ‘Ben. Jonson’ and to the Reader; Commendatory Verses, signed ‘George Lucy’; Argument and Prologue.]

1616. The Alchemist. A Comœdie. Acted in the yeere 1610. By the Kings Maiesties Seruants. The author B. I. _W. Stansby._ [Part of F_{1}. After text: ‘This Comoedie was first acted, in the yeere 1610. By the Kings Maiesties Servants. The principall Comœdians were, Ric. Burbadge, Ioh. Hemings, Ioh. Lowin, Will. Ostler, Hen. Condel, Ioh. Vnderwood, Alex. Cooke, Nic. Tooley, Rob. Armin, Will. Eglestone. With the allowance of the Master of Revells.’]

_Editions_ by W. Scott (1811, _M. B. D._ iii), C. M. Hathaway (1903, _Yale Studies_, xvii), H. C. Hart (1903, _King’s Library_), F. E. Schelling (1903, _B. L._), W. A. Neilson (1911, _C. E. D._), G. A. Smithson (1913, _R. E. C._).

Jonson’s date is confirmed by the references in II. vi. 31 and IV. iv. 29 to the age of Dame Pliant, who is 19 and was born in 1591. In view of the S. R. entry, one would take the production to have fallen in the earlier half of the year, before the plague reached forty deaths, which it did from 12 July to 29 Nov. The action is set in plague-time, but obviously the experience of 1609 and early years might suggest this. Fleay, i. 375, and others following him argue that the action of the play is confined to one day, that this is fixed by V. v. 102 to ‘the second day of the fourth week in the eighth month’, and that this must be 24 October. They are not deterred by the discrepancy of this with III. ii. 129, which gives only a fifteen-days interval before ‘the second day, of the third weeke, in the ninth month’, i. e. on their principles 17 November. And they get over the S.R. entry by assuming that Jonson planned to stage the play on 24 October and then, finding early in October that the plague continued, decided to publish it at once. This seems to me extraordinarily thin, in the absence of clearer knowledge as to the system of chronology employed by Ananias of Amsterdam. Aubrey, i. 213, says that John Dee ‘used to distill egge-shells, and ’twas from hence that Ben Johnson had his hint of the alkimist, whom he meant’. The play was given by the King’s men at Court during 1612–13.

_Catiline his Conspiracy. 1611_

1611. Catiline his Conspiracy. Written by Ben: Ionson. _For Walter Burre._ [Epistles to William Earl of Pembroke, and to the Reader, both signed ‘Ben. Jonson’; Commendatory Verses, signed ‘Franc: Beaumont’, ‘John Fletcher’, ‘Nat. Field’.]

1616. Catiline his Conspiracy. A Tragoedie. Acted in the yeere 1611. By the Kings Maiesties Seruants. The Author B. I. _William Stansby._ [Part of F_{1}. After text: ‘This Tragœdie was first Acted, in the yeere 1611. By the Kings Maiesties Servants. The principall Tragœdians were, Ric. Burbadge, Ioh. Hemings, Alex. Cooke, Hen. Condel, Ioh. Lowin, Ioh. Underwood, Wil. Ostler, Nic. Tooly, Ric. Robinson, Wil. Eglestone.’]

1635.... ‘now Acted by his Maiesties Servants’.... _N. Okes for I. S._

_Edition_ by L. H. Harris (1916, _Yale Studies_, liii).--_Dissertation_: A. Vogt, _B. J.’s Tragödie C. und ihre Quellen_ (1905, _Halle diss._).

_Bartholomew Fair. 1614_

1631. Bartholomew Fayre: A Comedie, Acted in the Yeare, 1614. By the Lady Elizabeths Seruants. And then dedicated to King Iames of most Blessed Memorie; By the Author, Beniamin Iohnson. _I. B. for Robert Allot._ [Part of F_{2}. Prologue to the King; Induction; Epilogue. Jonson wrote (n.d.) to the Earl of Newcastle (_Harl. MS._ 4955, quoted in Gifford’s memoir and by Brinsley Nicholson in _4 N. Q._ v. 574): ‘It is the lewd printer’s fault that I can send ... no more of my book. I sent you one piece before, The Fair, ... and now I send you this other morsel, The fine gentleman that walks the town, The Fiend; but before he will perfect the rest I fear he will come himself to be a part under the title of The Absolute Knave, which he hath played with me.’]

_Edition_ by C. S. Alden (1904, _Yale Studies_, xxv).--_Dissertation_: C. R. Baskervill, _Some Parallels to B. F._ (1908, _M. P._ vi. 109).

No dedication to James, other than the prologue and epilogue, appears to be preserved, but Aubrey, ii. 14, says that ‘King James made him write against the Puritans, who began to be troublesome in his time’. The play was given at Court on 1 Nov. 1614 (App. B), and a mock indenture between the author and the spectators at the Hope, on 31 Oct. 1614, is recited in the Induction and presumably fixes the date of production. One must not therefore assume that a ballad of _Rome for Company in Bartholomew Faire_, registered on 22 Oct. 1614 (Arber, iii. 554), was aimed at Jonson. Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 78, follows Malone and Fleay, i. 80, in inferring from a mention of a forthcoming ‘Johnsons play’ in a letter of 13 Nov. 1613 from Daborne to Henslowe that the production may have been intended for 1613, but I think that Daborne refers to the revival of _Eastward Ho!_ The Induction describes the locality of the Hope as ‘being as durty as _Smithfield_, and as stinking euery whit’, and possibly glances at the _Winter’s Tale_ and _Tempest_ in disclaiming the introduction of ‘a _Seruant-monster_’ and ‘a nest of _Antiques_’, since the author is ‘loth to make Nature afraid in his _Playes_, like those that beget _Tales_, _Tempests_, and such like _Drolleries_’. There is no actor-list, but in V. iii ‘Your best _Actor_. Your _Field_?’ is referred to on a level with ‘your _Burbage_’. Similarly the puppet Leander is said to shake his head ‘like an hostler’ and it is declared that ‘one _Taylor_, would goe neere to beat all this company, with a hand bound behinde him’. Field and Taylor were both of the Lady Elizabeth’s men in 1614, while the allusion to Ostler of the King’s men is apparently satirical. The suggestion of Ordish, 225, that Taylor is the water poet, who had recently appeared on the Hope stage, is less probable. The ‘word out of the play, _Palemon_’ (IV. iii) is set against another, _Argalus_ ‘out of the _Arcadia_’, and might therefore, as Fleay, i. 377, thinks, refer to Daniel’s _Queen’s Arcadia_ (1605), but the Palamon of _T. N. K._ was probably quite recent. I see no reason to accept Fleay’s identification of Littlewit with Daniel; that of Lanthorn Leatherhead with Inigo Jones is more plausible. Gifford suggested that the burlesque puppet-play of Damon and Pythias in V. iv may have been retrieved by Jonson from earlier work, perhaps for the real puppet-stage, since ‘Old Cole’ is a character, and in _Satiromastix_ Horace is called ‘puppet-teacher’ (1980) and in another passage (607) ‘olde Coale’, and told that Crispinus and Demetrius ‘shal be thy Damons and thou their Pithyasse’.

_The Devil Is An Ass 1616_

1631. The Diuell is an Asse: A Comedie Acted in the yeare, 1616. By His Maiesties Seruants. The Author Ben: Ionson. _I. B. for Robert Allot._ [Part of F_{2}. Prologue and Epilogue. The play is referred to in Jonson’s letter to the Earl of Newcastle, quoted under _Bartholomew Fair_.]

1641. _Imprinted at London._

_Edition_ by W. S. Johnson (1905, _Yale Studies_, xxix).--_Dissertation_: E. Holstein, _Verhältnis von B. J.’s D. A. und John Wilson’s Belphegor zu Machiavelli’s Novelle vom Belfagor_ (1901).

In the play itself are introduced references to a performance of _The Devil_ as a new play, to its playbill, to the Blackfriars as the house, and to Dick Robinson as a player of female parts (I. iv. 43; vi. 31; II. viii. 64; III. v. 38). Probably the production was towards the end rather than the beginning of 1616.

_Lost Plays_

I do not feel able to accept the view, expounded by Fleay, i. 370, 386, and adopted by some later writers, that _A Tale of a Tub_, licensed by Herbert on 7 May 1633, was only a revision of one of Jonson’s Elizabethan plays. It appears to rest almost wholly upon references to a ‘queen’. These are purely dramatic, and part of an attempt to give the action an old-fashioned setting. The queen intended is not Elizabeth, but Mary. There are also references to ‘last King Harry’s time’ (I. ii), ‘King Edward, our late liege and sovereign lord’ (I. v). A character says, ‘He was King Harry’s doctor and my god-phere’ (IV. i). The priest is ‘Canon’ or ‘Sir’ Hugh, and has a ‘Latin tongue’ (III. vii). ‘Old John Heywood’ is alive (V. ii).

In 1619 Jonson told Drummond (Laing, 27) ‘That the half of his Comedies were not in print’. The unprinted ones of course included _Bartholomew Fair_ and _The Devil is an Ass_. He went on to describe ‘a pastorall intitled The May Lord’, in which he figured himself as Alkin. As it had a ‘first storie’, it may not have been dramatic. But Alkin appears in _The Sad Shepherd_, a fragment of a dramatic pastoral, printed in F_{2} with a prologue in which Jonson describes himself as ‘He that hath feasted you these forty yeares’, and which therefore cannot have been written long before his death in 1637. This is edited by W. W. Greg (1905, _Materialien_, xi) with an elaborate discussion in which he arrives at the sound conclusions that the theory of its substantial identity with _The May Lord_ must be rejected, and that there is no definite evidence to oppose to the apparent indication of its date in the prologue.

It is doubtful whether any of Jonson’s early work for Pembroke’s and the Admiral’s, except perhaps _The Case is Altered_, ever found its way into print. The record of all the following plays, except the first, is in Henslowe’s diary (cf. Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 288).

(_a_) _The Isle of Dogs._

See s.v. Nashe.

(_b_) On 3 Dec. 1597 he received £1 ‘vpon a boocke w^{ch} he showed the plotte vnto the company w^{ch} he promysed to dd vnto the company at crysmas’. It is just possible that this was _Dido and Aeneas_, produced by the Admiral’s on 8 Jan. 1598. But no further payment to Jonson is recorded, and it is more likely that _Dido and Aeneas_ was taken over from Pembroke’s repertory; and it may be that Jonson had not carried out his contract before the fray with Spencer in Sept. 1598, and that this is the ‘Bengemens plotte’ on which Chapman was writing a tragedy on the following 23 Oct. The theory that it is the _Fall of Mortimer_, still little more than a plot when Jonson died, may safely be rejected (Henslowe, ii. 188, 199, 224).

(_c_) _Hot Anger Soon Cold._

Written with Chettle and Porter in Aug. 1598 (Henslowe, ii. 196).

(_d_) _Page of Plymouth._

Written with Dekker in Aug. and Sept. 1599 (Henslowe, ii. 205).

(_e_) _Robert the Second, King of Scots._

A tragedy, written with Chettle, Dekker, ‘& other Jentellman’ (probably Marston) in Sept. 1599 (Henslowe, ii. 205).

(_f_) Additions to _Jeronimo_.

See s.v. Kyd, _Spanish Tragedy_.

(_g_) _Richard Crookback._

For this Jonson received a sum ‘in earnest’ on 22 June 1602, but it is not certain that it was ever finished (Henslowe, ii, 222).

_Doubtful Plays_

Jonson’s hand has been sought in _The Captain_ of the Beaumont (q.v.) and Fletcher series, and the anonymous _Puritan_ (cf. ch. xxiv).

MASKS

_Mask of Blackness. 6 Jan. 1605_

[_MS._] _Brit. Mus. Royal MS._ 17 B. xxxi. [‘The Twelvth Nights Reuells.’ Not holograph, but signed ‘Hos ego versiculos feci. Ben. Jonson.’ A shorter text than that of the printed descriptions, in present tense, as for a programme.]

_S. R._ 1608, April 21 (Buck). ‘The Characters of Twoo Royall Maskes. Invented by Ben. Johnson.’ _Thomas Thorpe_ (Arber, iii. 375).

N.D. The Characters of Two royall Masques. The one of Blacknesse, The other of Beautie. personated By the most magnificent of Queenes Anne Queene of Great Britaine, &c. With her honorable Ladyes, 1605. and 1608. at Whitehall: and Inuented by Ben: Ionson. _For Thomas Thorp._

1616. The Queenes Masques. The first, Of Blacknesse: Personated at the Court, at White-Hall, on the Twelu’th night, 1605. [Part of F_{1}.]

_Edition_ in J. P. Collier, _Five Court Masques_ (1848, _Sh. Soc._ from MS.).

The maskers, in azure and silver, were twelve nymphs, ‘negroes and the daughters of Niger’; the torchbearers, in sea-green, Oceaniae; the presenters Oceanus, Niger, and Aethiopia the Moon; the musicians Tritons, Sea-maids, and Echoes.

The locality was the old Elizabethan banqueting-house at Whitehall (Carleton; Office of Works). The curtain represented a ‘landtschap’ of woods with hunting scenes, ‘which falling’, according to the Quarto, ‘an artificial sea was seen to shoot forth’. The MS. describes the landscape as ‘drawne uppon a downe right cloth, strayned for the scene, ... which openinge in manner of a curtine’, the sea shoots forth. On the sea were the maskers in a concave shell, and the torchbearers borne by sea-monsters.

The maskers, on landing, presented their fans. They gave ‘their own single dance’, and then made ‘choice of their men’ for ‘several measures and corantoes’. A final dance took them back to their shell.

This was a Queen’s mask, danced by the Queen, the Countesses of Bedford, Derby, and Suffolk, the Ladies Rich, Bevill, Howard of Effingham, Wroth, and Walsingham, Lady Elizabeth Howard, Anne Lady Herbert, and Susan Lady Herbert. The ‘bodily part’ was the ‘design and act’ of Inigo Jones.

Sir Thomas Edmondes told Lord Shrewsbury on 5 Dec. that the mask was to cost the Exchequer £3,000 (Lodge, iii. 114). The same sum was stated by Chamberlain to Winwood on 18 Dec. to have been ‘delivered a month ago’ (Winwood, ii. 41). Molin (_V. P._ x. 201) reported the amount on 19 Dec. as 25,000 crowns. On 12 Dec. John Packer wrote to Winwood of the preparations, and after naming some of the maskers added, ‘The Lady of Northumberland is excused by sickness, Lady Hartford by the measles. Lady of Nottingham hath the polypus in her nostril, which some fear must be cut off. The Lady Hatton would feign have had a part, but some unknown reason kept her out’ (Winwood, ii. 39). The performance was described by Carleton to Winwood, as following the creation of Prince Charles as Duke of York on 6 Jan. (Winwood, ii. 44): ‘At night we had the Queen’s maske in the Banquetting-House, or rather her pagent. There was a great engine at the lower end of the room, which had motion, and in it were the images of sea-horses with other terrible fishes, which were ridden by Moors: The indecorum was, that there was all fish and no water. At the further end was a great shell in form of a skallop, wherein were four seats; on the lowest sat the Queen with my Lady Bedford; on the rest were placed the Ladies Suffolk, Darby, Rich, Effingham, Ann Herbert, Susan Herbert, Elizabeth Howard, Walsingham, and Bevil. Their apparell was rich, but too light and curtizan-like for such great ones. Instead of vizzards, their faces, and arms up to the elbows, were painted black, which was disguise sufficient, for they were hard to be known; but it became them nothing so well as their red and white, and you cannot imagine a more ugly sight, then a troop of lean-cheek’d Moors. The Spanish and Venetian ambassadors were both present, and sate by the King in state, at which Monsieur Beaumont quarrells so extreamly, that he saith the whole court is Spanish. But by his favour, he should fall out with none but himself, for they were all indifferently invited to come as private men, to a private sport; which he refusing, the Spanish ambassador willingly accepted, and being there, seeing no cause to the contrary, he put off Don Taxis, and took upon him El Señor Embaxadour, wherein he outstript our little Monsieur. He was ... taken out to dance, and footed it like a lusty old gallant with his country woman. He took out the Queen, and forgot not to kiss her hand, though there was danger it would have left a mark on his lips. The night’s work was concluded with a banquet in the great Chamber, which was so furiously assaulted, that down went table and tressels before one bit was touched.’ Carleton gives some additional information in another account, which he sent to Chamberlain on 7 Jan. (_S. P. D. Jac. I_, xii. 6, quoted by Sullivan, 28), as that the ‘black faces and hands, which were painted and bare up to the elbowes, was a very lothsome sight’, and he was ‘sory that strangers should see owr court so strangely disguised’; that ‘the confusion in getting in was so great, that some Ladies lie by it and complain of the fury of the white stafes’; that ‘in the passages through the galleries they were shutt up in several heapes betwixt dores and there stayed till all was ended’; and that there were losses ‘of chaynes, jewels, purces and such like loose ware’. References in letters to one Benson and by the Earl of Errol to Cecil (_S. P. D. Jac. I_, xii. 16; xix. 25) add nothing material. Carleton’s account of the triumph of the Spanish ambassador is confirmed by reports of the Venetian (_V. P._ x. 212) and French (_B. M. King’s MS._ cxxvii, ff. 117, 127^v, 177^v; cf. Sullivan, 196–8) ambassadors. Beaumont had pleaded illness in order to avoid attending a mask on 27 Dec. 1604 in private, and the Court chose to assume that he was still ill on 6 Jan. This gave De Taxis and Molin an opening to get their private invitations converted into public ones. Beaumont lost his temper and accused Sir Lewis Lewknor and other officials of intriguing against him, but he had to accept his defeat.

The Accounts of the Master of the Revels (Cunningham, 204) record ‘The Queens Ma^{tis} Maske of Moures with Aleven Laydies of honnour’ as given on 6 Jan. Reyher, 358, 520, notes references to the mask in accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber and of the Office of Works, and quotes from the latter items for ‘framinge and settinge vpp of a great stage in the banquettinge house xl foote square and iiij^{or} foote in heighte with wheeles to goe on ... framinge and settinge vpp an other stage’.

Many of the notices of the Queen’s mask also refer to another mask which was performed ‘among the noblemen and gentlemen’ (Lodge, iii. 114) on 27 Dec. 1604, at the wedding of Sir Philip Herbert and Lady Susan Vere, daughter of the Earl of Oxford. The bride was herself a dancer in the Queen’s mask. The wedding mask, the subject of which was Juno and Hymenaeus, is unfortunately lost. The Revels Accounts (Cunningham, 204) tell us that it was ‘presented by the Earl of Pembroke, the Lord Willowbie and 6 Knightes more of the Court’, and Stowe’s _Chronicle_, 856, briefly records ‘braue Masks of the most noble ladies’. Carleton gave Winwood details of the wedding, and said (Winwood, ii. 43): ‘At night there was a mask in the Hall, which for conceit and fashion was suitable to the occasion. The actors were the Earle of Pembrook, the Lord Willoby, Sir Samuel [James?] Hays, Sir Thomas Germain, Sir Robert Cary, Sir John Lee, Sir Richard Preston, and Sir Thomas Bager. There was no smal loss that night of chaines and jewells, and many great ladies were made shorter by the skirts, and were well enough served that they could keep cut no better.’ Carleton wrote to Chamberlain (_S. P. D. Jac. I_, xii. 6, quoted by Sullivan, 25): ‘Theyre conceit was a representacion of Junoes temple at the lower end of the great hall, which was vawted and within it the maskers seated with staves of lights about them, and it was no ill shew. They were brought in by the fower seasons of the yeare and Hymeneus: which for songs and speaches was as goode as a play. Theyre apparel was rather costly then cumly; but theyr dancing full of life and variety; onely S^r Tho: Germain had lead in his heales and sometimes forgott what he was doing.’ There was a diplomatic contretemps on this occasion. At the wedding dinner the Venetian ambassador Molin was given precedence of the Queen’s brother, the Duke of Holstein, to the annoyance of the latter. But after dinner Molin was led to a closet and forgotten there until supper was already begun. Meanwhile the Duke took his place. There was a personal apology from the King, and at the mask Molin was given a stool in the royal box to the right of the King, and the Duke one to the left of the Queen. He preferred to stand for three hours rather than make use of it (Winwood, ii. 43; Sullivan, 25; _V. P._ x. 206).

Carleton wrote to Winwood (ii. 44), ‘They say the Duke of Holst will come upon us with an after reckoning, and that we shall see him on Candlemas night in a mask, as he hath shewed himself a lusty reveller all this Christmas’. But if this mask ever took place, nothing is known of it.