Chapter XXVI: Part 1: with Heywood, Dec. 1602–Jan. 1603; one payment had been made to (14)

The date of first production may reasonably be put in 1613–14. Crawford has pointed out the resemblances between the play and _A Monumental Column_ (1613) and definite borrowings from Donne’s _Anatomy of the World_ (1612), Chapman’s _Petrarch’s Seven Penitentiall Psalms_ (1612), and Chapman’s Middle Temple mask of 15 Feb. 1613. Lawrence thinks that Campion’s mask of 14 Feb. 1613 is also drawn upon. But it is not impossible that the extant text has undergone revision, in view of borrowings from the 6th edition (1615) of Sir Thomas Overbury’s _Characters_, to which Sykes calls attention, and of the apparent allusion pointed out by Vaughan in I. i. 5 to the purging of the French Court by Louis XIII after the assassination of Marshall d’Ancre on 14 April 1617. It need not be inferred that this is the ‘enterlude concerninge the late Marquesse d’Ancre’, which the Privy Council ordered the Master of Revels to stay on 22 June 1617 (_M. S. C._ i. 376).

_Later Plays_

_The Devil’s Law Case_ (1623).

_A Cure for a Cuckold_ (1661), with W. Rowley.

On the authorship and dates of these, cf. Brooke, 250, 255, and H. D. Sykes in _11 N. Q._ vii. 106; ix. 382, 404, 443, 463.

_Lost Plays_

The following are recorded in Henslowe’s diary:

For the Admiral’s:

_Caesar’s Fall or The Two Shapes._

With Dekker, Drayton, Middleton, and Munday, May 1602.

For Worcester’s:

_Christmas Comes but Once a Year._

With Chettle, Dekker, and Heywood, Nov. 1602.

In the epistle to _The Devil’s Law Case_, Webster says to Sir T. Finch, ‘Some of my other works, as The White Devil, The Duchess of Malfi, Guise and others, you have formerly seen’, and a _Guise_ is ascribed to him as a comedy in Archer’s play-list of 1656 and included without ascription as a tragedy in Kirkman’s of 1661 and 1671 (Greg, _Masques_, lxxii). Rogers and Ley’s list of 1656 had given it to Marston (q.v.). Collier forged an entry in Henslowe’s diary meant to suggest that this was the _Massacre at Paris_ (cf. s.v. Marlowe).

In Sept. 1624 Herbert licensed ‘a new Tragedy called _A Late Murther of the Sonn upon the Mother_: Written by Forde, and Webster’ (Herbert, 29).

_Doubtful Plays_

The ascription to Webster on the t.p. of _The Thracian Wonder_ is not generally accepted. His hand has been suggested in _Revenger’s Tragedy_ and _The Weakest Goeth to the Wall_.

GEORGE WHETSTONE (1544?-87?).

Whetstone was a Londoner by origin. After a riotous youth, he turned to literature interspersed with adventure, possibly acting at Canterbury _c._ 1571 (cf. ch. xv), serving in the Low Countries in 1572–4, the Newfoundland voyage in 1578–9, and the Low Countries again in 1585–6. His chief literary associates were Thomas Churchyard and George Gascoigne.

After writing his one play, _Promos and Cassandra_, he translated its source, the 5th Novel of the 8th Decade of Giraldi Cinthio’s _Hecatomithi_ (1565) in his _Heptameron of Civil Discourses_ (1582). Both Italian and English are in Hazlitt, _Shakespeare’s Library_ (1875, iii). Like some other dramatists, Whetstone turned upon the stage, and attacked it in his _Touchstone for the Time_ (1584; cf. App. C, No. xxxvi).

_Promos and Cassandra. 1578_

_S. R._ 1578, July 31. ‘The famous historie of Promos and Casandra Devided into twoe Comicall Discourses Compiled by George Whetstone gent.’ _Richard Jones_ (Arber, ii. 334).

1578. The Right Excellent and famous Historye, of Promos and Cassandra; Deuided into two Commicall Discourses.... The worke of George Whetstones Gent. _Richard Jones._ [Epistles to his ‘kinsman’ William Fleetwood, dated 29 July 1578, and signed ‘George Whetstone’, and from the Printer to the Reader, signed ‘R.I.’; Argument; Text signed ‘G. Whetstone’; Colophon with imprint and date ‘August 20, 1578’.]

_Editions_ in _Six Old Plays_, i. 1 (1779), and by W. C. Hazlitt, _Shakespeare’s Library_, vi. 201 (1875), and J. S. Farmer (1910, _T. F. T._). There are two parts, arranged in acts and scenes. Whetstone’s epistle is of some critical interest (cf. App. C, No. xix). In the _Heptameron_ he says the play was ‘yet never presented upon stage’. The character of the s.ds. suggests, however, that it was written for presentation.

NATHANIEL WIBURNE (_c._ 1597).

Possible author of the academic _Machiavellus_ (cf. App. K).

GEORGE WILKINS (_fl._ 1604–8).

Lee (_D. N. B._) after personally consulting the register of St. Leonard’s Shoreditch, confirms the extract in Collier, iii. 348, of the burial on 19 Aug. 1603 of ‘George Wilkins, the poet’. It must therefore be assumed that the date of 9 Aug. 1613 given for the entry by T. E. Tomlins in _Sh. Soc. Papers_, i. 34, from Ellis’s _History of Shoreditch_ (1798) is an error, and that the ‘poet’ was distinct from the dramatist. Nothing is known of Wilkins except that he wrote pamphlets from _c._ 1604 to 1608, and towards the end of that period was also engaged in play-writing both for the King’s and the Queen’s men. A George Wilkins of St. Sepulchre’s, described as a victualler and aged 36, was a fellow witness with Shakespeare in _Belott v. Mountjoy_ on 19 June 1612 (C. W. Wallace, _N. U. S._ x. 289).

_The Miseries of Enforced Marriage. 1607_

_S. R._ 1607, July 31 (Buck). ‘A tragedie called the Miserye of inforced Marriage.’ _George Vyncent_ (Arber, iii. 357).

1607. The Miseries of Inforst Manage. As it is now playd by his Maiesties Seruants. By George Wilkins. _For George Vincent._

1611; 1629; 1637.

_Editions_ in Dodsley^{2–4} (1780–1874) and by W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ ii) and J. S. Farmer (1913, _S. F. T._).

The play, which was based on the life of Walter Calverley, as given in pamphlets of 1605, appears to have been still on the stage when it was printed. An allusion in III. ii to fighting with a windmill implies some knowledge of Don Quixote, but of this there are other traces by 1607. The Clown is called Robin in II. ii, and Fleay, ii. 276, suggests that Armin took the part. He comes in singing:

From London am I come,
Though not with pipe and drum,

in reference to Kempe’s morris.

_Doubtful Plays_

Wilkins probably wrote Acts I, II of _Pericles_, and it has been suggested that he also wrote certain scenes of _Timon of Athens_; but the relation of his work to Shakespeare’s cannot be gone into here.

The anonymous _Yorkshire Tragedy_ has also been ascribed to him.

ROBERT WILMOT (> 1566–91 <).

A student of the Inner Temple, and afterwards Rector of North Ockendon, Essex, from 28 Nov. 1582 and of Horndon-on-the-Hill, Essex, from 2 Dec. 1585. William Webbe, _A Discourse of English Poetry_ (ed. Arber, 35), commends his writing.

_Tancred and Gismund. 1566_ (?)

Written with Rod. Staff[ord], Hen[ry] No[el], G. Al. and Chr[istopher] Hat[ton].

[_MSS._] (_a_) _Lansdowne MS._ 786, f. 1, ‘Gismond of Salern in Loue’.

(_b_) _Brit. Mus. Hargrave MS._ 205, f. 9, ‘The Tragedie of Gismond of Salerne’.

[Both MSS. have three sonnets ‘of the Quenes maydes’, and Prologue and Epilogue.]

(_c_) A fragment, now unknown, formerly belonging to Milton’s father-in-law, Richard Powell.

1591. The Tragedie of Tancred and Gismund. Compiled by the Gentlemen of the Inner Temple, and by them presented before her Maiestie. Newly reuiued and polished according to the decorum of these daies. By R. W. _Thomas Scarlet, sold by R. Robinson._ [Epistles to Lady Mary Peter and Lady Anne Gray, signed ‘Robert Wilmot’; to R. W. signed ‘Guil. Webbe’ and dated ‘Pyrgo in Essex August the eighth 1591’; to the Inner and Middle Temple and other Readers, signed ‘R. Wilmot’; two Sonnets (2 and 3 of MSS.); Arguments; Prologue; Epilogue signed ‘R. W.’; Introductiones (dumb-shows). Some copies are dated 1592.]

_Editions_ in Dodsley^{1–4} (1744–1874) and by J. S. Farmer (1912, _S. F. T._) from 1591, and by A. Brandl (1898, _Q. W. D._) and J. W. Cunliffe (1912, _E. E. C. T._) and J. S. Farmer (_S. F. T._) from MS.--_Dissertations_: J. W. Cunliffe, _Gismond of Salerne_ (1906, _M. L. A._ xxi. 435); A. Klein, _The Decorum of These Days_ (1918, _M. L. A._ xxxiii. 244).

The MSS. represent the play as originally produced, probably, from an allusion in one of the sonnets, at Greenwich. The print represents a later revision by Wilmot, involving much re-writing and the insertion of new scenes and the dumb-shows. Webbe’s epistle is an encouragement to Wilmot to publish his ‘waste papers’, and refers to _Tancred_ as ‘framed’ by the Inner Temple, and to Wilmot as ‘disrobing him of his antique curiosity and adorning him with the approved guise of our stateliest English terms’. Wilmot’s own Epistle to the Readers apologizes for the indecorum of publishing a play, excuses it by the example of Beza’s _Abraham_ and Buchanan’s _Jephthes_, and refers to ‘the love that hath been these twenty-four years betwixt’ himself and Gismund. This seems to date the original production in 1567. But I find no evidence that Elizabeth was at Greenwich in 1567. Shrovetide 1566 seems the nearest date at which a play is likely to have been given there. Wilmot was clearly not the sole author of the original play; to Act I he affixes ‘_Exegit Rod. Staff._’; to Act II, ‘_Per Hen. No._’; to Act III, ‘_G. Al._’; to Act IV, ‘_Composuit Chr. Hat._’; to the Epilogue, ‘_R. W._’ Probably Act V, which has no indication of authorship, was also his own.

W. H. Cooke, _Students Admitted to the Inner Temple, 1547–1660_ (1878), gives the admission of Christopher Hatton in 1559–60, but Wilmot is not traceable in the list; nor are Hen. No., G. Al., or Rod. Staff. But the first may be Elizabeth’s Gentleman Pensioner, Henry Noel (q.v.), and Cunliffe, lxxxvi, notes that a ‘Master Stafford’ was fined £5 for refusing to act as Marshal at the Inner Temple in 1556–7.

_Doubtful Play_

Hazlitt assigns to Wilmot _The Three Ladies of London_, but the R. W. of the title-page is almost certainly Robert Wilson (q.v.).

ROBERT WILSON (> 1572–1600).

For Wilson’s career as an actor and a discussion as to whether there was more than one dramatist of the name, cf. ch. xv.

_The Three Ladies of London. c. 1581_

1584. A right excellent and famous Comœdy called the three Ladies of London. Wherein is notably declared and set foorth, how by the meanes of Lucar, Love and Conscience is so corrupted, that the one is married to Dissimulation, the other fraught with all abhomination. A perfect patterne for all Estates to looke into, and a worke right worthie to be marked. Written by R. W. as it hath been publiquely played. _Roger Warde._ [Prologue. At end of play ‘Paule Bucke’ (an actor; cf. ch. xv).]

1592. _John Danter._

_Editions_ by J. P. Collier, _Five Old Plays_ (1851, _Roxb. Club_), in Dodsley^4 (1874), vi, and by J. S. Farmer (1911, _T. F. T._).

The stylistic resemblance of this to the next two plays justifies the attribution to Wilson, although Hazlitt suggests Wilmot. Gosson describes the play in 1582 (_P. C._ 185) together with a play in answer called _London Against the Three Ladies_, but does not indicate whether either play was then in print. In B ii Peter’s pence are dated as ‘not muche more than 26 yeares, it was in Queen Maries time’. As the Act reviving Peter’s pence was passed in the winter of 1554–5, the play was probably written in 1581.

_The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London. c. 1589_

_S. R._ 1590, July 31 (Wood). ‘A comodie of the plesant and statelie morrall of the Three lordes of London.’ _Richard Jones_ (Arber, ii. 556).

1590. The Pleasant and Stately Morall, of the three Lordes and three Ladies of London. With the great Joy and Pompe, Solempnized at their Mariages: Commically interlaced with much honest Mirth, for pleasure and recreation, among many Morall obseruations and other important matters of due regard. By R. W. _R. Jones._ [Woodcut, on which cf. _Bibl. Note_ to ch. xviii; ‘Preface’, i.e. prologue.]

_Editions_ by J. P. Collier (1851, _Five Old Plays_), in Dodsley^4, vi. 371 (1874), and by J. S. Farmer (1912, _T. F. T._).--_Dissertation_: H. Fernow, _The 3 L. and 3 L. By R. W._ (1885, _Hamburg programme_).

Fleay, ii. 280, fixes the date by the allusions (C, C^v) to the recent death of Tarlton (q.v.) in Sept. 1588.

_The Cobbler’s Prophecy > 1594_

_S. R._ 1594, June 8. ‘A booke intituled the Coblers prophesie.’ _Cuthbert Burby_ (Arber, ii. 653).

1594. The Coblers Prophesie. Written by Robert Wilson, Gent. _John Danter for Cuthbert Burby._

_Editions_ by W. Dibelius (1897, _Jahrbuch_, xxxiii. 3), J. S. Farmer (1911, _T. F. T._), and A. C. Wood (1914, _M. S. R._).

The general character of this play, with its reference (i. 36) to an audience who ‘sit and see’ and its comfits cast, suggests the Court rather than the popular stage.

_Doubtful Plays_

Wilson’s hand has been sought in _Clyomon and Clamydes_, _Fair Em_, _Knack to Know a Knave_, _Pedlar’s Prophecy_ (cf. ch. xxiv).

_Lost Plays_

_Short and Sweet_ (_c._ 1579). _Vide Catiline’s Conspiracy_ (_infra_).

The following is a complete list of plays for the Admiral’s men in which a share is assigned to Wilson by Henslowe:

(i, ii) _1, 2, Earl Godwin and his Three Sons._

With Chettle, Dekker, and Drayton, March-June 1598.

(iii) _Pierce of Exton._

With Chettle, Dekker, and Drayton, April, 1598; but apparently unfinished.

(iv) _1 Black Bateman of the North._

With Chettle, Dekker, and Drayton, May 1598.

(v) _2 Black Bateman of the North._

With Chettle, June 1598.

(vi) _Funeral of Richard Cœur-de-Lion._

With Chettle, Drayton, and Munday, June 1598.

(vii) _The Madman’s Morris._

With Dekker and Drayton, July 1598.

(viii) _Hannibal and Hermes._

With Dekker and Drayton, July 1598.

(ix) _Pierce of Winchester._

With Dekker and Drayton, July–Aug. 1598.

(x) _Chance Medley._

With Chettle or Dekker, Drayton, and Munday, Aug. 1598.

(xi) _Catiline’s Conspiracy._

With Chettle, Aug. 1598; but apparently not finished; unless the fact that the authors only received one ‘earnest’ of £1 5_s._ was due to the play being no more than a revision of Wilson’s old _Short and Sweet_, which Lodge (cf. App. C, No. xxiii) contrasts about 1579 with Gosson’s play on Catiline.

(xii, xiii) _1, 2 Sir John Oldcastle._

With Drayton (q.v.), Hathaway, and Munday, Oct.–Dec. 1599.

(xiv) _2 Henry Richmond._

Nov. 1599, apparently with others, as shown by Robert Shaw’s order for payment (Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 49), on which a scenario of one act is endorsed.

(xv) _Owen Tudor._

With Drayton, Hathaway, and Munday, Jan. 1600; but apparently not finished.

(xvi) _1 Fair Constance of Rome._

June 1600. The Diary gives the payments as made to Dekker, Drayton, Hathaway, and Munday, but a letter of 14 June from Robert Shaw (Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 55) indicates that Wilson had a fifth share.

ANTHONY WINGFIELD (_c._ 1550–1615).

Possible author of the academic _Pedantius_ (cf. App. K).

NATHANIEL WOODES (?).

A minister of Norwich, only known as author of the following play.

_The Conflict of Conscience. > 1581_

1581. An excellent new Commedie Intituled: The Conflict of Conscience. Contayninge, A most lamentable example, of the dolefull desperation of a miserable worldlinge, termed, by the name of Philologus, who forsooke the trueth of God’s Gospel, for feare of the losse of lyfe, & worldly goods. Compiled, by Nathaniell Woodes, Minister, in Norwich. _Richard Bradocke._ [Prologue.]

_Editions_ by J. P. Collier (1851, _Five Old Plays_), in Dodsley^4, vi. 29 (1874), and by J. S. Farmer (1911, _T. F. T._).

The characters are allegorical, typical and personal and arranged for six actors ‘most convenient for such as be disposed either to shew this Comedie in private houses or otherwise’. Philologus is Francis Spiera, a pervert to Rome about the middle of the sixteenth century. The play is strongly Protestant, and is probably much earlier than 1581. It is divided into a prologue and acts and scenes. Act VI is practically an epilogue.

HENRY WOTTON (1568–1639).

Izaak Walton (_Reliquiae Wottonianae_, 1651) tells us that, while a student at Queen’s College, Oxford, in 1586, Wotton ‘was by the chief of that College, persuasively enjoined to write a play for their private use;--it was the Tragedy of Tancredo--which was so interwoven with sentences, and for the method and exact personating those humours, passions, and dispositions, which he proposed to represent, so performed, that the gravest of that society declared, he had, in a slight employment, given an early and a solid testimony of his future abilities’.

CHRISTOPHER WREN (1591–1658).

Author of the academic _Physiponomachia_ (cf. App. K).

ROBERT YARINGTON (_c._ 1601?).

Nothing is known of Yarington, but this is hardly sufficient reason for denying him the ascription of the title-page.

_Two Lamentable Tragedies. 1594 < > 1601_

1601. Two Lamentable Tragedies. The one, of the murder of Maister Beech a Chaundler in Thames-streete, and his boye, done by Thomas Merry. The other of a young childe murthered in a Wood by two Ruffins, with the consent of his Vnckle. By Rob. Yarington. _For Mathew Lawe._ [Running title, ‘Two Tragedies in One.’ Induction.]

_Editions_ by A. H. Bullen (1885, _O. E. P._ iv) and J. S. Farmer (1913, _S. F. T._).--_Dissertation_: R. A. Law, _Y.’s T. L. T._ (1910, _M. L. R._ v. 167).

This deals in alternate scenes with (_a_) the murder of Beech by Merry on 23 Aug. 1594, and (_b_) a version, with an Italian setting, of the Babes in the Wood, on which a ballad, with a Norfolk setting, was licensed in 1595. Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 208, following a hint of Fleay, ii. 285, connects the play with Henslowe’s entries of payments, on behalf of the Admiral’s, (i) of £5 in Nov. and Dec. 1599 to Day and Haughton for _Thomas Merry_ or _Beech’s Tragedy_, (ii) of 10_s._ in Nov. 1599 and 10_s._ in Sept. 1601 to Chettle for _The Orphan’s Tragedy_, and (iii) of £2 to Day in Jan. 1600 for an Italian tragedy. He supposes that (ii) and (iii) were the same play, that it was finished, and that in 1601 Chettle combined it with (i), possibly dropping out Day’s contributions to both pieces. Yarington he dismisses as a scribe. In the alternate scenes of the extant version he discerns distinct hands, presumably those of Haughton and Chettle respectively. Law does not think that there are necessarily two hands at all, finds imitation of _Leire_ (1594) in scenes belonging to both plots, and reinstates Yarington. Oliphant (_M. P._ viii. 435) boldly conjectures that ‘Rob. Yarington’ might be a misreading of ‘W^m Haughton’. Bullen thought that this play, _Arden of Feversham_, and _A Warning for Fair Women_ might all be by the same hand.

CHRISTOPHER YELVERTON (_c._ 1535–1612).

Yelverton entered Gray’s Inn in 1552. He is mentioned as a poet in Jasper Heywood’s verses before Thomas Newton’s translation (1560) of Seneca’s _Thyestes_, and wrote an epilogue to the Gray’s Inn _Jocasta_ of Gascoigne (q.v.) and Kinwelmershe in 1566. He also helped to devise the dumb-shows for the Gray’s Inn _Misfortunes of Arthur_ of Thomas Hughes (q.v.) on 28 Feb. 1588. He became a Justice of the Queen’s Bench on 2 Feb. 1602 and was knighted on 23 July 1603.

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AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Cf. ch. xxii.

[2] _Quarterly Review_ (April 1908), 446.

[3] A copy at Berlin of the Strassburg _Terence_ of 1496 has the manuscript note to the engraving of the _Theatrum_, ‘ein offen stat der weltlichkeit da man zu sicht, ubi fiunt chorei, ludi et de alijs leutitatibus, sicut nos facimus oster spill’ (Herrmann, 300). Leo Battista Alberti’s _De Re Edificatoria_ was written about 1451 and printed in 1485. Vitruvius, _De Architectura_, v. 3–9, deals with the theatre. The essential passage on the scene is v. 6, 8–9 ‘Ipsae autem scenae suas habent rationes explicitas ita, uti mediae valvae ornatus habeant aulae regiae, dextra ac sinistra hospitalia, secundum autem spatia ad ornatus comparata, quae loca Graeci περιάκτους dicunt ab eo, quod machinae sunt in his locis versatiles trigonoe habentes singulares species ornationis, quae, cum aut fabularum mutationes sunt futurae seu deorum adventus, cum tonitribus repentinis [ea] versentur mutentque speciem ornationis in frontes. secundum ea loca versurae sunt procurrentes, quae efficiunt una a foro, altera a peregre aditus in scaenam. genera autem sunt scaenarum tria: unum quod dicitur tragicum, alterum comicum, tertium satyricum. horum autem ornatus sunt inter se dissimili disparique ratione, quod tragicae deformantur columnis et fastigiis et signis reliquisque regalibus rebus; comicae autem aedificiorum privatorum et maenianorum habent speciem prospectusque fenestris dispositos imitatione, communium aedificiorum rationibus; satyricae vero ornantur arboribus, speluncis, montibus reliquisque agrestibus rebus in topeodis speciem deformati’; cf. G. Lanson, in _Revue de la Renaissance_ (1904), 72.

[4] ‘Tu enim primus Tragoediae ... in medio foro pulpitum ad quinque pedum altitudinem erectum pulcherrime exornasti: eamdemque, postquam in Hadriani mole ... est acta, rursus intra tuos penates, tamquam in media Circi cavea, toto consessu umbraculis tecto, admisso populo et pluribus tui ordinis spectatoribus honorifice excepisti. Tu etiam primus picturatae scenae faciem, quum Pomponiani comoediam agerent, nostro saeculo ostendisti’; cf. Marcantonius Sabellicus, _Vita Pomponii_ (_Op._ 1502, f. 55), ‘Pari studio veterum spectandi consuetudinem desuetae civitati restituit, primorum Antistitum atriis suo theatro usus, in quibus Plauti, Terentii, recentiorum etiam quaedam agerentur fabulae, quas ipse honestos adolescentes et docuit, et agentibus praefuit’; cf. also D’Ancona, ii. 65; Creizenach, ii. 1.

[5] D’Ancona, ii. 74.

[6] D’Ancona, ii. 84; Herrmann, 353; Flechsig, 51. The scenic wall is described in the contemporary narrative of P. Palliolo, _Le Feste pel Conferimento del Patriziato Romano a Giuliano e Lorenzo de’ Medici_ (ed. O. Guerrini, 1885), 45, 63, ‘Guardando avanti, se appresenta la fronte della scena, in v compassi distinta per mezzo di colonne quadre, con basi e capitelli coperti de oro. In ciascuno compasso è uno uscio di grandezza conveniente a private case.... La parte inferiore di questa fronte di quattro frigi è ornata.... A gli usci delle scene furono poste portiere di panno de oro. El proscenio fu coperto tutto di tapeti con uno ornatissimo altare in mezzo.’ The side-doors were in ‘le teste del proscenio’ (Palliolo, 98). I have not seen M. A. Altieri, _Giuliano de’ Medici, eletto cittadino Romano_ (ed. L. Pasqualucci, 1881), or N. Napolitano, _Triumphi de gli mirandi Spettaculi_ (1519). Altieri names an untraceable Piero Possello as the architect; Guerrini suggests Pietro Rossello.

[7] D’Ancona, ii. 128, from _Diario Ferrarese_, ‘in lo suo cortile ... fu fato suso uno tribunale di legname, con case v merlade, con una finestra e uscio per ciascuna: poi venne una fusta di verso le caneve e cusine, e traversò il cortile con dieci persone dentro con remi e vela, del naturale’; Bapt. Guarinus, _Carm._ iv:

Et remis puppim et velo sine fluctibus actam
Vidimus in portus nare, Epidamne, tuos,
Vidimus effictam celsis cum moenibus urbem,
Structaque per latas tecta superba vias.
Ardua creverunt gradibus spectacula multis,
Velaruntque omnes stragula picta foros.

[8] D’Ancona, ii. 129.

[9] Ibid. 130.

[10] Ibid. 132, 135. The two Marsigli, with Il Bianchino and Nicoletto Segna, appear to have painted scenes and ships for the earlier Ferrarese productions.

[11] Ibid. 134.

[12] Ibid. 381, from G. Campori, _Lettere artistiche inedite_, 5, ‘Era la sua forma quadrangula, protensa alquanto in longitudine: li doi lati l’uno al altro de rimpecto, havevano per ciaschuno octo architravi con colonne ben conrespondenti et proportionate alla larghezza et alteza de dicti archi: le base et capitelli pomposissimamente con finissimi colori penti, et de fogliami ornati, representavano alla mente un edificio eterne ed antiquo, pieno de delectatione: li archi con relevo di fiori rendevano prospectiva mirabile: la largheza di ciascheuno era braza quactro vel cerca: la alteza proporzionata ad quella. Dentro nel prospecto eran panni d’oro et alcune verdure, si come le recitationi recerchavano: una delle bande era ornata delli sei quadri del Cesareo triumpho per man del singulare Mantengha: li doi altri lati discontro erano con simili archi, ma de numero inferiore, che chiascheuno ne haveva sei. Doj bande era scena data ad actorj et recitatorj: le doe altre erano ad scalini, deputati per le donne et daltro, per todeschi, trombecti et musici. Al jongere del’ angulo de un de’ grandi et minorj lati, se vedevano quactro altissime colonne colle basi orbiculate, le quali sustentavano quactro venti principali: fra loro era una grocta, benchè facta ad arte, tamen naturalissima: sopra quella era un ciel grande fulgentissimo de varij lumi, in modo de lucidissime stelle, con una artificiata rota de segni, al moto de’ quali girava mo il sole, mo la luna nelle case proprie: dentro era la rota de Fortuna con sei tempi: _regno_, _regnavj_, _regnabo_: in mezo resideva la dea aurea con un sceptro con un delphin. Dintorno alla scena al frontespitio da basso era li triumphi del Petrarcha, ancor loro penti per man del p^o. Mantengha: sopra eran candelierj vistosissimi deaurati tucti: nel mezo era un scudo colle arme per tucto della C^a. M^g.; sopra la aquila aurea bicapitata col regno et diadema imperiale: ciascheuno teneva tre doppieri; ad ogni lato era le insegne. Alli doi maiorj, quelle della S^{ta}. de N. S. et quelle della Cesarea Maestà: alli minorj lati quelle del C^o. Sig. Re, et quelle della Ill^{ma}. Sig^a. da Venetia; tra li archi pendevano poi quelle de V. Ex., quelle del Sig. duca Alberto Alemano: imprese de Sig. Marchese et Sig^a. Marchesana: sopre erano più alte statue argentate, aurate et de più colorj metallici, parte tronche, parte integre, che assai ornavano quel loco: poi ultimo era il cielo de panno torchino, stellato con quelli segni che quella sera correvano nel nostro hemisperio.’ Flechsig, 26, thinks that the architect was Ercole Albergati (Il Zafarano).

[13] D’Ancona, i. 485; _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 79, 83, 135.

[14] Ferrari, 50; D’Ancona, ii. 1, give examples of these at Ferrara and elsewhere. The _Favola d’Orfeo_, originally produced about 1471, seems to have been recast as _Orphei tragedia_ for Ferrara in 1486. It had five acts, _Pastorale_, _Ninfale_, _Eroico_, _Negromantico_, _Baccanale_; in the fourth, the way to hell and hell itself were shown--‘duplici actu haec scena utitur’.

[15] J. W. Cunliffe, _Early English Classical Tragedies_, xl; F. A. Foster, in _E. S._ xliv. 8.

[16] Herrmann, 280, 284; cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 208.

[17] Translation by Hans Nithart, printed by C. Dinckmut (Ulm, 1486); cf. Herrmann, 292, who reproduces specimen cuts from this and the other sources described.

[18] Edition printed by Johannes Trechsel (Lyons, 1493); cf. Herrmann, 300. The editor claims for the woodcuts that ‘effecimus, ut etiam illitteratus ex imaginibus, quas cuilibet scenae praeposuimus, legere atque accipere comica argumenta valeat’. Badius also edited a Paris _Terence_ of 1502, with _Praenotamenta_ based on Vitruvius and other classical writers, in which he suggests the use in antiquity of ‘tapeta ... qualia nunc fiunt in Flandria’.

[19] Edition printed by Johannes Grüninger (Strassburg, 1496); cf. Herrmann, 318.

[20] Editions printed by Lazarus Soardus (Venice, 1497 and 1499); cf. Herrmann, 346. The _Theatrum_ and other cuts are also reproduced in _The Mask_ for July 1909.

[21] Flechsig, 84, citing as possibly a stage design an example of idealized architecture inscribed ‘Bramanti Architecti Opus’ and reproduced by E. Müntz, _Hist. de l’Art pendant la Renaissance_, ii. 299. Bramante was at Rome about 1505, and was helped on St. Peter’s by Baldassarre Peruzzi. But there is nothing obviously scenic in the drawing.

[22] D’Ancona, ii. 394, ‘Ma quello che è stato il meglio in tutte queste feste e representationi, è stato tute le sene, dove si sono representate, quale ha facto uno M^o. Peregrino depintore, che sta con il Sig^{re}.; ch’ è una contracta et prospettiva di una terra cum case, chiesie, campanili et zardini, che la persona non si può satiare a guardarla per le diverse cose che ge sono, tute de inzegno et bene intese, quale non credo se guasti, ma che la salvaràno per usarla de le altre fiate’.

[23] Ibid., ‘il caso accadete a Ferrara’.

[24] Ibid. 102, ‘La scena poi era finta una città bellissima con le strade, palazzi, chiese, torri, strade vere, e ogni cosa di rilevo, ma ajutata ancora da bonissima pintura e prospettiva bene intesa’; the description has further details. Genga is not named, but Serlio (cf. App. G) speaks of his theatrical work for Duke Francesco Maria of Urbino (succ. 1508). Vasari, vi. 316, says that he had also done stage designs for Francesco’s predecessor Guidobaldo.

[25] Vasari, iv. 600. Some of Peruzzi’s designs for _Calandra_ are in the Uffizi; Ferrari (tav. vi) reproduces one.

[26] D’Ancona, ii. 89, ‘Sonandosi li pifari si lasciò cascare la tela; dove era pinto Fra Mariano con alcuni Diavoli che giocavano con esso da ogni lato della tela; et poi a mezzo della tela vi era un breve che dicea: _Questi sono li capricci di Fra Mariano_; et sonandosi tuttavia, et il Papa mirando con il suo occhiale la scena, che era molto bella, di mano di Raffaele, et rappresentava si bene per mia fè forami di prospective, et molto furono laudate, et mirando ancora il cielo, che molto si rappresentava bello, et poi li candelieri, che erano formati in lettere, che ogni lettera substenìa cinque torcie, et diceano: _Leo Pon. Maximus_’.

[27] Ariosto, _Orlando Furioso_, xxxii. 80:

Quale al cader de le cortine suole
Parer, fra mille lampade, la scena,
D’archi, et di più d’una superba mole
D’oro, e di statue e di pitture piena.

This passage was added in the edition of 1532, but a more brief allusion in that of 1516 (xliii. 10, ‘Vo’ levarti dalla scena i panni’) points to the use of a curtain, rising rather than falling, before 1519; cf. p. 31; vol. i, p. 181; Creizenach, ii. 299; Lawrence (i. 111), _The Story of a Peculiar Stage Curtain_.

[28] Ferrari (tav. xii) reproduces from _Uffizi_, 5282, an idealization by Serlio of the _piazzetta_ of S. Marco at Venice as a _scenario_.

[29] Cf. App. G. Book ii first appeared in French (1545).

[30] De Sommi, _Dial._ iv (_c._ 1565, D’Ancona, ii. 419), ‘Ben che paia di certa vaghezza il vedersi in scena una camera aperta, ben parata, dentro a la quale, dirò così per esempio, uno amante si consulti con una ruffiana, et che paia aver del verisimile, è però tanto fuor del naturale esser la stanza senza il muro dinanzi, il che necessariamente far bisogna, che a me ne pare non molto convenirsi: oltre che non so se il recitare in quel loco, si potrà dire che sia in scena. Ben si potrà per fuggir questi due inconvenienti, aprire come una loggia od un verone dove rimanesse alcuno a ragionare’.

[31] Creizenach, ii. 271.

[32] Ferrari, 105, with engravings; A. Magrini, _Il teatro Olympico_ (1847). This is noticed by the English travellers, Fynes Morison, _Itinerary_, i. 2. 4 (ed. 1907, i. 376), ‘a Theater for Playes, which was little, but very faire and pleasant’, and T. Coryat, _Crudities_, ii. 7, ‘The scene also is a very faire and beautifull place to behold’. He says the house would hold 3,000. In _Histriomastix_, ii. 322, the ‘base trash’ of Sir Oliver Owlet’s players is compared unfavourably with the splendour of Italian theatres. A permanent theatre had been set up in the _Sala grande_ of the Corte Vecchia at Ferrara in 1529, with scenery by Dosso Dossi representing Ferrara, for a revival of the _Cassaria_ and the production of Ariosto’s _Lena_; it was burnt down, just before Ariosto’s death, in 1532 (Flechsig, 23; Gardner, _King of Court Poets_, 203, 239, 258).

[33] Probably some temporary additions to the permanent decoration of the _scena_ was possible, as Ferrari (tav. xv) gives a design for a _scenario_ by Scamozzi.

[34] Ferrari, 100.

[35] Engravings, by Jean de Gourmont and another, of this type of stage are reproduced by Bapst, 145, 153, and by Rigal in Petit de Julleville, iii. 264, 296; cf. M. B. Evans, _An Early Type of Stage_ (_M. P._ ix. 421).

[36] Cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 217.

[37] Baschet, 6; D’Ancona, ii. 456; H. Prunières, _L’Opéra Italien en France_ (1913), xx; A. Solerti, _La rappresentazione della Calandra a Lione nel 1548_ (1901, _Raccolta di Studii Critici ded. ad A. d’ Ancona_), from _La Magnifica et Triumphale Entrata del Christianissimo Re di Francia Henrico Secundo_ (1549).

[38] Cf. ch. xiv (Italians).

[39] D’Ancona, ii. 457.

[40] Brantôme, _Recueil des Dames_, i. 2 (_[OE]uvres_, ed. 1890, x. 47), ‘Elle eut opinion qu’elle avoit porté malheur aux affaires du royaume, ainsi qu’il succéda; elle n’en fit plus jouer’. Ingegneri says of tragedies, ‘Alcuni oltra dicio le stimano di triste augurio’.

[41] E. Rigal in _Rev. d’Hist. Litt._ xii. 1, 203; cf. the opposite view of J. Haraszti in xi. 680 and xvi. 285.

[42] Sainte-Marthe, _Elogia_ (1606), 175.

[43] G. Lanson in _Rev. d’Hist. Litt._ x. 432. In _Northward Hoe_, iv. 1, Bellamont is writing a tragedy of Astyanax, which he will have produced ‘in the French court by French gallants’, with ‘the stage hung all with black velvet’.

[44] Lanson, _loc. cit._ 422. A description of a tragi-comedy called _Genièvre_, based on Ariosto, at Fontainebleau in 1564 neglects the staging, but gives a picture of the audience as

une jeune presse
De tous costez sur les tapis tendus,
Honnestement aux girons espandus
De leur maîtresse.

B. Rossi’s _Fiammella_ was given at Paris in 1584 with a setting of ‘boschi’.

[45] Lanson, _loc. cit._ 424.

[46] The plan is in J. A. Du Cerceau, _Les Plus Excellens Bastimens de France_ (1576–9), and is reproduced in W. H. Ward, _French Châteaux and Gardens in the Sixteenth Century_, 14; cf. R. Blomfield, _Hist. of French Architecture_, i. 81, who, however, thinks that Du Cerceau’s ‘bastiment en manière de théâtre’ was not the long room, but the open courtyard, in the form of a square with concave angles and semicircular projections on each side, which occupies the middle of the block.

[47] Prunières, _Ballet de Cour_, 72, 134.

[48] Bapst, 147, reproduces an example. This is apparently the type of French stage described by J. C. Scaliger, _Poetice_ (1561), i. 21, ‘Nunc in Gallia ita agunt fabulas, ut omnia in conspectu sint; universus apparatus dispositis sublimibus sedibus. Personae ipsae nunquam discedunt: qui silent pro absentibus habentur’.

[49] Rigal, 36, 46, 53.

[50] The full text is printed by E. Dacier from _B. N. f. fr._ 24330 in _Mémoires de la Soc. de l’Hist. de Paris_ (1901), xxviii. 105, and is analysed by Rigal, 247. The designs have recently (1920) been published in H. C. Lancaster’s edition; reproductions, from the originals or from models made for the Exposition of 1878, will be found of Durval’s _Agarite_ in Rigal, f.p., Lawrence, i. 241, Thorndike, 154; of Hardy’s _Cornélie_ in Rigal, _Alexandre Hardy_ (1890), f.p., Bapst, 185; of _Pandoste_ in Jusserand, _Shakespeare in France_, 71, 75; of Mairet’s _Sylvanire_ in E. Faguet, _Hist. de la Litt. Fr._ ii. 31; and of _Pyrame et Thisbé_, Corneille’s _L’Illusion Comique_, and Du Ryer’s _Lisandre et Caliste_ in Petit de Julleville, _Hist._ iv. 220, 270, 354.

[51] ‘Il faut un antre ... d’où sort un hermite’ (Dacier, 116), ‘une fenestre qui soit vis à vis d’une autre fenestre grillée pour la prison, où Lisandre puisse parler à Caliste’ (116), ‘un beau palais eslevé de trois ou quatre marches’ (117), ‘un palais ou sénat fort riche’ (117), ‘une case où il y ayt pour enseigne L’Ormeau’ (117), ‘une mer’ (117), ‘une tente’ (121), ‘un hermitage où l’on monte et descend’ (123), ‘une fenestre où se donne une lettre’ (124), ‘une tour, une corde nouée pour descendre de la tour, un pont-levis qui se lâche quand il est nécessaire’ (125), ‘une sortie d’un roy en forme de palais’ (127).

[52] ‘Il faut aussy une belle chambre, une table, deux tabourets, une écritoire’ (117), ‘une belle chambre, où il y ayt un beau lict, des sièges pour s’asseoir; la dicte chambre s’ouvre et se ferme plusieurs fois’ (121), ‘forme de salle garnie de sièges où l’on peint une dame’ (126).

[53] Dacier, 119.

[54] Ibid. 119.

[55] ‘Forme de fontaine en grotte coulante ou de peinture’ (Dacier, 127); ‘Au milieu du théâtre, dit la persepective, doit avoir une grande boutique d’orfèvre, fort superbe d’orfèvrerie et autre joyaux’ (136); ‘Il faut deux superbes maisons ornées de peinture; au milieu du théâtre, une persepective où il y ait deux passages entre les deux maisons’ (137).

[56] ‘Il faut que le théâtre soit tout en pastoralle, antres, verdures, et fleurs’ (116), ‘Il faut ... le petit Chastellet de la rue Saint Jacques, et faire paroistre une rue où sont les bouchers’ (116), ‘en pastoralle à la discrétion du feinteur’ (124), ‘Il faut le théâtre en rues et maisons’ (129, for Rotrou’s _Les Ménechmes_), ‘La décoration du théâtre doit estre en boutique’ (136), ‘le feinteur doit faire paraitre sur le théâtre la place Royalle ou l’imiter à peu près’ (133).

[57] ‘Il faut que cela soit caché durant le premier acte, et l’on ne faict paroistre cela qu’au second acte, et se referme au mesme acte’ (116), ‘un eschaffaut qui soit caché’ (117), ‘le vaisseau paraist au quatriesme acte’ (120). For the use of curtains to effect these discoveries, cf. Rigal, 243, 253, who, however, traces to a guess of Lemazurier, _Galerie Historique_, i. 4, the often repeated statement that to represent a change of scene ‘on levait ou on tirait une tapisserie, et cela se faisait jusqu’à dix ou douze fois dans la même pièce’.

[58] It is so, e.g., in the design for _Agarite_.

[59] ‘Non sic tolerari potest, ut longe lateque dissita loca in unum subito proscenium cogantur; qua in re per se absurdissima et nullo veterum exemplo comprobata nimium sibi hodie quidam indulserunt’; cf. Creizenach, ii. 102. Spingarn, _Literary Criticism in the Renaissance_, 89, 206, 290, discusses the origin of the unities, and cites Castelvetro, Poetica (1570), 534, ‘La mutatione tragica non può tirar con esso seco se non una giornata e un luogo’, and Jean de la Taille, _Art de Tragédie_ (1572), ‘Il faut toujours représenter l’histoire ou le jeu en un même jour, en un même temps, et en un même lieu’.

[60] _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 257; Lawrence (i. 123), _Early French Players in England_. It is only a guess of Mr. Lawrence’s that these visitors played _Maistre Pierre Patelin_, a farce which requires a background with more than one _domus_. Karl Young, in _M. P._ ii. 97, traces some influence of French farces on the work of John Heywood. There had been ‘Fransche-men that playt’ at Dundee in 1490, and ‘mynstrells of Fraunce’, not necessarily actors, played before Henry VII at Abingdon in 1507.

[61] Halle, i. 176.

[62] Halle, ii. 86.

[63] _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 196; cf. ch. xii (Paul’s). Spinelli’s letter is preserved in Marino Sanuto, _Diarii_, xlvi. 595, ‘La sala dove disnamo et si rapresentò la comedia haveva nella fronte una grande zoglia di bosso, che di mezzo conteneva in lettere d’oro: _Terentii Formio_. Da l’un di canti poi vi era in lettere antique in carta: _cedant arma togae_. Da l’altro: _Foedus pacis non movebitur_. Sotto poi la zoglia si vide: _honori et laudi pacifici_.... Per li altri canti de la sala vi erano sparsi de li altri moti pertinenti alla pace’.

[64] _V. P._ iv. 115 translates ‘zoglia di bosso’ as ‘a garland of box’, but Florio gives ‘soglia’ as ‘the threshold or hanse of a doore; also the transome or lintle over a dore’.

[65] Murray, ii. 168; cf. ch. xii (Westminster).

[66] Halle, ii. 109.

[67] Cf. ch. viii.

[68] The memorandum on the reform of the Revels office in 1573, which I attribute to Edward Buggin, tells us (_Tudor Revels_, 37; cf. ch. iii) that ‘The connynge of the office resteth in skill of devise, in vnderstandinge of historyes, in iudgement of comedies tragedyes and showes, in sight of perspective and architecture, some smacke of geometrye and other thynges’. If Sir George Buck, however, in 1612, thought that a knowledge of perspective was required by the Art of Revels, he veiled it under the expression ‘other arts’ (cf. ch. iii).

[69] _Mundus et Infans_, _Hickscorner_, _Youth_, _Johan Evangelist_, _Magnificence_, _Four Elements_, _Calisto and Melibaea_, _Nature_, _Love_, _Weather_, _Johan Johan_, _Pardoner and Friar_, _Four PP._, _Gentleness and Nobility_, _Witty and Witless_, _Kinge Johan_, _Godly Queen Hester_, _Wit and Science_, _Thersites_, with the fragmentary _Albion Knight_. To these must now be added Henry Medwall’s _Fulgens and Lucres_ (N.D., but 1500 <), formerly only known by a fragment (cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 458), but recently found in the Mostyn collection, described by F. S. Boas and A. W. Reed in _T. L. S._ (20 Feb. and 3 April 1919), and reprinted by S. de Ricci (1920).

[70] _Wealth and Health_, _Nice Wanton_, _Lusty Juventus_, _Impatient Poverty_, _Respublica_, _Jacob and Esau_, and perhaps _Enough is as Good as a Feast_, with the fragmentary _Love Feigned and Unfeigned_.

[71] _Trial of Treasure_, _Like Will to Like_, _The Longer Thou Livest, The More Fool Thou Art_, _Marriage of Wit and Science_, _Marriage between Wit and Wisdom_, _New Custom_, _The Tide Tarrieth no Man_, _All for Money_, _Disobedient Child_, _Conflict of Conscience_, _Pedlar’s Prophecy_, _Misogonus_, _Glass of Government_, _Three Ladies of London_, _King Darius_, _Mary Magdalene_, _Apius and Virginia_, with the fragmentary _Cruel Debtor_.

[72] For details of date and authorship cf. chh. xxiii, xxiv, and _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 439, 443. Albright, 29, attempts a classification on the basis of staging, but not, I think, very successfully.

[73] Cf. e.g. _Hickscorner_, 544; _Youth_, 84, 201, 590, 633; _Johan Johan_, 667; _Godly Queen Hester_, 201, 635, 886; _Wit and Science_, 969; _Wit and Wisdom_, 3, p. 60; _Nice Wanton_, 416; _Impatient Poverty_, 164, 726, 746, 861, 988; _Respublica_, V. i. 38; _Longer Thou Livest_, 628, 1234; _Conflict of Conscience_, III. i. 2; _et ad infinitum_. Characters in action are said to be in place. For the _platea_ cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 80, 135, but _Kinge Johan_, 1377, has a direction for an alarm ‘_extra locum_’.

[74] Cf. e.g. _Wit and Science_, 193, ‘Wyt speketh at the doore’; _Longer Thou Livest_, 523, ‘Betweene whiles let Moros put in his head’, 583, ‘Crie without the doore’, &c., &c.

[75] Cf. ch. vii.

[76] Cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, i. 216, and for the making of ‘room’ or ‘a hall’ for a mask, ch. v.

[77] Cf. M. L. Spencer, _Corpus Christi Pageants in England_, 184; Creizenach, ii. 101.

[78] Wallace, ii. 48, ‘The Blackfriars stage was elastic in depth as well as width, and could according to the demands of the given play be varied by curtains or traverses of any required number placed at any required distance between the balcony and the front of the stage’; Prölss, 89; Albright, 58; cf. p. 78.

[79] _Volpone_, v. 2801 (cf. p. 111); _White Devil_, V. iv. 70:

‘_Flamineo._ I will see them,
They are behind the travers. Ile discover
Their superstitious howling.

_Cornelia, the Moore and 3 other Ladies discovered, winding Marcello’s coarse_’;

_Duchess of Malfi_, IV. i. 54:

‘_Here is discover’d, behind a travers, the artificiall figures of Antonio and his children, appearing as if they were dead._’

[80] _Duke of Guise_, v. 3 (quoted by Albright, 58), ‘The scene draws, behind it a Traverse’, and later, ‘The Traverse is drawn. The King rises from his Chair, comes forward’.

[81] The Revels Accounts for 1511 (Brewer, ii. 1497) include 10_d._ for a rope used for a ‘travas’ in the hall at Greenwich and stolen during a disguising. Puttenham (1589), i. 17, in an attempt to reconstruct the methods of classical tragedy, says that the ‘floore or place where the players vttered ... had in it sundrie little diuisions by curteins as trauerses to serue for seueral roomes where they might repaire vnto and change their garments and come in againe, as their speaches and parts were to be renewed’.

[82] There was a traverse in the nursery of Edward V in 1474; cf. _H. O._ *28, ‘Item, we will that our sayd sonne in his chamber and for all nighte lyverye to be sette, the traverse drawne anone upon eight of the clocke’.

[83] Rimbault, 150, 167. There is an elaborate description of ‘a fayer traverse of black taffata’ set up in the chapel at Whitehall for the funeral of James in 1625 and afterwards borrowed for the ceremony in Westminster Abbey.

[84] The chapel of Ahasuerus come in and sing (860). On the possibility that plays may have been acted in the chapel under Elizabeth, cf. ch. xii.

[85] _G. G. Needle_, I. iv. 34; II. iv. 20, ‘here, euen by this poste, Ich sat’; _Jack Juggler_, 908, ‘Joll his hed to a post’.

[86] The manuscript of _Misogonus_ was written at Kettering. The prologue of _Mary Magdalene_ is for travelling actors, who had given it at a university. _Thersites_ contains local references (cf. Boas, 20) suggesting Oxford. Both this and _The Disobedient Child_ are adaptations of dialogues of Ravisius Textor, but the adapters seem to be responsible for the staging.

[87] Cf. ch. xxii.

[88] II. ii. ‘Fowre women bravelie apparelled, sitting singing in Lamiaes windowe, with wrought Smockes, and Cawles, in their hands, as if they were a working’. _Supposes_, IV. iv, is a dialogue between Dalio the cook, at Erostrato’s window, and visitors outside. At the beginning, ‘Dalio commeth to the wyndowe, and there maketh them answere’; at the end, ‘Dalio draweth his hed in at the wyndowe, the Scenese commeth out’. The dialogue of sc. v proceeds at the door, and finally ‘Dalio pulleth the Scenese in at the dores’. In _Two Ital. Gent._ 435, ‘Victoria comes to the windowe, and throwes out a letter’. It must not be assumed on the analogy of later plays, and is in fact unlikely, that the windows of these early ‘houses’, or those of the ‘case’ at Ferrara in 1486, were upper floor windows.

[89] There is a reference to a falling curtain, not necessarily a stage one, in _Alchemist_, IV. ii. 6, ‘O, for a suite, To fall now, like a cortine: flap’. Such curtains were certainly used in masks; cf. ch. vi.

[90] Donne, _Poems_ (ed. Grierson), i. 441; J. Hannah, _Courtly Poets_, 29. Graves, 20, quotes with this epigram Drummond, _Cypress Grove_, ‘Every one cometh there to act his part of this tragi-comedy, called life, which done, the courtaine is drawn, and he removing is said to dy’. But of course many stage deaths are followed by the drawing of curtains which are not front curtains.

[91] Inns of Court and University plays naturally run on analogous lines. For the ‘houses’ at Cambridge in 1564 and at Oxford in 1566, cf. ch. vii. The three Cambridge Latin comedies, _Hymenaeus_ (1579), _Victoria_ (_c._ 1580–3), _Pedantius_ (_c._ 1581), follow the Italian tradition. For _Victoria_, which has the same plot as _Two Ital. Gent._, Fraunce directs, ‘Quatuor extruendae sunt domus, nimirum Fidelis, 1^a, Fortunij, 2^a, Cornelij, 3^a Octauiani, 4^a. Quin et sacellum quoddam erigendum est, in quo constituendum est Cardinalis cuiusdam Sepulchrum, ita efformatum, vt claudi aperirique possit. In Sacello autem Lampas ardens ponenda est’. The earliest extant tragedies, Grimald’s _Christus Redivivus_ (_c._ 1540) and _Archipropheta_ (_c._ 1547), antedate the pseudo-Senecan influence. Practical convenience, rather than dramatic theory, imposed upon the former a unity of action before the tomb. Grimald says, ‘Loca item, haud usque eò discriminari censebat; quin unum in proscenium, facilè & citra negocium conduci queant’. The latter was mainly before Herod’s palace, but seems to have showed also John’s prison at Macherus. There is an opening scene, as in _Promos and Cassandra_, of approach to the palace (Boas, 28, 35). Christopherson’s _Jephthah_, Watson’s (?) _Absalon_, and Gager’s _Meleager_ (1582) observe classical unity. The latter has two houses, in one of which an altar may have been ‘discovered’. Boas, 170, quotes two s.ds., ‘Transeunt venatores e Regia ad fanum Dianae’ and ‘Accendit ligna in ara, in remotiore scenae parte extructa’. Gager’s later plays (Boas, 179) seem to be under the influence of theatrical staging. On Legge’s _Richardus Tertius vide_ p. 43, _infra_.

[92] I do not suggest that the actual ‘templum’ in Serlio’s design, which is painted on the back-cloth, was practicable. The _ruffiana’s_ house was. About the shop or tavern, half-way up the rake of the stage, I am not sure. There is an echo of the _ruffiana_, quite late, in _London Prodigal_ (1605), V. i. 44, ‘Enter Ruffyn’.

[93] The early editions have few s.ds. Mr. Bond supplies many, which are based on a profound misunderstanding of Lyly’s methods of staging, to some of the features of which Reynolds in _M. P._ i. 581, ii. 69, and Lawrence, i. 237, have called attention.

[94] Possibly I. i might be an approach scene outside the city, as prisoners are sent (76) ‘into the citie’, but this may only mean to the interior of the city from the market-place.

[95] Action is continuous between II. i, at the cave, and II. ii, in which Sapho will ‘crosse the Ferrie’. Phao told Sibylla (II. i. 14) that he was out of his way and benighted, but this was a mere excuse for addressing her.

[96] The palace itself was not necessarily staged. If it was, it was used with the lunary bank, after visiting which Cynthia goes ‘in’ (IV. iii. 171). She comes ‘out’ and goes ‘in’ again (V. iii. 17, 285), but these terms may only refer to a stage-door. Nor do I think that the ‘solitarie cell’ spoken of by Endymion (II. i. 41) was staged.

[97] Yet Eumenides, who was sent to Thessaly in III. i, has only reached the fountain twenty years later (III. iii. 17), although he is believed at Court to be dead (IV. iii. 54). The time of the play cannot be reduced to consistency; cf. Bond, iii. 14.

[98] In IV. ii. 96 Protea, in a scene before the rock, says to Petulius, ‘Follow me at this doore, and out at the other’. During the transit she is metamorphosed, but the device is rather clumsy. The doors do not prove that a _domus_ of Erisichthon was visible; they may be merely stage-doors.

[99] Possibly _The Cobler’s Prophecy_ is also a Chapel or Paul’s play; it was given before an audience who ‘sit and see’, and to whom the presenters ‘cast comfets’ (39). The _domus_ required for a background are (_a_) Ralph’s, (_b_) Mars’s court, (_c_) Venus’s court, (_d_) the Duke’s court, (_e_) the cabin of Contempt. From (_a_) to (_b_) is ‘not farre hence’ (138) and ‘a flight shoot vp the hill’ (578); between are a wood and a spot near Charon’s ferry. From (_b_) to (_c_) leads ‘Adowne the hill’ (776). At the end (_e_) is burnt, and foreshortening of space is suggested by the s.d. (1564), ‘Enter the Duke ... then compasse the stage, from one part let a smoke arise: at which place they all stay’. At the beginning (3) ‘on the stage Mercurie from one end Ceres from another meete’. _Summer’s Last Will and Testament_, which cannot be definitely assigned either to the Chapel or to Paul’s, continues the manner of the old interlude; it has a stage (1570), but the abstract action requires no setting beyond the tiled hall (205, 359, 932, 974) in which the performance was given. _The Wars of Cyrus_ is a Chapel play, but must be classed, from the point of view of staging, with the plays given in public theatres (cf. p. 48).

[100] Act III has the s.d., ‘_The storme. Enter Æneas and Dido in the Caue at seuerall times_’ (996).... ‘_Exeunt to the Caue_’ (1059). They are supposed to remain in the cave during the interval between Acts III and IV, after which, ‘_Anna._ Behold where both of them come forth the Caue’ (1075).

[101] ‘_Here the Curtaines draw, there is discouered Iupiter dandling Ganimed vpon his knee_’ (1).... ‘_Exeunt Iupiter cum Ganimed_’ (120). But as Jupiter first says, ‘Come Ganimed, we must about this gear’, it may be that they walk off. If so, perhaps they are merely ‘discouered’ in the wood, and the curtains are front curtains.

[102] So too (897),

This day they both a hunting forth will ride
Into these woods, adioyning to these walles.

[103] At the end of the banquet scene (598), ‘_Exeunt omnes_’ towards the interior of the palace, when ‘_Enter Venus at another doore, and takes Ascanius by the sleeue_’. She carries him to the grove, and here he presumably remains until the next Act (III), when ‘_Enter Iuno to Ascanius asleepe_’ (811). He is then removed again, perhaps to make room for the hunting party. I suppose the ‘_another doore_’ of 598 to mean a stage-door.

[104] Cf. ch. xxii.

[105] Direct evidence pointing to performance at Court is only available for two of the five, _Cambyses_ and _Orestes_.

[106] _Cambyses_, 75, 303, 380, 968, 1041, 1055; _Patient Grissell_, 212, 338, 966, 1048, 1185, 1291, 1972, 1984, 2069; _Orestes_, 221, 1108; _Clyomon and Clamydes_, 1421, 1717, 1776, 1901, 1907, 1931, 1951, 2008, 2058, 2078; _Common Conditions_, 2, 110, 544, 838, 1397, 1570; &c. Of course, the technical meaning of ‘place’ shades into the ordinary one.

[107] A similar instruction clears the stage at the end (1197) of a corpse, as in many later plays; cf. p. 80.

[108] The s.d. ‘one of their wives come out’ (813) does not necessarily imply a clown’s _domus_. _Cambyses_ fluctuates between the actor’s notion that personages come ‘out’ from the tiring-house, and the earlier notion of play-makers and audience that they go ‘out’ from the stage. Thus ‘Enter Venus leading out her son’ (843), but ‘goe out Venus and Cupid’ at the end of the same episode (880).

[109] ‘Come, let us run his arse against the poste’ (186); cf. pp. 27, 75.

[110] For later examples cf. p. 99.

[111] Lawrence (i. 41), _Title and Locality Boards on the Pre-Restoration Stage_.

[112] Lawrence, i. 55. No English example of an inscribed miracle-play _domus_ has come to light.